#also many of the sources cited are from the 30s-60s #which should also be a red flag
Since this post already turned into 'historian teaching you about source literacy' I'm gonna address this. This isn't directed at you but more a wider trend I've seen on the internet overall to discount anything that isn't very recent.
In many cases, particularly with science based topics, using sources from the 30s-60s is a very definite red flag for the information being presented. Science moves on very quickly, and a lot of older sources will either be outdated or subscribe to viewpoints that are no longer acceptable within society. However, you may still find them used, particularly in research papers where they have to do a literature review (an assessment of works written on the topic before) or where they have to cite the older work as an example of where the idea started and the progression to where understanding is now.
For other disciplines like history, or disciplines like mine that are small, you'll actually find that it's not all that uncommon to be using sources from the 1930s-60s and even sometimes the 1870s. This is because while everything is being constantly re-evaluated, things can move at a much slower pace. So what was discovered and posited on in 1963 can be as relevant then as it is now because we've discovered nothing new in the meantime. You may be reading this and thinking 'but how can you be using something from the 1870s as a legitimate source?' and the answer is very simple: archaeological site reports. Particularly in Egyptology, work was done on a site in the 1800s and the site has since been covered up, built over, or hasn't been excavated since, so you have to rely on site and survey reports from that long ago for provenance or situational information. Personally, my doctoral thesis was on a series of papyri whose last major publication was their series of translations in 1920 and 1933 respectively. There's nothing else written on them so I had to use sources from those dates.
So how do you evaluate the value of an older source when you see it?
You have to look at how the source is being used, who is using the source, who wrote the source, and then if anything newer has been published on the topic.
Most academic books that use sources that are considered 'older' will often account for the age of the citation by discussing why they've used it and the limitations of using it too. This can range from 'this is the last thing written on this' to 'their methodology is important to mention but their conclusions are no longer relevant' and everything in between. But there will usually be justification for using it. They will also likely be using older works from academics within the same field, so they're familiar with how to tackle the pitfalls of using certain sources. They can compare them with newer sources and show progress or the lack of it. These are legitimate uses of 'outdated' works.
In Egyptology, we have works by a guy called E.A. Wallis Budge (I'll call him Budge for short). Most of his works were published in the 20s and 30s and he was a very well respected and distinguished Egyptologist. A lot of people are familiar with his works because they're some of the most reprinted sources on Egyptology that are easily accessible and I get him cited at me as a source for 'well no an Egyptologist said this' all the time. The problem? For general public use, his works are massively out of date and flat out wrong. I wouldn't advise anyone not familiar with Egyptology to read or use his works because you'll be getting bad information. Yes he's an Egyptologist who was well respected in his time but we've moved on so much since then. But you will still see Egyptologists citing his works. The difference? We can sift and filter through all the wrong information in these sources to find what is legitimate to cite and what isn't. We've got the benefit of knowing newer, more up to date sources that we can contrast with his work to either prove or disprove what he's saying. He is also, in some cases, still the only person who's tackled certain topics so you have to cite him and then disprove what he said.
So it matters how the author is using the source and whether or not there's critical analysis of it or not. That doesn't mean being 'critical' as in 'negative' but rather does the person who's cited them acknowledge the pitfalls of using such a source and explain why they've used it in the first place. Do they say something like 'while X is still understood to be an authority on Y, we should acknowledge that the methodology is flawed/biased as thus this study will use the Z authored study from 2012 that built and improved on X's work'? or something like 'X's hypothesis was sound, however they lacked the necessary information that we now posses, thus using the updated data we can now prove X's hypothesis as correct.'
The issue with the source that was presented to me above is partly that it's all 1930s or 1960s sources, but also it's the subject matter and the context in which those sources were written. It's a book on 'sexology' which should send alarm bells ringing anyway because that is not the place to be getting information on Ancient Egypt. The author isn't an Egyptologist (or related field) so isn't going to have the background to fully understand the information presented** so is more likely to make basic mistakes. The other thing to look at is context. There were two time periods in the last century where numerous books were written on sex and sexual proclivities: the 1930s and the 1960s. With the 60s in particular, especially if the authors are from the US, you have a huge cultural reason for why sources such as this might have bias. J.R. Bledsoe (cited in the book above) for instance is the source on 'Male Sexual deviations' (he is not talking about cishet men that much there) and has written articles on the differences in sexual habits between (and I cannot believe I have to write this) 'white men and negroes'. Like when I said it was racist in the OP I really wasn't kidding. R.E.L. Masters, the guy cited alongside Bledsoe, is a sexologist who has published works on sex and witchcraft as well as several on...you guessed it...queer folk. D.O. Maybury isn't even an academic source, he wrote a novel on 'deviant behaviour'!!! These are sources that are explicitly juxtaposing poc and queer folk alongside deviant sexual practices like bestiality. For sources discussing sexual activity of the ancients, this is quite literally a) the worst time period to be getting this information because everyone was just out there writing bullshit, and b) 1960s viewpoints on minority groups in 'pop academia' were...ohhhhh boy.
Anyway, the point is that it's not wise to immediately dismiss a source someone has used simply because it's old. You have to look at how it's being used, why it's being used, and if the author who is citing it makes any critical analysis or provides a reason for using it. You have to evaluate a source fully, and while a date can be really helpful in determining if something is of use, you've got to look at the full picture before dismissing it.
** we see this with MD's analysing the Egyptian Medical papyri where a doctor interpreted a translation of a medical papyrus (they didn't translate themselves or consult Egyptologists) where they came across a cure for a headache that required frying a catfish and applying the oil to the head. The author (a medical doctor) posited that the translation was bad and the Egyptians must have used the catfish alive because they were doing proto-electroshock therapy (a catfish has a very minor electrical current). They completely disregarded the fact that a catfish's electrical current cannot be felt by humans in any meaningful way, and also that the Egyptian text says 'fry in oil'. Yes, the original text literally says that and the MD ignored it in order to come to their conclusion. Honestly, if something like that isn't cross disciplinary (i.e. they consulted Egyptologists on their conclusions) you should be sceptical. If you wanted more on this you can read it here and here.
yousharknotpass
turnnoffyourmind
janainaart
areudirty
origamiaround
theartofmadeline
dededos
