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The analogy generation game

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2016

H. Martin Wobst*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 217 Machmer Hall, 240 Hicks Way, Amherst, MA 01003, USA

Extract

I have grown increasingly allergic to arguments about analogies and origins in archaeology. Analogies are simply devices to stimulate the invention of ideas. The source of intuition is fairly irrelevant for the power of the ideas thus generated. The history of science is full of exciting hypotheses that had amusing sources, often far removed from the actual contexts to which the idea ultimately applied.

Type
Debate
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2016 

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References

Wobst, H.M. 1989. The origination of Homo sapiens, or the invention, control and manipulation of modern human nature. Conference Pre-Print. Wenner Gren Foundation international symposium ‘Critical approaches in archeology: material life, meaning, and power’, Cascais, Portugal, 17–25 March 1989. New York: Wenner Gren Foundation.Google Scholar