- Any time you allege a conspiracy is afoot, especially
in the field of science, you are treading on thin ice. We tend to be very
sceptical about conspiracies--unless the Mafia or some Muslim radicals
are behind the alleged plot. But the evidence is overwhelming and the irony
is that much of it is in plain view.
-
- The good news is that the players are obvious. Their
game plan and even their play-by-play tactics are transparent, once you
learn to spot them. However, it is not so easy to penetrate through the
smokescreen of propaganda and disinformation to get to their underlying
motives and goals. It would be convenient if we could point to a plumber's
unit and a boldface liar like Richard Nixon, but this is a more subtle
operation.
-
- The bad news: the conspiracy is global and there are
many vested interest groups. A cursory investigation yields the usual suspects:
scientists with a theoretical axe to grind, careers to further and the
status quo to maintain. Their modus operandi is "The Big Lie"--and
the bigger and more widely publicised, the better. They rely on invoking
their academic credentials to support their arguments, and the presumption
is that no one has the right to question their authoritarian pronouncements
that: 1. there is no mystery about who built the Great Pyramid or what
the methods of construction were, and the Sphinx shows no signs of water
damage; 2. there were no humans in the Americas before 20,000 BC; 3. the
first civilisation dates back no further than 6000 BC; 4. there are no
documented anomalous, unexplained or enigmatic data to take into account;
5. there are no lost or unaccounted-for civilisations. Let the evidence
to the contrary be damned!
-
- Personal Attacks: Dispute over Age of the Sphinx and
Great Pyramid
-
- In 1993, NBC in the USA aired The Mysteries of the Sphinx,
which presented geological evidence showing that the Sphinx was at least
twice as old (9,000 years) as Egyptologists claimed. It has become well
known as the "water erosion controversy". An examination of the
politicking that Egyptologists deployed to combat this undermining of their
turf is instructive.
-
- Self-taught Egyptologist John Anthony West brought the
water erosion issue to the attention of geologist Dr Robert Schoch. They
went to Egypt and launched an intensive on-site investigation. After thoroughly
studying the Sphinx first hand, the geologist came to share West's preliminary
conclusion and they announced their findings.
-
- Dr Zahi Hawass, the Giza Monuments chief, wasted no time
in firing a barrage of public criticism at the pair. Renowned Egyptologist
Dr Mark Lehner, who is regarded as the world's foremost expert on the Sphinx,
joined his attack. He charged West and Schoch with being "ignorant
and insensitive". That was a curious accusation which took the matter
off the professional level and put the whole affair on a personal plane.
It did not address the facts or issues at all and it was highly unscientific.
-
- But we must note the standard tactic of discrediting
anyone who dares to call the accepted theories into question. Shifting
the focus away from the issues and "personalising" the debate
is a highly effective strategy--one which is often used by politicians
who feel insecure about their positions. Hawass and Lehner invoked their
untouchable status and presumed authority. (One would think that a geologist's
assessment would hold more weight on this particular point.)
-
- A short time later, Schoch, Hawass and Lehner were invited
to debate the issue at the American Association for the Advancement of
Science. West was not allowed to participate because he lacked the required
credentials.
-
- This points to a questionable assumption that is part
of the establishment's arsenal: only degreed scientists can practise science.
Two filters keep the uncredentialled, independent researcher out of the
loop: (1) credentials, and (2) peer review. You do not get to number two
unless you have number one.
-
- Science is a method that anyone can learn and apply.
It does not require a degree to observe and record facts and think critically
about them, especially in the non-technical social sciences. In a free
and open society, science has to be a democratic process.
-
- Be that as it may, West was barred. The elements of the
debate have been batted back and forth since then without resolution. It
is similar to the controversy over who built the Giza pyramids and how.
-
- This brings up the issue of The Big Lie and how it has
been promoted for generations in front of God and everyone. The controversy
over how the Great Pyramid was constructed is one example. It could be
easily settled if Egyptologists wanted to resolve the dispute. A simple
test could be designed and arranged by impartial engineers that would either
prove or disprove their longstanding disputed theory--that it was built
using the primitive tools and methods of the day, circa 2500 BC.
-
- Why hasn't this been done? The answer is so obvious,
it seems impossible: they know that the theory is bogus. Could a trained,
highly educated scientist really believe that 2.3 million tons of stone,
some blocks weighing 70 tons, could have been transported and lifted by
primitive methods? That seems improbable, though they have no compunction
against lying to the public, writing textbooks and defending this theory
against alternative theories. However, we must note that they will not
subject themselves to the bottom-line test.
-
- We think it is incumbent upon any scientist to bear the
burden of proof of his/her thesis; however, the social scientists who make
these claims have never stood up to that kind of scrutiny. That is why
we must suspect a conspiracy. No other scientific discipline would get
away with bending the rules of science. All that Egyptologists have ever
done is bat down alternative theories using underhanded tactics. It is
time to insist that they prove their own proposals.
-
- Why would scientists try to hide the truth and avoid
any test of their hypothesis? Their motivations are equally transparent.
If it can be proved that the Egyptians did not build the Great Pyramid
in 2500 BC using primitive methods, or if the Sphinx can be dated to 9000
BC, the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. Orthodox views of cultural
evolution are based upon a chronology of civilisation having started in
Sumeria no earlier than 4000 BC. The theory does not permit an advanced
civilisation to have existed prior to that time. End of discussion. Archaeology
and history lose their meaning without a fixed timeline as a point of reference.
-
- Since the theory of "cultural evolution" has
been tied to Darwin's general theory of evolution, even more is at stake.
Does this explain why facts, anomalies and enigmas are denied, suppressed
and/or ignored? Yes, it does. The biological sciences today are based on
Darwinism.
-
- Pressure Tactics: The Ica Stones of Peru
-
- Now we turn to another, very different case. In 1966,
Dr Javier Cabrera received a stone as a gift from a poor local farmer in
his native Ica, Peru. A fish was carved on the stone, which would not have
meant much to the average villager but it did mean a lot to the educated
Dr Cabrera. He recognised it as a long-extinct species. This aroused his
curiosity. He purchased more stones from the farmer, who said he had collected
them near the river after a flood.
-
- Dr Cabrera accumulated more and more stones, and word
of their existence and potential import reached the archaeological community.
Soon, the doctor had amassed thousands of "Ica stones". The sophisticated
carvings were as enigmatic as they were fascinating. Someone had carved
men fighting with dinosaurs, men with telescopes and men performing operations
with surgical equipment. They also contained drawings of lost continents.
-
- Several of the stones were sent to Germany and the etchings
were dated to remote antiquity. But we all know that men could not have
lived at the time of dinosaurs; Homo sapiens has only existed for about
100,000 years.
-
- The BBC got wind of this discovery and swooped down to
produce a documentary about the Ica stones. The media exposure ignited
a storm of controversy. Archaeologists criticised the Peruvian government
for being lax about enforcing antiquities laws (but that was not their
real concern). Pressure was applied to government officials.
-
- The farmer who had been selling the stones to Cabrera
was arrested; he claimed to have found them in a cave but refused to disclose
the exact location to authorities, or so they claimed.
-
- This case was disposed of so artfully that it would do
any corrupt politician proud. The Peruvian government threatened to prosecute
and imprison the farmer. He was offered and accepted a plea bargain; he
then recanted his story and "admitted" to having carved the stones
himself. That seems highly implausible, since he was uneducated and unskilled
and there were 11,000 stones in all. Some were fairly large and intricately
carved with animals and scenes that the farmer would not have had knowledge
of without being a palaeontologist. He would have needed to work every
day for several decades to produce that volume of stones. However, the
underlying facts were neither here nor there. The Ica stones were labelled
"hoax" and forgotten.
-
- The case did not require a head-to-head confrontation
or public discrediting of non-scientists by scientists; it was taken care
of with invisible pressure tactics. Since it was filed under "hoax",
the enigmatic evidence never had to be dealt with, as it did in the next
example.
-
- Censorship of "Forbidden" Thinking: Evidence
for Mankind's Great Antiquity
-
- The case of author Michael Cremo is well documented,
and it also demonstrates how the scientific establishment openly uses pressure
tactics on the media and government. His book Forbidden Archeology examines
many previously ignored examples of artifacts that prove modern man's antiquity
far exceeds the age given in accepted chronologies.
-
- The examples which he and his co-author present are controversial,
but the book became far more controversial than the contents when it was
used in a documentary.
-
- In 1996, NBC broadcast a special called The Mysterious
Origins of Man, which featured material from Cremo's book. The reaction
from the scientific community went off the Richter scale. NBC was deluged
with letters from irate scientists who called the producer "a fraud"
and the whole program "a hoax".
-
- But the scientists went further than this--a lot further.
In an extremely unconscionable sequence of bizarre moves, they tried to
force NBC not to rebroadcast the popular program, but that effort failed.
Then they took the most radical step of all: they presented their case
to the federal government and requested the Federal Communications Commission
to step in and bar NBC from airing the program again.
-
- This was not only an apparent infringement of free speech
and a blatant attempt to thwart commerce, it was an unprecedented effort
to censor intellectual discourse. If the public or any government agency
made an attempt to handcuff the scientific establishment, the public would
never hear the end of it.
-
- The letter to the FCC written by Dr Allison Palmer, President
of the Institute for Cambrian Studies, is revealing:
-
- At the very least, NBC should be required to make substantial
prime-time apologies to their viewing audience for a sufficient period
of time so that the audience clearly gets the message that they were duped.
In addition, NBC should perhaps be fined sufficiently so that a major fund
for public science education can be established.
-
- I think we have some good leads on who "the Brain
Police" are. And I really do not think "conspiracy" is too
strong a word--because for every case of this kind of attempted suppression
that is exposed, 10 others are going on successfully. We have no idea how
many enigmatic artifacts or dates have been labelled "error"
and tucked away in storage warehouses or circular files, never to see the
light of day.
-
- Data Rejection: Inconvenient Dating in Mexico
-
- Then there is the high-profile case of Dr Virginia Steen-McIntyre,
a geologist working for the US Geological Survey (USGS), who was dispatched
to an archaeological site in Mexico to date a group of artifacts in the
1970s. This travesty also illustrates how far established scientists will
go to guard orthodox tenets.
-
- McIntyre used state-of-the-art equipment and backed up
her results by using four different methods, but her results were off the
chart. The lead archaeologist expected a date of 25,000 years or less,
and the geologist's finding was 250,000 years or more.
-
- The figure of 25,000 years or less was critical to the
Bering Strait "crossing" theory, and it was the motivation behind
the head archaeologist's tossing Steen-McIntyre's results in the circular
file and asking for a new series of dating tests. This sort of reaction
does not occur when dates match the expected chronological model that supports
accepted theories.
-
- Steen-McIntyre was given a chance to retract her conclusions,
but she refused. She found it hard thereafter to get her papers published
and she lost a teaching job at an American university.
-
- Government Suppression and Ethnocentrism: Avoiding Anomalous
Evidence in NZ, China and Mexico
-
- In New Zealand, the government actually stepped in and
enacted a law forbidding the public from entering a controversial archaeological
zone. This story appeared in the book, Ancient Celtic New Zealand, by Mark
DoutrÈ.
-
- However, as we will find (and as I promised at the beginning
of the article), this is a complicated conspiracy. Scientists trying to
protect their "hallowed" theories while furthering their careers
are not the only ones who want artifacts and data suppressed. This is where
the situation gets sticky.
-
- The Waipoua Forest became a controversial site in New
Zealand because an archaeological dig apparently showed evidence of a non-Polynesian
culture that preceded the Maori--a fact that the tribe was not happy with.
They learned of the results of the excavations before the general public
did and complained to the government. According to DoutrÈ, the outcome
was "an official archival document, which clearly showed an intention
by New Zealand government departments to withhold archaeological information
from public scrutiny for 75 years".
-
- The public got wind of this fiasco but the government
denied the claim. However, official documents show that an embargo had
been placed on the site. DoutrÈ is a student of New Zealand history
and archaeology. He is concerned because he says that artifacts proving
that there was an earlier culture which preceded the Maori are missing
from museums. He asks what happened to several anomalous remains:
-
- Where are the ancient Indo-European hair samples (wavy
red brown hair), originally obtained from a rock shelter near Watakere,
that were on display at the Auckland War Memorial Museum for many years?
Where is the giant skeleton found near Mitimati?
-
- Unfortunately this is not the only such incident. Ethnocentrism
has become a factor in the conspiracy to hide mankind's true history. Author
Graham Hancock has been attacked by various ethnic groups for reporting
similar enigmatic findings.
-
- The problem for researchers concerned with establishing
humanity's true history is that the goals of nationalists or ethnic groups
who want to lay claim to having been in a particular place first, often
dovetail with the goals of cultural evolutionists.
-
- Archaeologists are quick to go along with suppressing
these kinds of anomalous finds. One reason Egyptologists so jealously guard
the Great Pyramid's construction date has to do with the issue of national
pride.
-
- The case of the Takla Makan Desert mummies in western
China is another example of this phenomenon. In the 1970s and 1980s, an
unaccounted-for Caucasian culture was suddenly unearthed in China. The
arid environment preserved the remains of a blond-haired, blue-eyed people
who lived in pre-dynastic China. They wore colourful robes, boots, stockings
and hats. The Chinese were not happy about this revelation and they have
downplayed the enigmatic find, even though Asians were found buried alongside
the Caucasian mummies.
-
- National Geographic writer Thomas B. Allen mused in a
1996 article about his finding a potsherd bearing a fingerprint of the
potter. When he inquired if he could take the fragment to a forensic anthropologist,
the Chinese scientist asked whether he "would be able to tell if the
potter was a white man". Allen said he was not sure, and the official
pocketed the fragment and quietly walked away. It appears that many things
get in the way of scientific discovery and disclosure.
-
- The existence of the Olmec culture in Old Mexico has
always posed a problem. Where did the Negroid people depicted on the colossal
heads come from? Why are there Caucasians carved on the stele in what is
Mexico's seed civilisation? What is worse, why aren't the indigenous Mexican
people found on the Olmec artifacts? Recently a Mexican archaeologist solved
the problem by making a fantastic claim: that the Olmec heads--which generations
of people of all ethnic groups have agreed bear a striking resemblance
to Africans--were really representations of the local tribe.
-
-
-
- STORMTROOPERS FOR DARWINISM
-
- The public does not seem at all aware of the fact that
the scientific establishment has a double standard when it comes to the
free flow of information. In essence, it goes like this... Scientists are
highly educated, well trained and intellectually capable of processing
all types of information, and they can make the correct critical distinctions
between fact and fiction, reality and fantasy. The unwashed public is simply
incapable of functioning on this high mental plane.
-
- The noble ideal of the scientist as a highly trained,
impartial, apolitical observer and assembler of established facts into
a useful body of knowledge seems to have been shredded under the pressures
and demands of the real world. Science has produced many positive benefits
for society; but we should know by now that science has a dark, negative
side. Didn't those meek fellows in the clean lab coats give us nuclear
bombs and biological weapons? The age of innocence ended in World War II.
-
- That the scientific community has an attitude of intellectual
superiority is thinly veiled under a carefully orchestrated public relations
guise. We always see Science and Progress walking hand in hand. Science
as an institution in a democratic society has to function in the same way
as the society at large; it should be open to debate, argument and counter-argument.
There is no place for unquestioned authoritarianism. Is modern science
meeting these standards?
-
- In the Fall of 2001, PBS aired a seven-part series, titled
Evolution. Taken at face value, that seems harmless enough. However, while
the program was presented as pure, objective, investigative science journalism,
it completely failed to meet even minimum standards of impartial reporting.
The series was heavily weighted towards the view that the theory of evolution
is "a science fact" that is accepted by "virtually all reputable
scientists in the world", and not a theory that has weaknesses and
strong scientific critics.
-
- The series did not even bother to interview scientists
who have criticisms of Darwinism: not "creationists" but bona
fide scientists. To correct this deficiency, a group of 100 dissenting
scientists felt compelled to issue a press release, "A Scientific
Dissent on Darwinism", on the day the first program was scheduled
to go to air. Nobel nominee Henry "Fritz" Schaefer was among
them. He encouraged open public debate of Darwin's theory:
-
- Some defenders of Darwinism embrace standards of evidence
for evolution that as scientists they would never accept in other circumstances.
-
- We have seen this same "unscientific" approach
applied to archaeology and anthropology, where "scientists" simply
refuse to prove their theories yet appoint themselves as the final arbiters
of "the facts". It would be naive to think that the scientists
who cooperated in the production of the series were unaware that there
would be no counter-balancing presentation by critics of Darwin's theory.
-
- Richard Milton is a science journalist. He had been an
ardent true believer in Darwinian doctrine until his investigative instincts
kicked in one day. After 20 years of studying and writing about evolution,
he suddenly realised that there were many disconcerting holes in the theory.
He decided to try to allay his doubts and prove the theory to himself by
using the standard methods of investigative journalism.
-
- Milton became a regular visitor to London's famed Natural
History Museum. He painstakingly put every main tenet and classic proof
of Darwinism to the test. The results shocked him. He found that the theory
could not even stand up to the rigours of routine investigative journalism.
-
- The veteran science writer took a bold step and published
a book titled The Facts of Life: Shattering the Myths of Darwinism. It
is clear that the Darwinian myth had been shattered for him, but many more
myths about science would also be crushed after his book came out. Milton
says:
-
- I experienced the witch-hunting activity of the Darwinist
police at first handit was deeply disappointing to find myself being described
by a prominent Oxford zoologist [Richard Dawkins] as "loony",
"stupid" and "in need of psychiatric help" in response
to purely scientific reporting.
-
- (Does this sound like stories that came out of the Soviet
Union 20 years ago when dissident scientists there started speaking out?)
-
- Dawkins launched a letter-writing campaign to newspaper
editors, implying that Milton was a "mole" creationist whose
work should be dismissed. Anyone at all familiar with politics will recognise
this as a standard Machiavellian by-the-book "character assassination"
tactic. Dawkins is a highly respected scientist, whose reputation and standing
in the scientific community carry a great deal of weight.
-
- According to Milton, the process came to a head when
the London Times Higher Education Supplement commissioned him to write
a critique of Darwinism. The publication foreshadowed his coming piece:
"Next Week: Darwinism - Richard Milton goes on the attack". Dawkins
caught wind of this and wasted no time in nipping this heresy in the bud.
He contacted the editor, Auriol Stevens, and accused Milton of being a
"creationist", and prevailed upon Stevens to pull the plug on
the article. Milton learned of this behind-the-scenes backstabbing and
wrote a letter of appeal to Stevens. In the end, she caved in to Dawkins
and scratched the piece.
-
- Imagine what would happen if a politician or bureaucrat
used such pressure tactics to kill a story in the mass media. It would
ignite a huge scandal. Not so with scientists, who seem to be regarded
as "sacred cows" and beyond reproach. There are many disturbing
facts related to these cases. Darwin's theory of evolution is the only
theory routinely taught in our public school system that has never been
subjected to rigorous scrutiny; nor have any of the criticisms been allowed
into the curriculum.
-
- This is an interesting fact, because a recent poll showed
that the American public wants the theory of evolution taught to their
children; however, "71 per cent of the respondents say biology teachers
should teach both Darwinism and scientific evidence against Darwinian theory".
Nevertheless, there are no plans to implement this balanced approach.
-
- It is ironic that Richard Dawkins has been appointed
to the position of Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at
Oxford University. He is a classic "Brain Police" stormtrooper,
patrolling the neurological front lines. The Western scientific establishment
and mass media pride themselves on being open public forums devoid of prejudice
or censorship. However, no television program examining the flaws and weaknesses
of Darwinism has ever been aired in Darwin's home country or in America.
A scientist who opposes the theory cannot get a paper published.
-
- The Mysterious Origins of Man was not a frontal attack
on Darwinism; it merely presented evidence that is considered anomalous
by the precepts of his theory of evolution.
-
- Returning to our bastions of intellectual integrity,
Forest Mims was a solid and skilled science journalist. He had never been
the centre of any controversy and so he was invited to write the most-read
column in the prestigious Scientific American, "The Amateur Scientist",
a task he gladly accepted. According to Mims, the magazine's editor Jonathan
Piel then learned that he also wrote articles for a number of Christian
magazines. The editor called Mims into his office and confronted him.
-
- "Do you believe in the theory of evolution?"
Piel asked.
-
- Mims replied, "No, and neither does Stephen Jay
Gould."
-
- His response did not affect Piel's decision to bump Mims
off the popular column after just three articles.
-
- This has the unpleasant odour of a witch-hunt. The writer
never publicly broadcast his private views or beliefs, so it would appear
that the "stormtroopers" now believe they have orders to make
sure "unapproved" thoughts are never publicly disclosed.
-
-
-
- TABOO OR NOT TABOO?
-
- So, the monitors of "good thinking" are not
just the elite of the scientific community, as we have seen in several
cases; they are television producers and magazine editors as well. It seems
clear that they are all driven by the singular imperative of furthering
"public science education", as the president of the Cambrian
Institute so aptly phrased it.
-
- However, there is a second item on the agenda, and that
is to protect the public from "unscientific" thoughts and ideas
that might infect the mass mind. We outlined some of those taboo subjects
at the beginning of the article; now we should add that it is also "unwholesome"
and "unacceptable" to engage in any of the following research
pursuits: paranormal phenomena, UFOs, cold fusion, free energy and all
the rest of the "pseudo-sciences". Does this have a familiar
ring to it? Are we hearing the faint echoes of religious zealotry?
-
- Who ever gave science the mission of engineering and
directing the inquisitive pursuits of the citizenry of the free world?
It is all but impossible for any scientific paper that has anti-Darwinian
ramifications to be published in a mainstream scientific journal. It is
also just as impossible to get the "taboo" subjects even to the
review table, and you can forget about finding your name under the title
of any article in Nature unless you are a credentialled scientist, even
if you are the next Albert Einstein.
-
- To restate how this conspiracy begins, it is with two
filters: credentials and peer review. Modern science is now a maze of such
filters set up to promote certain orthodox theories and at the same time
filter out that data already prejudged to be unacceptable. Evidence and
merit are not the guiding principles; conformity and position within the
established community have replaced objectivity, access and openness.
-
- Scientists do not hesitate to launch the most outrageous
personal attacks against those they perceive to be the enemy. Eminent palaeontologist
Louis Leakey penned this acid one-liner about Forbidden Archeology: "Your
book is pure humbug and does not deserve to be taken seriously by anyone
but a fool." Once again, we see the thrust of a personal attack; the
merits of the evidence presented in the book are not examined or debated.
It is a blunt, authoritarian pronouncement.
-
- In a forthcoming instalment, we will examine some more
documented cases and delve deeper into the subtler dimensions of the conspiracy.
-
- References and Resources:
-
- * Cremo, Michael A. and Richard L. Thompson, Forbidden
Archeology, Govardhan Hill, USA, 1993.
-
- * Cremo, Michael A., "The Controversy over 'The
Mysterious Origins of Man'", NEXUS 5/04, 1998; Forbidden Archeology's
Impact, Bhaktivedanta Book Publishing, USA, 1998, website http://www.mcremo.com.
-
- * Doore, Kathy, "The Nazca Spaceport & the Ica
Stones of Peru", http://www.labyrinthina.com/ica.htm; see website
for copy of Dr Javier Cabrera's book, The Message of the Engraved Stones.
-
- * DoutrÈ, Mark, Ancient Celtic New Zealand, DÈ
Danann, New Zealand, 1999, website http://www.celticnz.co.nz.
-
- * Milton, Richard, The Facts of Life: Shattering the
Myths of Darwinism, Corgi, UK, 1993, http://www.alternativescience.com.
-
- * Steen-McIntyre, Virginia, "Suppressed Evidence
for Ancient Man in Mexico", NEXUS 5/05, 1998.
-
- * Sunfellow, David, "The Great Pyramid & The
Sphinx", November 25, 1994, at http://www.nhne.com/specialrepots/spyramid.html.
-
- * Tampa Bay Tribune, October 12, 2001 (Darwinism/evolution
quote), http://www.tampatrib.com.
-
- About the Author: Will Hart is a freelance journalist,
book author, nature photographer and documentary filmmaker. He lives and
does much of his research in the Lake Tahoe area in the USA, and writes
a column titled "The Tahoe Naturalist" for a regional publication.
He has produced and directed films about wolves and wild horses.
-
- http://www.nexusmagazine.com/arcoverups.html
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