So this critique (foreignpolicy.com/2021/06/20/his…) in @ForeignPolicy on failures of the sort of data-driven pseudo-history we've been seeing a lot of lately is pretty spot on.

It's focused specifically on Joseph Henrich's recent 'WEIRD' book, but the critique is more broadly useful. 1/9
In some ways, the article's focus on Henrich is actually unfortunate (though this is one of those 'this isn't the article I'd have written things, so grain of salt at the ready) because it leads it into a bit of a rabbit hole about 'the West' particular to that work... 2/9
...whereas to me the more direct issue here - if I may indulge in a strained analogy - is not the particular ugly face mounted on the top of the data-driven pseudo-history statue, but the clay feet at the bottom. 3/9
The cliometrics data-driven psueo-science methods can be used to produce any conclusions, from conclusions I like to conclusions I dislike. The conclusions aren't the problem, the epistemological bankruptcy of the method is the problem. 4/9
A lot of these studies fall to some really basic first-year-of-grad-school kind of errors! I am consistency befuddled as to how anyone gets very advanced in some of these fields without learning the garbage-in, garbage-out principle, and yet here we are. Again.

5/9
Woefully incomplete datasets, problems in framing assumptions, lack of comparative basis, and an apparent ignorance of the nuances of the evidence and what it can tell us versus what it can't. 6/9
Honestly, in my 100-level survey course, I have assignments built around moving students to these sorts of realizations, "oh, this source doesn't give me evidence for what people thought, only for what *this* person said" kind of stuff.

And yet, here we are. Again. 7/9
And I do mean *again* - Fafinski here, with a real economy of words, does a great job of setting out this tradition of 'scientific' pseudo-history - from Spengler and Huntington to Turchin, Henrich and Safra. He could have easily added Arthur de Gobineau (d 1882). 8/9
Anyway, it's a good article. The key thing is to remember that no amount of fancy math can raise the reliability of a conclusion any higher than the reliability of the evidence it is based on.

A statue with feet of clay is made no stronger by casting the torso in steel. end/9

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More from @BretDevereaux

21 Jun
Ok, so this ill-informed take has been bouncing around twitter for a day, so let's put it out of my misery.

@pegobry here is just wrong about the Sacred Band and thus has managed the rare feat of being wrong about something in the ancient world we are fairly certain about. 1/19
Ancient evidence being what it is (acoup.blog/2021/03/26/fir…), almost everything in ancient history comes with at least some residual uncertainty, but this fellow has managed to pick something quite certain to be wrong about.

So let's go through the evidence. 2/19
Plutarch is our clearest source and he relates (Plut. Pelop. 18.1-2, but also in the Moralia, etc) that the Theban Sacred Band, formed by Gorgidas, was "three hundred chosen men...some say composed of lovers and beloved." 3/19
Read 19 tweets
17 Jun
I keep coming back to the metaphor of a 'playbook' when it comes to pre-modern logistics. I think it is much better than trying to think in terms of a logistics 'system.'

That's not to say that pre-modern logistics is dumb or underdeveloped though.... 1/21
The difference is that prior to railroads, steamships and trucks, logistics (which in that context mostly means the 4Fs - food, fodder, firewood and f-water - hey, alright, it sounded cooler than the 3FnW) is much more sensitive to local conditions. 2/21
The modern brute-force solution of 'transport everything from strategic supply reserves in the home country' isn't possible when overland transport is so expensive and naval transport may be unavailable due to geography, winds, sailing season, etc. 3/21
Read 21 tweets
16 Jun
So @kataplexis wrote an open letter (rfkclassics.blogspot.com/2021/06/open-l…) outlining some things that institutional classics, esp. @scsclassics could be doing differently to help the field survive in these difficult times.

And I think she makes good arguments.
Being an ancient historian means always having a foot in two fields and so you see what different disciplines are doing.

Here is what @scsclassics has for endangered departments: classicalstudies.org/professional-m…
And to be clear, I'm not dismissing or ripping on the CAS. I'm sure they're pushing hard with the resources they have to do what they can. But I've never gotten the sense their efforts are central to how @scsclassics views itself.
Read 7 tweets
15 Jun
Good thread. 'The discipline and the public culture' want the research work of lots of teaching-track and adjunct historians (and classicists, by the by), but have no idea how - or worse yet, no intention to - fund that. Or really incentivize it at all. 1/20
And it does need to be funded. While a lot of pop history can be written with nothing more than google and a public library (though not necessarily written well!), doing real, rigorous historical research requires expensive resources. 2/20
The books needed for research are often very expensive, meaning that you really need the support of a university library which can buy these things. Research trips to archives or museums to examine primary source material directly are expensive and need to be funded. 3/20
Read 20 tweets
1 Jun
I am going to engage in some #ClassicsDiscourse; you will all have to forgive me.

When I saw that @AntigoneJournal was running a bit by Peter Singer, I was disappointed. When I *read* the bit by Singer I was...confused?

This? This is what you flushed your reputation for?
1/14
I will, I hope, spare you all from reading it (google will provide if you must) but for the better part of 800 words, Singer tells that he had never known about Apuleius' Metamorphoses (aka 'The Golden Ass') until quite recently. "Hey I just read this" - not a great start. 2/14
He concludes, and I am not at all kidding you, that this must be because it is *bad* - because how else would noted ::checks notes:: philosopher, animal rights advocate and eugenicist (careful, that last step is a doozy) have missed it?

Clearly, it must just be bad! 3/14
Read 14 tweets
24 Apr
This is an entirely fair question in response to my article in @ForeignPolicy on why we ought to avoid the term warrior (foreignpolicy.com/2021/04/19/uni…), so let's answer it. 1/25
First, we need to think about the state of the civ-mil. Is the civ-mil relationship generally good and healthy, as @EmanThinks 's argues?

I think the evidence suggests, no, the combination of changing attitudes and GWOT indicate that the civ-mil relationship is not great, 2/25
I would certainly not be the first to point out that it is a problem the huge gap between public trust in civic institutions and public trust in the military. As Lindsey Cohn noted in 2018 in War on the Rocks (warontherocks.com/2018/03/the-pr…) the growing tendency...3/25
Read 25 tweets

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