Public Lecture February 23rd at the Palm Beach County Archaeological Society

I will be giving a lecture to the Palm Beach County Archaeological Society entitled “Why Most of What We Think We Know About Archaeology Is Wrong, and What We Should Be Doing Instead.”

I thought about calling it "What I Think about in the Shower" but that seemed open to misinterpretation.

Date: Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
Time: 7:00 pm
Place: West Palm Beach Public Library
Room: 3rd Floor conference room
Address: 411 Clematis Street, West Palm Beach, Fla. 33401


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I will discuss the application to archaeology of the statistical issues raised by John Ioannidis’s famous paper “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False”. I will then discuss the unintended consequences of confirmatory hypothesis testing research designs in archaeology and explain why we should focus our efforts, instead, on hypothesis-generating research. I will conclude with an unusual example that I'm keeping to myself for the moment.