Kremlin trolls are closely tied to the Internet Research Agency, a Saint Petersburg-based company run by Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was a close ally to Putin and head of the mercenary Wagner Group, known for committing war crimes before his death in 2023. Articles on the Russian Wikipedia concerning the MH17 crash and the Russo-Ukrainian War were targeted by Russian internet propaganda outlets.
In June 2019, a group of 12 editors introducing coordinated
pro-government and anti-opposition bias was blocked on the
Russian-language Wikipedia. During the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Kremlin trolls were still active on many social platforms and were spreading disinformation related to the war events.
The earliest documented allegations of the existence of "web
brigades" appear to be in the April 2003 Vestnik Online article "The
Virtual Eye of Big Brother" by French journalist Anna Polyanskaya (a former assistant to assassinated Russian politician Galina Starovoitova)
and two other authors, Andrey Krivov and Ivan Lomako. The authors claim
that up to 1998, contributions to forums on Russian Internet sites (Runet) predominantly reflected liberal and democratic values, but after 2000, the vast majority of contributions reflected totalitarian
values. This sudden change was attributed to the appearance of teams of
pro-Russian commenters who appeared to be organized by the Russian state security service. According to the authors, about 70% of Russian Internet posters were of
generally liberal views prior to 1998–1999, while a surge of
"antidemocratic" posts (about 60–80%) suddenly occurred at many Russian
forums in 2000. This could also be a reflection to the fact that access
to Internet among the general Russian population soared during this
time, which was until then accessible only to some sections of the
society.
In January 2012, a hacktivist group calling itself the Russian arm of Anonymous published a massive collection of email allegedly belonging to former and present leaders of the pro-Putin youth organization Nashi (including a number of government officials).
Journalists who investigated the leaked information found that the
pro-Putin movement had engaged in a range of activities including paying
commentators to post content and hijacking blog ratings in the fall of
2011.
The e-mails indicated that members of the "brigades" were paid 85
rubles (about US$3) or more per comment, depending on whether the
comment received replies. Some were paid as much as 600,000 roubles
(about US$21,000) for leaving hundreds of comments on negative press
articles on the internet, and were presented with iPads. A number of
high-profile bloggers were also mentioned as being paid for promoting
Nashi and government activities. The Federal Youth Agency, whose head
(and the former leader of Nashi) Vasily Yakemenko was the highest-ranking individual targeted by the leaks, refused to comment on the authenticity of the e-mails.
In 2013, a Freedom House
report stated that 22 of 60 countries examined have been using paid
pro-government commentators to manipulate online discussions, and that
Russia has been at the forefront of this practice for several years,
along with China and Bahrain. In the same year, Russian reporters investigated the St. Petersburg Internet Research Agency,
which employs at least 400 people. They found that the agency covertly
hired young people as "Internet operators" paid to write pro-Russian
postings and comments, smearing opposition leader Alexei Navalny and U.S. politics and culture.
Each commenter was to write no less
than 100 comments a day, while people in the other room were to write
four postings a day, which then went to the other employees whose job
was to post them on social networks as widely as possible.
Some Russian opposition journalists state that such practices create a chilling effect on the few independent media outlets remaining in the country.
Further investigations were performed by Russian opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta and Institute of Modern Russia in 2014–15, inspired by the peak of activity of the pro-Russian brigades during the Russo-Ukrainian War and assassination of Boris Nemtsov. The effort of using "troll armies" to promote Putin's policies is reported to be a multimillion-dollar operation. According to an investigation by the British Guardian newspaper, the flood of pro-Russian comments is part of a coordinated "informational-psychological war operation". One Twitter
bot network was documented to use more than 20,500 fake Twitter
accounts to spam negative comments after the death of Boris Nemtsov and
events related to the Ukrainian conflict.
An article based on the original Polyanskaya article, authored by
the Independent Customers' Association, was published in May 2008 at
Expertiza.Ru. In this article the term web brigades is replaced by the term Team "G".
During his presidency,
Donald Trump retweeted a tweet by a fake account operated by Russians.
In 2017, he was among almost 40 celebrities and politicians, along with
over 3,000 global news outlets, identified to have inadvertently shared
content from Russian troll-farm accounts.
Methods
Web
brigades commentators sometimes leave hundreds of postings a day that
criticize the country's opposition and promote Kremlin-backed
policymakers. Commentators simultaneously react to discussions of "taboo" topics, including the historical role of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, political opposition, dissidents such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky, murdered journalists, and cases of international conflict or rivalry (with countries such as Estonia, Georgia, and Ukraine, but also with the foreign policies of the United States and the European Union). Prominent journalist and Russia expert Peter Pomerantsev
believes Russia's efforts are aimed at confusing the audience, rather
than convincing it. He states that they cannot censor information but
can "trash it with conspiracy theories and rumours".
To avert suspicions, the users sandwich political remarks between neutral articles on travelling, cooking and pets. They overwhelm comment sections of media to render meaningful dialogue impossible.
The effect created by such Internet
trolls is not very big, but they manage to make certain forums
meaningless because people stop commenting on the articles when these
trolls sit there and constantly create an aggressive, hostile atmosphere
toward those whom they don’t like. The trolls react to certain news
with torrents of mud and abuse. This makes it meaningless for a
reasonable person to comment on anything there.
A collection of leaked documents, published by Moy Rayon, suggests
that work at the "troll den" is strictly regulated by a set of
guidelines. Any blog post written by an agency employee, according to
the leaked files, must contain "no fewer than 700 characters" during day
shifts and "no fewer than 1,000 characters" on night shifts. Use of
graphics and keywords in the post's body and headline is also mandatory.
In addition to general guidelines, bloggers are also provided with
"technical tasks" – keywords and talking points on specific issues, such
as Ukraine, Russia's internal opposition and relations with the West.
On an average working day, the workers are to post on news articles 50
times. Each blogger is to maintain six Facebook accounts publishing at
least three posts a day and discussing the news in groups at least twice
a day. By the end of the first month, they are expected to have won 500
subscribers and get at least five posts on each item a day. On Twitter,
the bloggers are expected to manage 10 accounts with up to 2,000
followers and tweet 50 times a day.
In 2015, Lawrence Alexander disclosed a network of propaganda
websites sharing the same Google Analytics identifier and domain
registration details, allegedly run by Nikita Podgorny from Internet
Research Agency. The websites were mostly meme repositories focused on attacking Ukraine, Euromaidan,
Russian opposition and Western policies. Other websites from this
cluster promoted president Putin and Russian nationalism, and spread
alleged news from Syria presenting anti-Western and pro-Bashar al-Assad viewpoints.
In August 2015, Russian researchers correlated Google search
statistics of specific phrases with their geographic origin, observing
increases in specific politically loaded phrases (such as "Poroshenko",
"Maidan", "sanctions") starting from 2013 and originating from very
small, peripheral locations in Russia, such as Olgino, which also
happens to be the headquarters of the Internet Research Agency company. The Internet Research Agency also appears to be the primary sponsor of an anti-Western exhibition Material Evidence.
Since 2015, Finnish reporter Jessikka Aro has inquired into web brigades and Russian trolls. In addition, Western journalists have referred to the phenomenon and have supported traditional media.
In May 2019, it was reported that a study from the George Washington University
found that Russian Twitter bots had tried to inflame the United States'
anti-vaccination debate by posting opinions on both sides in 2018.
In June 2019 a group of 12 editors introducing coordinated
pro-government and anti-opposition bias was blocked on the
Russian-language Wikipedia.
In July 2019 two operatives of the Internet Research Agency were
detained in Libya and charged with attempting to influence local
elections. They were reportedly employees of Alexander Malkevich, manager of USA Really, a propaganda website.
In 2020, the research firm Graphika published a report detailing one particular Russian disinformation group codenamed "Secondary Infektion" (alluding to 80's Operation Infektion)
operating running since 2014. Over 6 years the group published over
2,500 items in seven languages and to over 300 platforms such as social
media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit) and discussion forums. The
group specialized in highly divisive topics regarding immigration,
environment, politics, international relations and frequently used fake
images presented as "leaked documents".
Starting in February 2022, a special attempt was made to back the
Russian war in Ukraine. Particular effort was made to target Facebook
and YouTube.
In May 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine,
the trolls allegedly hired by Internet Research Agency (IRA) had
reportedly extended their foothold into TikTok, spreading misinformation
on war events and attempting to question or sow doubt about the Ukraine
war. Authentic-looking profiles had allegedly hundreds of thousands of followers. IRA was reported to be active across different platforms, including Instagram and Telegram.
The three main pyramids at Giza, together with subsidiary pyramids and the remains of other ancient structures
Egyptian pyramid construction techniques are the controversial subject of many hypotheses. These techniques seem to have developed over time; later pyramids
were not constructed in the same way as earlier ones. Most of the
construction hypotheses are based on the belief that huge stones were
carved from quarries with copper chisels, and these blocks were then
dragged and lifted into position. Disagreements chiefly concern the
methods used to move and place the stones.
In addition to the many unresolved arguments about the
construction techniques, there have been disagreements as to the kind of
workforce used. The Greeks, many years after the event, believed that the pyramids were built by slave labour. Archaeologists now believe that the Great Pyramid of Giza
(at least) was built by tens of thousands of skilled workers who camped
near the pyramids and worked for a salary or as a form of tax payment
(levy) until the construction was completed, pointing to workers'
cemeteries discovered in 1990. For the Middle Kingdom pyramid of Amenemhat II, there is evidence from the annal stone of the king that foreigners from Canaan were employed.
The
unknowns of pyramid construction chiefly center on the question of how
the blocks were moved up the superstructure. There is no known accurate
historical or archaeological evidence that definitively resolves the
question. Therefore, most discussion on construction methods involves
functional possibilities that are supported by limited historical and
archaeological evidence.
The first historical accounts of the construction of these monuments came centuries after the era of pyramid construction, by Herodotus in the 5th century BC and Diodorus Siculus in the 1st century BC. Herodotus's account claims that the Egyptians used a machine (now commonly referred to as the "Herodotus Machine"), stating:
A machine lifting a large stone column, by Leonardo da Vinci. Believed to be sketched based on Herodotus' description
This pyramid was made like stairs,
which some call steps and others, tiers. When this, its first form, was
completed, the workmen used short wooden logs as levers to raise the
rest of the stones; they heaved up the blocks from the ground onto the
first tier of steps; when the stone had been raised, it was set on
another lever that stood on the first tier, and the lever again used to
lift it from this tier to the next. It may be that there was a new lever
on each tier of steps, or perhaps there was only one lever, quite
portable, which they carried up to each tier in turn; I leave this
uncertain, as both possibilities were mentioned. But this is certain,
that the upper part of the pyramid was finished off first, then the next
below it, and last of all the base and the lowest part.
Diodorus Siculus's account states:
And it's said the stone was
transported a great distance from Arabia, and that the edifices were
raised by means of earthen ramps, since machines for lifting had not yet
been invented in those days; and most surprising it is, that although
such large structures were raised in an area surrounded by sand, no
trace remains of either ramps or the dressing of the stones, so that it
seems not the result of the patient labor of men, but rather as if the
whole complex were set down entire upon the surrounding sand by some
god. Now Egyptians try to make a marvel of these things, alleging that
the ramps were made of salt and natron and that, when the river was
turned against them, it melted them clean away and obliterated their
every trace without the use of human labor. But in truth, it most
certainly was not done this way! Rather, the same multitude of workmen
who raised the mounds returned the entire mass again to its original
place; for they say that three hundred and sixty thousand men were
constantly employed in the prosecution of their work, yet the entire
edifice was hardly finished at the end of twenty years.
Diodorus Siculus's description of the shipment of the stone from
Arabia is correct since the term "Arabia" in those days implied the land
between the Nile and the Red Sea where the limestone blocks have been transported from quarries across the river Nile.
During
the earliest period, pyramids were constructed wholly of stone. Locally
quarried limestone was the material of choice for the main body of
these pyramids, while a higher quality of limestone quarried at Tura (near modern Cairo) was used for the outer casing. Granite, quarried near Aswan, was used to construct some architectural elements, including the portcullis
(a type of gate) and the roofs and walls of the burial chamber.
Occasionally, granite was used in the outer casing as well, such as in
the Pyramid of Menkaure. In the early pyramids, the layers of stone (called courses)
forming the pyramid body were laid sloping inwards; however, this
configuration was found to be less stable than simply stacking the
stones horizontally on top of each other. The Bent Pyramid at Dahshur
seems to indicate acceptance of a new technique at a transition between
these two building techniques. Its lower section is built of sloping
courses while in its upper section the stones are laid horizontally.
Middle Kingdom and onward
During the Middle Kingdom,
pyramid construction techniques changed again. Most pyramids built then
were little more than mountains of mud-brick encased in a veneer of
polished limestone. In several cases, later pyramids were built on top
of natural hills to further reduce the volume of material needed in
their construction. The materials and methods of construction used in
the earliest pyramids have ensured their survival in a generally much
better state of preservation than for the pyramid monuments of the later
pharaohs.
Mortar
The stones forming the core of the pyramids were roughly cut, especially in the Great Pyramid. To fill the gaps, huge quantities of gypsum and rubble were needed.
The filling has almost no binding properties, but it was necessary to
stabilize the construction. To make the gypsum mortar, it had to be
dehydrated by heating which requires large quantities of wood. According
to Egyptologists, the findings of both the 1984 and 1995 David H. Koch
Pyramids Radiocarbon Projects
may suggest that Egypt had to strip its forest and scrap every bit of
wood it had to build the pyramids of Giza and other even earlier 4th
Dynasty pyramids. Carbon dating samples from core blocks and other
materials revealed that dates from the 1984 study averaged 374 years
earlier than currently accepted and the 1995 dating averaging 100–200
years. As suggested by team members, "We thought that it was unlikely
that the pyramid builders consistently used centuries-old wood as fuel
in preparing mortar. The 1984 results left us with too little data to
conclude that the historical chronology of the Old Kingdom was wrong by
nearly 400 years, but we considered this at least a possibility".
Egyptologists propose that the old wood problem
is responsible for the discrepancy, claiming the earlier dates were
possibly derived from recycling large amounts of centuries-old wood and
other earlier materials.
Quarrying
There
is good information concerning the location of the quarries, some of
the tools used to cut stone in the quarries, transportation of the stone
to the monument, leveling the foundation, and leveling the subsequent
tiers of the developing superstructure. Workmen probably used copper
chisels, drills, and saws to cut softer stone, such as most of the
limestone. The harder stones, such as granite, granodiorite, syenite,
and basalt, cannot be cut with copper tools alone; instead, they were
worked with time-consuming methods like pounding with dolerite, drilling, and sawing with the aid of an abrasive, such as quartz sand. This occurred in a process known as sand abrasion. Blocks were transported by sledge likely lubricated by water.
Leveling the foundation may have been accomplished by use of
water-filled trenches as suggested by Mark Lehner and I. E. S. Edwards
or through the use of a crude square level and experienced surveyors.
Transport of stone blocks
A transport of a large statue on a sledge
One of the major problems faced by the early pyramid builders was the
need to move huge quantities of stone. The Twelfth Dynasty tomb of Djehutihotep
has an illustration of 172 men pulling an alabaster statue of him on a
sledge. The statue is estimated to weigh 60 tons and Denys Stocks
estimated that 45 workers would be required to start moving a 16,300 kg
(35,900 lb; 16.3 t) lubricated block, or eight workers to move a
2,750 kg (6,060 lb; 2.75 t) block.
Dick Parry has suggested a method for rolling the stones, using a
cradle-like machine that had been excavated in various new kingdom
temples.
Four of those objects could be fitted around a block so it could be
rolled easily. Experiments done by the Obayashi Corporation, with
concrete blocks 0.8 metres (2 ft 7 in) square by 1.6 metres (5 ft 3 in)
long and weighing 2.5 tonnes (2,500 kg; 5,500 lb), showed how 18 men
could drag the block over a 1-in-4 incline ramp, at a rate of 18 metres
per minute (1 ft/s). This idea was previously described by John Bush in
1977, and is mentioned in the Closing Remarks section of Parry's book. Vitruvius in De architectura
described a similar method for moving irregular weights. It is still
not known whether the Egyptians used this method but the experiments
indicate it could have worked using stones of this size. Egyptologists
generally accept this for the 2.5 ton blocks mostly used but do not
agree over the methods used for the 15+ ton and several 70 to 80 ton
blocks.
The diary of Merer,
logbooks written more than 4,500 years ago by an Egyptian official and
found in 2013 by a French archeology team under the direction of Pierre Tallet in a cave in Wadi al-Jarf, describes the transportation of limestone blocks from the quarries at Tura to Giza by boat.
Ramps
Example
of a large straight ramp. This method was likely not used in pyramid
construction according to current expert consensus (see text).From left to right: Zig-zagging ramp (Uvo Hölscher), ramp using the incomplete part of the superstructure (Dieter Arnold), and a spiraling ramp supported by the superstructure (Mark Lehner)
Most Egyptologists acknowledge that ramps are the most tenable of the
methods to raise the blocks, yet they acknowledge that it is an
incomplete method that must be supplemented by another device.
Archaeological evidence for the use of ramps has been found at the Great Pyramid of Giza and other pyramids. The method most accepted for assisting ramps is levering. The archaeological record
gives evidence of only small ramps and inclined causeways, not
something that could have been used to construct even a majority of the
monument. To add to the uncertainty, there is considerable evidence
demonstrating that non-standardized or ad hoc construction methods were used in pyramid construction.
Therefore, there are many proposed ramps and there is a
considerable amount of discrepancy regarding what type of ramp was used
to build the pyramids.
One of the widely discredited ramping methods is the large straight
ramp, and it is routinely discredited on functional grounds for its
massive size, lack of archaeological evidence, huge labor cost, and
other problems (Isler 2001: 213).
Other ramps serve to correct these problems of ramp size, yet
either run into critiques of functionality and limited archaeological
evidence. There are zig-zagging ramps, straight ramps using the
incomplete part of the superstructure (Arnold 1991), spiraling ramps
supported by the superstructure and spiraling ramps leaning on the
monument as a large accretion are proposed. Mark Lehner speculated that a spiraling ramp, beginning in the stone quarry
to the southeast and continuing around the exterior of the pyramid, may
have been used. However, spiral ramps would have covered the building
for decades fully and would not allow the regular layout of the exact
pyramid square in equal distance to each base cornerstone as the only
method to keep the exact geometric shape of the edges and side mantles.
The stone blocks may have been drawn on sleds along the ramps lubricated
by water.
As a recent study shows that the challenge was not just to
account for the route the transported stones had to take but to account
for the size and frequency of stones being moved—circa 1 ton being put
in place every 2–3 minutes by human draw teams on a ramp of maximum
10%—to enable building of the Great Pyramid within 30 years. The special
case of the pyramid extensions E2 and E3 in Meydum of ring-shaped
extensions only 5 m wide around the previous building core shows the
ramp system was effective and small in volume which applies for
tangential ramps of 10 cubits or 5m width. The challenge was the
geometry of the pyramid that provides shorter side lengths the higher
the building grows, increases the necessity to turn maneuvers and allows
less space for ramps leaning on the masonry. The slope change of the
Bent Pyramid is probably the result of the discovery this can not be
solved with steep gradients. Essential was also the effective
organization of the building site by a module that allows the work
division of the teams along plots and the transport causeways between
ramp and workplace, including the return of pulling crew and sleds down,
probably by a second ramp system. The problem of building the mantle at
the ramp arrival point could be solved by bypass-systems.
Levering
Levering
methods are considered to be the most tenable solution to complement
ramping methods, partially due to Herodotus's description; and partially
to the shadoof,
a lever-enabled irrigation device first depicted in Egypt during the
New Kingdom and found concomitantly with the Old Kingdom in Mesopotamia.
In Lehner's (1997: 222) point of view, levers should be employed to
lift the top 3% of the material of the superstructure. It is important
to note that the top 4% of this material comprises 1⁄3
of the total height of the monument. In other words, in Lehner's view,
levers should be employed to lift a small amount of material and a great
deal of vertical height of the monument.
In the milieu of levering methods, there are those that lift the
block incrementally, as in repeatedly prying up alternating sides of the
block and inserting wooden or stone shims to gradually move the stone
up one course; and there are other methods that use a larger lever to
move the block up one course in one lifting procedure. Since the
discussion of construction techniques to lift the blocks attempts to
resolve a gap in the archaeological and historical record with a
plausible functional explanation, the following examples by Isler,
Keable, and Hussey-Pailos
list experimentally tested methods. Isler's method (1985, 1987) is an
incremental method and, in the Nova experiment (1992), used wooden shims
or cribbing. Isler was able to lift a block up one tier in approximately one hour and 30 minutes. Peter Hodges's and Julian Keable's
method is similar to Isler's method and instead used small manufactured
concrete blocks as shims, wooden pallets, and a pit where their
experimental tests were performed. Keable was able to perform his method
in approximately 2 minutes. Scott Hussey-Pailos's (2005) method uses a
simple levering device to lift a block up a course in one movement.
This method was tested with materials of less strength than historical
analogs (tested with materials weaker than those available in ancient
Egypt), a factor of safety of 2, and lifted a 2500-pound block up one
course in under a minute. This method is presented as a levering device
to work complementary with Mark Lehner's idea of a combined ramp and
levering techniques.
Harbors
Egyptians used the now-disappeared branch of the Nile to transport the tons of construction materials. A 2012 study led by geographer Hader Sheisha at Aix-Marseille University proposed that the former waterscapes and higher river levels around 4,500 years ago facilitated the construction of the Giza Pyramid Complex. The Nile's present waterways have receded too far from the pyramid sites to be of use.
A new study published in May 2024 mapped an extinct branch of the
Nile, Ahramat Branch, which once flowed near Egypt's Great Pyramid and
other Giza monuments. Using satellite imaging and sediment core
analysis, researchers found the 64 kilometres (40 mi) waterway was
crucial for transporting materials and labor for pyramid construction.
The branch which was about 0.5 kilometres (0.31 mi) wide with a depth of
at least 25 metres (82 ft) disappeared likely due to drought and desertification.
Pyramid building experiments
Yoshimura
In 1978, Nippon TV
funded the pyramid building project conceived by archaeologist Sajuki
Yoshimura. It was originally planned as a 1 to 5 scale model of the
Great Pyramid. Because of the limited budget, the size had to be
drastically reduced when the price of limestone rose as the project
gained publicity. A concrete foundation had to be poured as the selected
site offered no bedrock basis. With the help of two cranes and a
forklift, the pyramid was built to reach a height of 11 metres (36 ft),
with a 15 metres (49 ft) base. The structure was ultimately dismantled
and hauled away.
Nova
In 1992, Egyptologist Mark Lehner and stonemason Roger Hopkins conducted a three-week pyramid-building experiment for a Nova
television episode. They built a pyramid 6 metres (20 ft) high by 9
metres (30 ft) wide, consisting of a total of 162 cubic metres
(5,700 cu ft), or about 405 tons. It was made out of 186 stones weighing
an average of 2.2 tons each. Twelve quarrymen carved 186 stones in 22 days, and the structure was erected using 44 men. They used iron hammers, chisels and levers (this is a modern shortcut, as the ancient Egyptians were limited to using copper and later bronze and wood).
But Lehner and Hopkins did experiments with copper tools, noting that
they were adequate for the job in hand, provided that additional
manpower was available to constantly resharpen the ancient tools. They
estimated they would have needed around 20 extra men for this
maintenance. Another shortcut taken was the use of a front-end loader or fork lift
truck, but modern machinery was not used to finish the construction.
They used levers to lift the capstone to a height of 20 feet (6.1 m).
Four or five men were able to use levers on stones less than one ton to
flip them over and transport them by rolling, but larger stones had to
be towed. Lehner and Hopkins found that by putting the stones on wooden
sledges and sliding the sledges on wooden tracks, they were able to tow a
two-ton stone with 12 to 20 men. The wood for these sledges and tracks
would have to have been imported from Lebanon
at great cost since there was little, if any, wood in ancient Egypt.
While the builders failed to duplicate the precise jointing created by
the ancient Egyptians, Hopkins was confident that this could have been
achieved with more practice.
Some research suggests other estimates to the accepted workforce size. For instance, physicistKurt Mendelssohn calculated that the workforce may have been 50,000 men at most, while Ludwig Borchardt and Louis Croon placed the number at 36,000. According to Miroslav Verner, a workforce of no more than 30,000 was needed in the Great Pyramid's construction.
Evidence suggests that around 5,000 were permanent workers on salaries
with the balance working three- or four-month shifts in lieu of taxes
while receiving subsistence "wages" of ten loaves of bread and a jug of
beer per day. Zahi Hawass
believes that the majority of workers may have been volunteers. Most
archaeologists agree that only about 4,000 of the total workforce were
labourers who quarried the stone, hauled blocks to the pyramid, and set
the blocks in place. The vast majority of the workforce provided support
services such as scribes, toolmakers, and other backup services. The
tombs of supervisors contain inscriptions regarding the organisation of
the workforce. There were two crews of approximately 2,000 workers
sub-divided into named gangs of 1,000. The gangs were divided into five
phyles of 200 which were in turn split into groups of around 20 workers
grouped according to their skills, with each group having their own
project leader and a specific task.
A construction management study carried out by the firm Daniel, Mann, Johnson, & Mendenhall in association with Mark Lehner,
and other Egyptologists, estimates that the total project required an
average workforce of 14,567 people and a peak workforce of 40,000.
Without the use of pulleys, wheels, or iron tools, they used critical path analysis to suggest the Great Pyramid was completed from start to finish in approximately 10 years.
Their study estimates the number of blocks used in construction was
between 2 and 2.8 million (an average of 2.4 million), but settles on a
reduced finished total of 2 million after subtracting the estimated
volume of the hollow spaces of the chambers and galleries. Most sources agree on this number of blocks somewhere above 2.3 million.
Their calculations suggest the workforce could have sustained a rate of
180 blocks per hour (3 blocks/minute) with ten-hour workdays for
putting each individual block in place. They derived these estimates
from modern third-world construction projects that did not use modern
machinery, but conclude it is still unknown exactly how the Great
Pyramid was built. As Dr. Craig Smith of the team points out:
The logistics of construction at
the Giza site are staggering when you think that the ancient Egyptians
had no pulleys, no wheels, and no iron tools. Yet, the dimensions of the
pyramid are extremely accurate and the site was leveled within a
fraction of an inch over the entire 13.1-acre base. This is comparable
to the accuracy possible with modern construction methods and laser
leveling. That's astounding. With their 'rudimentary tools', the pyramid
builders of ancient Egypt were about as accurate as we are today with
20th-century technology.
Average
core blocks of the Great Pyramid weigh about 1.5 tons each, and the
granite blocks used to roof the burial chambers are estimated to weigh
up to 80 tons each.
The entire Giza Plateau is believed
to have been constructed over the reign of five pharaohs in less than a
hundred years, which generally includes: the Great Pyramid, Khafre and
Menkaure's pyramids, the Great Sphinx, the Sphinx, and Valley Temples,
35 boat pits cut out of solid bedrock, and several causeways, as well as
paving nearly the entire plateau with large stones. This does not
include Khafre's brother Djedefre's northern pyramid
at Abu Rawash, which would have also been built during this time frame
of 100 years. In the hundred years prior to Giza—beginning with Djoser,
who ruled from 2687 to 2667 BC, and amongst dozens of other temples,
smaller pyramids, and general construction projects—four other massive
pyramids were built: the Step pyramid of Saqqara (believed to be the first Egyptian pyramid), the pyramid of Meidum, the Bent Pyramid, and the Red Pyramid. Also during this period (between 2686 and 2498 BC) the Sadd el-Kafara dam, which used an estimated 100,000 cubic meters of rock and rubble, was built.
In October 2018, a team of archaeologists from the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale and University of Liverpool announced the discovery of the remains of a 4,500-year-old ramp contraption at Hatnub,
excavated since 2012. This method, which aided in lifting the heavy
alabaster stones up from their quarries, may have been used to build
Egypt's Great Pyramid as well. Yannis Gourdon, co-director of the joint mission at Hatnub, said:
This system is composed of a
central ramp flanked by two staircases with numerous post holes, using a
sled which carried a stone block and was attached with ropes to these
wooden posts, ancient Egyptians were able to pull up the alabaster
blocks out of the quarry on very steep slopes of 20 percent or more ...
As this system dates back at least to Khufu's
reign, that means that during the time of Khufu, ancient Egyptians knew
how to move huge blocks of stone using very steep slopes. Therefore,
they could have used it for the construction [of] his pyramid.
Houdin's father was an architect who, in 1999, thought of a
construction method that, it seemed to him, made more sense than any
existing method proposed for building pyramids. To develop this
hypothesis, Jean-Pierre Houdin, also an architect, gave up his job and
set about drawing the first fully functional CAD architectural model of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
His scheme involves using a regular external ramp to build the first
30% of the pyramid, with an "internal ramp" taking stones up beyond that
height.
The stones of the external ramp are re-cycled into the upper stories,
thus explaining the otherwise puzzling lack of evidence for ramps.
After four years working alone, Houdin was joined by a team of engineers from the French 3D software company Dassault Systèmes, who used the most modern computer-aided design
technology available to further refine and test the hypothesis, making
it (according to Houdin) the only one proven to be a viable technique. Houdin published his theory in the books Khufu: The Secrets Behind the Building of the Great Pyramid in 2006 and The Secret of the Great Pyramid, co-written in 2008 with EgyptologistBob Brier.
In Houdin's method, each ramp inside the pyramid ended at an open
space, a notch temporarily left open in the edge of the construction.
This 10-square-meter clear space housed a crane that lifted and rotated
each 2.5-ton block, to ready it for eight men to drag up the next
internal ramp. There is a notch of sorts in one of the right places, and
in 2008 Houdin's co-author Bob Brier, with a National Geographic film
crew, entered a previously unremarked chamber that could be the start of
one of these internal ramps. In 1986 a member of the French team (see below) saw a desert fox at this notch, rather as if it had ascended internally.
Houdin's thesis remains unproven and in 2007, Egyptologist David
Jeffreys from the University College London described the internal
spiral hypothesis as "far-fetched and horribly complicated", while
Oxford University's John Baines, declared he was "suspicious of any theory that seeks to explain only how the Great Pyramid was built".
Houdin has another hypothesis developed from his architectural
model, one that could finally explain the internal "Grand Gallery"
chamber that otherwise appears to have little purpose. He believes the
gallery acted as a trolley chute/guide for counterbalance weights. It
enabled the raising of the five 60-ton granite beams that roof the
King's Chamber. Houdin and Brier and the Dassault team are already
credited with proving for the first time that cracks in beams appeared
during construction, were examined and tested at the time and declared
relatively harmless.
Antiscience is a set of attitudes that involve a rejection of science and the scientific method. People holding antiscientific views do not accept science as an objective method that can generate universal knowledge. Antiscience commonly manifests through rejection of scientific ideas such as climate change and evolution. It also includes pseudoscience, methods that claim to be scientific but reject the scientific method. Antiscience leads to belief in conspiracy theories and alternative medicine. Lack of trust in science has been linked to the promotion of political extremism and distrust in medical treatments.
History
In the early days of the scientific revolution, scientists such as Robert Boyle (1627–1691) found themselves in conflict with those such as Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), who were skeptical of whether science was a satisfactory way to obtain genuine knowledge about the world.
Hobbes' stance is regarded by Ian Shapiro as an antiscience position:
In his Six Lessons to the Professors of Mathematics,...[published
in 1656, Hobbes] distinguished 'demonstrable' fields, as 'those the
construction of the subject whereof is in the power of the artist
himself,' from 'indemonstrable' ones 'where the causes are to seek for.'
We can only know the causes of what we make. So geometry is
demonstrable, because 'the lines and figures from which we reason are
drawn and described by ourselves' and 'civil philosophy is demonstrable,
because we make the commonwealth ourselves.' But we can only speculate
about the natural world, because 'we know not the construction, but seek
it from the effects.'
In his book Reductionism: Analysis and the Fullness of Reality,
published in 2000, Richard H. Jones wrote that Hobbes "put forth the
idea of the significance of the nonrational in human behaviour". Jones goes on to group Hobbes with others he classes as "antireductionists" and "individualists", including Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–1911), Karl Marx (1818–1883), Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) and J S Mill (1806–1873), later adding Karl Popper (1902–1994), John Rawls (1921–2002), and E. O. Wilson (1929–2021) to the list.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences (1750), claimed that science can lead to immorality.
"Rousseau argues that the progression of the sciences and arts has
caused the corruption of virtue and morality" and his "critique of
science has much to teach us about the dangers involved in our political
commitment to scientific progress, and about the ways in which the
future happiness of mankind might be secured". Nevertheless, Rousseau does not state in his Discourses that sciences are necessarily bad, and states that figures like René Descartes, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton should be held in high regard.
In the conclusion to the Discourses, he says that these (aforementioned)
can cultivate sciences to great benefit, and that morality's corruption
is mostly because of society's bad influence on scientists.
William Blake (1757–1827) reacted strongly in his paintings and writings against the work of Isaac Newton (1642–1727), and is seen as being perhapsthe earliest (and almost certainly the most prominent and enduring) example of what is seen by historians as the aesthetic or Romantic antiscience response. For example, in his 1795 poem "Auguries of Innocence", Blake describes the beautiful and natural robin redbreast imprisoned by what one might interpret as the materialistic cage of Newtonian mathematics and science.
Blake's painting of Newton depicts the scientist "as a misguided hero whose gaze was directed only at sterile geometrical diagrams drawn on the ground". Blake thought that "Newton, Bacon, and Locke with their emphasis on reason were nothing more than 'the three great teachers of atheism,
or Satan's Doctrine'...the picture progresses from exuberance and
colour on the left, to sterility and blackness on the right. In Blake's
view Newton brings not light, but night". In a 1940 poem, W.H. Auden summarises Blake's anti-scientific views by saying that he "[broke] off relations in a curse, with the Newtonian Universe".
Antiscience issues are seen as a fundamental consideration in the historical transition from "pre-science" or "protoscience" such as that evident in alchemy. Many disciplines that pre-date the widespread adoption and acceptance of the scientific method, such as geometry and astronomy, are not seen as anti-science. However, some
of the orthodoxies within those disciplines that predate a scientific
approach (such as those orthodoxies repudiated by the discoveries of Galileo (1564–1642)) are seen as being a product of an anti-scientific stance.
"[...] in Science, convictions have no rights of citizenship, as is
said with good reason. Only when they decide to descend to the modesty
of a hypothesis, of a provisional experimental point of view, of a
regulative fiction, maybe they be granted admission and even a certain
value within the realm of knowledge – though always with the restriction
that they remain under police supervision, under the police of
mistrust. But does this not mean, more precisely considered, that a
conviction may obtain admission to science only when it ceases to be a
conviction? Would not the discipline of the scientific spirit begin with
this, no longer to permit oneself any convictions? Probably that is how
it is. But one must still ask whether it is not the case that, in order
that this discipline could begin, a conviction must have been there
already, and even such a commanding and unconditional one that it
sacrificed all other convictions for its own sake. It is clear that
Science too rests on a faith; there is no Science 'without
presuppositions.' The question whether truth is needed must not only
have been affirmed in advance, but affirmed to the extent that the
principle, the faith, the conviction is expressed: 'nothing is needed
more than truth, and in relation to it, everything else has only
second-rate value".
The term "scientism", originating in science studies, was adopted and is used by sociologists and philosophers of science
to describe the views, beliefs and behavior of strong supporters of
applying ostensibly scientific concepts beyond its traditional
disciplines.
Specifically, scientism promotes science as the best or only objective means to determine normative and epistemological
values. The term scientism is generally used critically, implying a
cosmetic application of science in unwarranted situations considered not
amenable to application of the scientific method or similar scientific
standards. The word is commonly used in a pejorative sense, applying to
individuals who seem to be treating science in a similar way to a
religion. The term reductionism
is occasionally used in a similarly pejorative way (as a more subtle
attack on scientists). However, some scientists feel comfortable being
labelled as reductionists, while agreeing that there might be conceptual
and philosophical shortcomings of reductionism.
However, non-reductionist (see Emergentism) views of science have been formulated in varied forms in several scientific fields like statistical physics, chaos theory, complexity theory, cybernetics, systems theory, systems biology, ecology, information theory, etc.
Such fields tend to assume that strong interactions between units
produce new phenomena in "higher" levels that cannot be accounted for
solely by reductionism. For example, it is not valuable (or currently
possible) to describe a chess game or gene networks using quantum mechanics. The emergentist view of science ("More is Different", in the words of 1977 Nobel-laureate physicist Philip W. Anderson)
has been inspired in its methodology by the European social sciences (Durkheim, Marx) which tend to reject methodological individualism.
Political
Elyse
Amend and Darin Barney argue that while antiscience can be a
descriptive label, it is often used as a rhetorical one, being
effectively used to discredit ones' political opponents and thus charges
of antiscience are not necessarily warranted.
One expression of antiscience is the "denial of universality
and... legitimisation of alternatives", and that the results of
scientific findings do not always represent any underlying reality, but
can merely reflect the ideology of dominant groups within society. Alan Sokal
states that this view associates science with the political right and
is seen as a belief system that is conservative and conformist, that
suppresses innovation, that resists change and that acts dictatorially. This includes the view, for example, that science has a "bourgeois and/or Eurocentric and/or masculinist world-view".
The anti-nuclear movement, often associated with the left,has been criticized for overstating the negative effects of nuclear power, and understating the environmental costs of non-nuclear sources that can be prevented through nuclear energy. Opposition to genetically modified organisms (GMOs) has also been associated with the left.
Characteristics of antiscience associated with the right include the appeal to conspiracy theories to explain why scientists believe what they believe, in an attempt to undermine the confidence or power usually associated to science (e.g., in global warming conspiracy theories).
In modern times, it has been argued that right-wing politics
carries an anti-science tendency. While some have suggested that this is
innate to either rightists or their beliefs, others have argued it is a
"quirk" of a historical and political context in which scientific
findings happened to challenge or appeared to challenge the worldviews
of rightists rather than leftists.
In this context, antiscience may be considered dependent on
religious, moral and cultural arguments. For this kind of religious
antiscience philosophy, science is an anti-spiritual and materialistic
force that undermines traditional values, ethnic identity and
accumulated historical wisdom in favor of reason and cosmopolitanism. In particular, the traditional and ethnic values emphasized are similar to those of white supremacistChristian Identity theology, but similar right-wing views have been developed by radically conservative sects of Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. New religious movements such as New Age thinking also criticize the scientific worldview as favouring a reductionist, atheist, or materialist philosophy.
A frequent basis of antiscientific sentiment is religious theism
with literal interpretations of sacred text. Here, scientific theories
that conflict with what is considered divinely-inspired knowledge are
regarded as flawed. Over the centuries religious institutions have been
hesitant to embrace such ideas as heliocentrism and planetary motion
because they contradicted the dominant interpretation of various
passages of scripture. More recently the body of creation theologies
known collectively as creationism, including the teleological theory of intelligent design, have been promoted by religious theists in response to the process of evolution by natural selection.
To the extent that attempts to overcome antiscience sentiments
have failed, some argue that a different approach to science advocacy is
needed. One such approach says that it is important to develop a more
accurate understanding of those who deny science (avoiding stereotyping
them as backward and uneducated) and also to attempt outreach via those who share cultural values with target audiences, such as scientists who also hold religious beliefs.
Areas
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has
always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant
thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured
by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge".
Isaac Asimov, "A Cult of Ignorance", Newsweek, 21 January 1980
Historically, antiscience first arose as a reaction against scientific materialism. The 18th century Enlightenment had ushered in "the ideal of a unified system of all the sciences",
but there were those fearful of this notion, who "felt that
constrictions of reason and science, of a single all-embracing system...
were in some way constricting, an obstacle to their vision of the
world, chains on their imagination or feeling".
Antiscience then is a rejection of "the scientific model [or
paradigm]... with its strong implication that only that which was
quantifiable, or at any rate, measurable... was real".
In this sense, it comprises a "critical attack upon the total claim of
the new scientific method to dominate the entire field of human
knowledge". However, scientific positivism (logical positivism)
does not deny the reality of non-measurable phenomena, only that those
phenomena should not be adequate to scientific investigation. Moreover, positivism, as a philosophical basis for the scientific method, is not consensual or even dominant in the scientific community (see philosophy of science).
Recent developments and discussions around antiscience attitudes
reveal how deeply intertwined these beliefs are with social, political,
and psychological factors. A study published by Ohio State News on July
11, 2022, identified four primary bases that underpin antiscience
beliefs: doubts about the credibility of scientific sources,
identification with groups holding antiscience attitudes, conflicts
between scientific messages and personal beliefs, and discrepancies
between the presentation of scientific messages and individuals’
thinking styles. These factors are exacerbated in the current political
climate, where ideology significantly influences people's acceptance of
science, particularly on topics that have become politically polarized,
such as vaccines and climate change. The politicization of science poses
a significant challenge to public health and safety, particularly in
managing global crises like the COVID-19 pandemic.
The following quotes explore this aspect of four major areas of antiscience: philosophy, sociology, ecology and political.
Philosophy
Philosophical
objections against science are often objections about the role of
reductionism. For example, in the field of psychology, "both
reductionists and antireductionists accept that... non-molecular
explanations may not be improved, corrected or grounded in molecular
ones".
Further, "epistemological antireductionism holds that, given our finite
mental capacities, we would not be able to grasp the ultimate physical
explanation of many complex phenomena even if we knew the laws governing
their ultimate
constituents".
Some see antiscience as "common...in academic settings...many people
see that there are problems in demarcation between science, scientism,
and pseudoscience resulting in an antiscience stance. Some argue that
nothing can be known for sure".
Many philosophers are "divided as to whether reduction should be a central strategy for understanding the world".
However, many agree that "there are, nevertheless, reasons why we want
science to discover properties and explanations other than reductive
physical ones".
Such issues stem "from an antireductionist worry that there is no
absolute conception of reality, that is, a characterization of reality
such as... science claims to provide".
Sociology
Sociologist Thomas Gieryn refers to "some sociologists who might appear to be antiscience".
Some "philosophers and antiscience types", he contends, may have
presented "unreal images of science that threaten the believability of
scientific knowledge", or appear to have gone "too far in their antiscience deconstructions".
The question often lies in how much scientists conform to the standard
ideal of "communalism, universalism, disinterestedness, originality,
and... skepticism".
"scientists don't always conform... scientists do get passionate about
pet theories; they do rely on reputation in judging a scientist's work;
they do pursue fame and gain via research".
Thus, they may show inherent biases in their work. "[Many] scientists
are not as rational and logical as the legend would have them, nor are
they as illogical or irrational as some relativists might say".
Ecology and health sphere
Within the ecological and health spheres, Levins
identifies a conflict "not between science and antiscience, but rather
between different pathways for science and technology; between a
commodified science-for-profit and a gentle science for humane goals;
between the sciences of the smallest parts and the sciences of dynamic
wholes... [he] offers proposals for a more holistic, integral approach
to understanding and addressing environmental issues".
These beliefs are also common within the scientific community, with for
example, scientists being prominent in environmental campaigns warning
of environmental dangers such as ozone depletion and the greenhouse effect.
It can also be argued that this version of antiscience comes close to
that found in the medical sphere, where patients and practitioners may
choose to reject science and adopt a pseudoscientific
approach to health problems. This can be both a practical and a
conceptual shift and has attracted strong criticism: "therapeutic touch,
a healing technique based upon the laying-on of hands, has found wide
acceptance in the nursing profession despite its lack of scientific
plausibility. Its acceptance is indicative of a broad antiscientific
trend in nursing".
Glazer also criticises the therapists and patients, "for
abandoning the biological underpinnings of nursing and for misreading
philosophy in the service of an antiscientific world-view". In contrast, Brian Martin criticized Gross and Levitt by saying that "[their] basic approach is to attack constructivists for not being positivists,"
and that science is "presented as a unitary object, usually identified
with scientific knowledge. It is portrayed as neutral and objective.
Second, science is claimed to be under attack by 'antiscience' which is
composed essentially of ideologues who are threats to the neutrality and
objectivity that are fundamental to science. Third, a highly selective
attack is made on the arguments of 'antiscience'".
Such people allegedly then "routinely equate critique of scientific
knowledge with hostility to science, a jump that is logically
unsupportable and empirically dubious". Having then "constructed two artificial entities, a unitary 'science' and a unitary 'academic left', each reduced to epistemological essences, Gross and Levitt proceed to attack. They pick out figures in each of several areas – science studies, postmodernism, feminism, environmentalism, AIDS activism – and criticise their critiques of science".
The writings of Young serve to illustrate more antiscientific
views: "The strength of the antiscience movement and of alternative
technology is that their advocates have managed to retain Utopian vision
while still trying to create concrete instances of it".
"The real social, ideological and economic forces shaping
science...[have] been opposed to the point of suppression in many
quarters. Most scientists hate it and label it 'antiscience'. But it is
urgently needed, because it makes science self-conscious and hopefully
self-critical and accountable with respect to the forces which shape
research priorities, criteria, goals".
Genetically modified foods also bring about antiscience
sentiment. The general public has recently become more aware of the
dangers of a poor diet, as there have been numerous studies that show
that the two are inextricably linked.
Anti-science dictates that science is untrustworthy, because it is
never complete and always being revised, which would be a probable cause
for the fear that the general public has of genetically modified foods
despite scientific reassurance that such foods are safe.
Antivaccinationists rely on whatever comes to hand presenting
some of their arguments as if scientific; however, a strain of
antiscience is part of their approach.
Political
Political
scientist Tom Nichols, from Harvard Extension School and the U.S. Naval
War College, points out that skepticism towards scientific expertise
has increasingly become a symbol of political identity, especially
within conservative circles. This skepticism is not just a result of
misinformation but also reflects a broader cultural shift towards
diminishing trust in experts and authoritative sources. This trend
challenges the traditional neutrality of science, positioning scientific
beliefs and facts within the contentious arena of political ideology.
The COVID-19 pandemic, for example, conflicting responses to
public health measures and vaccine acceptance have highlighted the
extent to which science has been politicized. Such polarization suggests
that for some, rejecting scientific consensus or public health guidance
serves as an expression of political allegiance or skepticism towards
perceived authority figures.
This politicization of science complicates efforts to address
public health crises and undermines the broader social contract that
underpins scientific research and its application for the public good.
The challenge lies not only in combating misinformation but also in
bridging ideological divides that affect public trust in science.
Strategies to counteract antiscience attitudes may need to encompass
more than just presenting factual information; they might also need to
engage with the underlying social and psychological factors that
contribute to these attitudes, fostering dialogue that acknowledges
different viewpoints and seeks common ground.
Antiscience media
Major antiscience media include portals Natural News,
Global Revolution TV, TruthWiki.org, TheAntiMedia.org and GoodGopher.
Antiscience views have also been supported on social media by
organizations known to support fake news such as the web brigades.
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