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We have separate articles on pseudoscience & pseudoarchaeology. One isn't a 'child' or 'parent' of the other, and placing this as a child denigrates it. Doug Weller (talk) 14:33, 1 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hm. I'd have generally placed it under it, because pseudoarchaeology uses much the same "methods" as pseudoscience (similar gaps in logic and evidentiary standards) - they're definitely the same sort of thing. But I can see the point of all above - David Gerard (talk) 16:49, 1 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Although parts of (pseudo)archaeology are conducted with methods used in the natural sciences, such as carbon dating, as auxiliary, I support the view that the legitimate field as a whole as well as its illegitimate counterpart should fall under humanities and pseudo-scholarship/pseudohistory, respectively. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 21:24, 1 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The Lead Section for the article page Archaeology currently states:
Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities.
This being so, the topic can reasonably be treated as either. The defining characteristic of pseudoarchaeology is that its proponents fail to adhere to scientific methods, nor do they garner appropriate peer review for their work, except from other pseudoarchaeologists.
In this respect, it is logical to include pseudoarchaeology as a branch of pseudoscience, and to disagree, respectfully, with Doug Weller, this in no way diminishes, demeans or "denigrates" the importance of the subject matter to be found within the category Pseudoarchaeology. In my own personal view, this assertion amounts to saying that the topics in "Physics" or "Chemistry" are demeaned by being branches of the "physical sciences". After all, the hierarchical classification scheme we use is simply to organise the vast body of accumulated knowledge we need to deal with, not to assign "importance".
If anything, I believe pseudoarchaeology may be simultaneously placed within any other categories where it might reasonably fit, e.g. pseudoscience, pseudohistory, pseudo-scholarship, etc.
Having said this, I propose the contentious label tag be removed from the category page, since nobody appears to challenging the validity of the category per se, but rather arguing about its hierarchical placement. Peter B. (talk) 23:46, 28 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Peter B. I'm not sure if you've read Wikipedia:Categorization#Category_tree_organization - the way we use categories may not be the sort of categorisation you are talking about. I should not have used the word 'denigrate' as it just confuses the issue. As for the contentious label tag, that simply means that calling something pseudoarchaeology may be contentious, nothing to do with this discussion. Doug Wellertalk13:11, 30 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
