The Reading Room

Gilles

00:01

@BESW while academic “mainstream” can get things wrong, the idea that academia ignores challenges is usually an excuse to push theories that have no basis in the real world

how dare academics reject a theory just because there's no evidence for it!

BESW

Then it'd be interesting to look into how challenges to the Bering Strait theory get responded to.

Gilles

I have no idea about the Bering Strait migration theory, but the language in that book's description is very typical of pseudoscience.

Pseudoscience as in, arguing that something is true, not because there's empirical evidence for it, but because it would be convenient for it to be true.

BESW

Active History, for example, affirms that the site I linked is a valid source of academic writing on the topic, specifically citing this extensive examination of how the Bering Strait theory is based on racist ideas.

(That article also talks about the eagerness to reach extreme conclusions, which is not the same as psuedoscience.)

It's certainly true that a lot of our popular understanding of science --especially archaeology-- is based on deeply racist assumptions which are just as psuedoscientific by your definition.

Hamlet

01:56

@Gilles @BESW A good example of this is the concept of species. From the standpoint of recent research, it's probably time to retire the concept; there are so many contradictions and edge cases that the concept is becoming less and less useful (that link goes to an blog written by academic evolutionary anthropologists by the way). But the concept sticks around.

Of course, the concept of species is deeply embedded in racist ideologies. Scientific racists, for example, argue that races are separate human species. This connection between racism and science is interesting to say the least.

The takeaway should be that the concepts and theories scientists use to explain data aren't necessarily objective. They're often based on hidden cultural assumptions.

Of course, pseudoscience isn't based on any data.

Gallifreyan

11:51

Librarian being slow as hell again...

Gallifreyan

13:08

The hell is wrong with the Librarian?

Anyway, this question needs undeletion - again.

doppelgreener

@Gallifreyan might want to bring that up on meta

@Gallifreyan I don't know.

Gallifreyan

13:43

@doppelgreener This is really disturbing, I've even managed to vacuum the whole house after I posted it.

Anyway, @Ash - here's the meta.

Mithrandir

@Gallifreyan '

Gallifreyan

@Mithrandir I'll need to find the answer for it so it doesn't get deleted again.

Librarian

14:21

2

Q: Do we want [graphic-novel] as a separate tag, or should it be made a synonym of [comics]?

Yesterday, I proposed to synonimise graphic-novel and comics (just like that, without consulting anyone). Afterwards, it's been pointed out to me that collecting the two may not be the best idea, since clearly graphic novels (whatever they are defined as) are somehow different from other comics. ...

Gallifreyan

@Librarian Finally, I thought you're dead!

Took you exactly 3 hours.

Mithrandir

@Gallifreyan he might've been. Perhaps they're a zombie now...

Like my avatar on Arts & Crafts

Mithrandir, Tauremornalómë

143 8

medium-selection

Gallifreyan

15:49

Today's Sandman art:

Shokhet

18:23

@Gallifreyan Is this going to happen again? :0

...new user pic?

@Gallifreyan 👍

Gallifreyan

@Shokhet Nah, it only has me and Mith once :)

Shokhet

@Gallifreyan ...someone needs to give it an answer (with a positive score?) so that the Roomba will stop deleting it. That's really the best solution :p

Gallifreyan

@Shokhet I've even found a link for the list of all fanfics about this stuff, but I haven't actually read any so I'll have to poke mods once in a while :)

Mithrandir

I'll start Googling eventually, with Google Translate Russian

Gallifreyan

Meanwhile, I'm trying to get in a fight here:

3

Q: Do we want [graphic-novel] as a separate tag, or should it be made a synonym of [comics]?

Yesterday, I proposed to synonimise graphic-novel and comics (just like that, without consulting anyone). Afterwards, it's been pointed out to me that collecting the two may not be the best idea, since clearly graphic novels (whatever they are defined as) are somehow different from other comics. ...

discussion tags tag-synonyms

Shokhet

18:30

@Gallifreyan Oh, I hadn't seen that. That should be an interesting discussion...

Mithrandir

I still need more LotR characters

Gallifreyan

@Shokhet Just wait until I ask about manga :)

Shokhet

:)

It's good that you linked to literature.stackexchange.com/q/771/481 in the question. I was going to mention that ;-)

Gallifreyan

My main concern is that comics + graphic-novels occupies two spaces, and an author tag and the work tag occupy another two spaces.

Shokhet

...if comics and graphic novels are two different things, when would someone use both tags?

Gallifreyan

18:42

I.e. if the question is to have both, then there's not enough space. If the question is to have only graphic-novel - does that mean we want them completely separated?

@Shokhet I would. I think the latter is a subset of the former.

Shokhet

If it's to ask which category a particular work belongs in (which is usually not a great question, IMO), then you wouldn't need any more tags after those

@Gallifreyan Aha. Which is another argument in favor of hierarchical tagging...

meta.stackexchange.com/q/11922/266359 + meta.stackexchange.com/q/2781/266359 etc

...I thought there was one on MSE with a net score of 100 or so, but couldn't find it by searching "hierarchical." Probably misremembering

Gallifreyan

@Emrakul One of my concerns is when someone starts to apply graphic-novel, it'll leave questions that exist now out of the boat. It'll also create another problem - do we need yet another category tag?

Gallifreyan

19:08

In the context of existing questions, graphic-novel == comics, except 8 questions.

Hamlet

19:37

@Gallifreyan what's wrong with making that decision once someone starts using the graphic-novel tag.

Right now only one person has an interest in using the tag (you). If we have five or six people interested in the tag, then we can start to get a consensus.

Gallifreyan

Sigh

Hamlet

@Gallifreyan To be fair, I would probably be in favor of your proposed solution. But I don't know anything about comic books.

Gallifreyan

@Hamlet Which one of the 3?

Hamlet

@Gallifreyan oh, sorry, making graphic-novels a synonym of comics

Gallifreyan

Alright, we'll wait for people to start abusing it and then merge it with [comics].

Hamlet

19:51

@Gallifreyan well, I don't know, maybe there's a valid use for the tag. There's no harm in waiting to see what happens. If people start abusing it, then we can take action.

Gallifreyan

Damn, missed that flag.

Bookworm

20:44

0

Q: Identify a (post nuclear?) fallout story

The plot is a bit hazy for me since I read this novel years ago but can someone tell me if they know this book? The plot: Bomb goes off in the UK. Building collapse and many people die. Society starts to break down The hero and his family own a shop and have hidden supplies w...

story-identification

Bookworm

21:33

0

Q: Why did the writer of the 2016 "Lucifer" comic series change from Holly Black to Richard Kadrey?

I've been following the 2016 Lucifer series, and enjoying it. While re-arranging my Calibre library, I noticed that, while all the issues up to and including 13th have been written by Holly Black, issue 14 was written by Black and Richard Kadrey, while issue after that were written by Kadrey alon...

comics holly-black lucifer richard-kadrey

BESW

23:17

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