Ned:

     I'm tempted to say "I agree with you, in theory."  Sly dog, you've
     pushed me around until I find myself arguing in favor of having
     theory, and you're arguing against it.  So much for me being an
     atheorist.

     But yeah, you're right.  Theory is a method of screening the data: you
     say "based on my present understanding, this is data and that's
     noise."  Your theoretical basis(bias) determines what you consider to
     be meaningful in your data.  The potential for letting that lead us
     astray is great.

     Having guiding hypotheses isn't what you have a problem with, is it?
     It sounds like your problem is with the situation when the hypothesis
     begins to fit badly.  "Ego-free" means tossing the hypothesis for a
     new one that better fits the sum of our data, in mid-pit, regardless
     of whether we've stood up and made pompous pronouncements about how we
     think this and that is what's going on just ten minutes before.
     Having been wrong is not a bad thing; staying wrong in the face of the
     evidence is.

     Well, enough for a slow Friday afternoon; I have to go pick up slides
     and head for Tucson.


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: the place of hypothesis
Author:  "Edward F. Heite" <[log in to unmask]> at NP--INTERNET
Date:    11/12/1999 6:44 PM


Jake Ivey wrote:

     Working in a site of a type you're familiar with, or in a site you've
     become familiar with during the excavation, you know where some things
     are going to be.  It would be silly to use a random approach in a site
     whose structure you know.  So you're left with following the model you
     have built from previous experience, which is your working hypothesis
     about this site -- your theory.

Which is exactly the pitfall in question.

"Ho-hum. I've dug a hundred of these. Hell, I even published one. Stick two
squares over there, another one yonder, look for the corners, and we're out
of here."

Okay, exaggerated intentionally, but you get the picture.

Every site is unique, and every unit is a test square that will guide us to
the next unit. The adventure continues even after the last hole is
backfilled and the last artifact is described. We should assume nothing,
pre-suppose nothing, and most of all, ignore nothing.

We will never achieve ego-free research design (not with this crowd, at
least), but it should always be an objective. Nor should we ever attack any
type of site without a thorough background knowledge of its technology and
culture.

But like I say, the ice beneath our feet becomes thinner and thinner as we
theorize farther and farther from the factual content of the raw data.
Maturity as a researcher is achieved when you know the boundary between a
sound, evidence-derived, conclusion and a beer-hall hypothesis. It's a very
vague boundary.


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