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disinformation guide to ANCIENT ALIENS, LOST CIVILIZATIONS, ASTONISHING ARCHAEOLOGY & HIDDEN HISTORY
By Preston Peet Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC
Copyright © 2013 Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-938875-03-8
CHAPTER 1
ORIGINS MYTHIC OR HISTORIC
Michael A. Cremo
HUMAN DEVOLUTION
MY BOOK Forbidden Archeology, co-authored with Richard L. Thompson, documents archaeological evidence for extreme human antiquity, consistent with the Puranas, the historical writings of ancient India. This evidence places a human presence so far back in time as to call into question the Darwinian account of human origins.
Kenneth Feder, in his review of Forbidden Archeology, said:
When you attempt to deconstruct a well-accepted paradigm, it is reasonable to expect that a new paradigm be suggested in its place. The authors of Forbidden Archeology do not do this, and I would like to suggest a reason for their neglect here. Wishing to appear entirely scientific, the authors hoped to avoid a detailed discussion of their own beliefs.
It is not true that my co-author and I were trying to avoid a detailed discussion of our own alternative account. Rather we were hoping to ignite just such a discussion. But some practical considerations compelled us to proceed in stages. In my introduction to Forbidden Archeology, I wrote: "Our research program led to results we did not anticipate, and hence a book much larger than originally envisioned." I was genuinely surprised at the massive number of cases of archaeological evidence for extreme human antiquity that turned up during my eight years of historical research. Forbidden Archeology went to press with over nine hundred pages. "Because of this," I wrote in the introduction, "we have not been able to develop in this volume our ideas about an alternative to current theories of human origins. We are therefore planning a second volume relating our extensive research results in this area to our Vedic source material." Human Devolution: A Vedic Alternative to Darwin's Theory is that second volume. The basic message is simple. We do not evolve up from matter, rather we devolve, or come down, from a level of pure consciousness, or spirit, if you like that word.
Although I am offering a Vedic alternative to Darwinism, I acknowledge that it is part of a larger family of spiritual alternatives to Darwinism rooted in various world religions, which I also honor and respect. Interestingly enough, many scholars are now willing to consider such alternatives to the Western scientific worldview as candidates for truth. For them, belief in such worldviews is no longer taboo. In American Anthropologist, Katherine P. Ewing said:
To rule out the possibility of belief in another's reality is to encapsulate that reality and, thus, to impose implicitly the hegemony of one's own view of the world.
The basic message is simple. We do not evolve up from matter, rather we devolve, or come down, from a level of pure consciousness, or spirit, if you like that word.
In the Journal of Consciousness Studies, William Barnard, in speaking about the world's wisdom traditions, advocated:
... a scholarship that is willing and able to affirm that the metaphysical models ... of these different spiritual traditions are serious contenders for truth, a scholarship that realizes that these religious worlds are not dead corpses that we can dissect and analyze at a safe distance, but rather are living, vital bodies of knowledge and practice that have the potential to change our taken-for-granted notions.
I am asking that scientists and scholars approach in this spirit the Vedic perspective on human origins outlined in Human Devolution.
A PROCESS OF KNOWLEDGE FILTRATION
Before presenting an alternative to the Darwinian concept of human origins, it is reasonable to show that an alternative is really necessary. One thing that clearly demonstrates the need for an alternative is the archaeological evidence for extreme human antiquity. Such evidence actually exists, but it has been systematically eliminated from scientific discussion by a process of knowledge filtration. Archaeological evidence that contradicts the Darwinian theory of human evolution is often rejected for just that reason.
For example, in the Nineteenth Century, gold was discovered in California. To get it, miners dug tunnels into the sides of mountains, such as Table Mountain in Tuolumne County. Deep inside the tunnels, in deposits from the early Eocene Age (about 50 million years ago), miners found human bones and artifacts. The discoveries were carefully documented by Dr. J. D. Whitney, the chief government geologist of California, in his book The Auriferous Gravels of the Sierra Nevada of California, published by Harvard University in 1880. But we do not hear very much about these discoveries today. In the Smithsonian Institution Annual Report for 1898-1899, anthropologist William Holmes said,
Perhaps if Professor Whitney had fully appreciated the story of human evolution as it is understood today, he would have hesitated to announce the conclusions formulated, notwithstanding the imposing array of testimony with which he was confronted.
In other words, if the facts did not fit the theory of human evolution, the facts had to be set aside, and that is exactly what happened.
Such bias continued into the Twentieth Century. In the 1970s, American archaeologists led by Cynthia Irwin Williams discovered stone tools at Hueyatlaco, near Puebla, Mexico. The stone tools were of advanced type, made only by humans like us. A team of geologists, from the United States Geological Survey and universities in the United States, came to Hueyatlaco to date the site. Among the geologists was Virginia Steen-McIntyre. To date the site, the team used four methods—uranium series dating on butchered animal bones found along with the tools, zircon fission track dating on volcanic layers above the tools, tephra hydration dating of volcanic crystals and standard stratigraphy.
The problem as I see it is much bigger than Hueyatlaco. It concerns the manipulation of scientific thought through the suppression of "enigmatic data," data that challenges the prevailing mode of thinking.
The four methods converged on an age of about 250,000 years for the site. The archeologists refused to consider this date. They could not believe that humans capable of making the Hueyatlaco artifacts existed 250,000 years ago. In defense of the dates obtained by the geologists, Virginia Steen-McIntyre wrote in a letter (March 30, 1981) to Estella Leopold, associate editor of Quaternary Research:
The problem as I see it is much bigger than Hueyatlaco. It concerns the manipulation of scientific thought through the suppression of "enigmatic data," data that challenges the prevailing mode of thinking. Hueyatlaco certainly does that! Not being an anthropologist, I didn't realize the full significance of our dates back in 1973, nor how deeply woven into our thought the current theory of human evolution has become. Our work at Hueyatlaco has been rejected by most archaeologists because it contradicts that theory, period.
This remains true today, not only for the California gold mine discoveries and the Hueyatlaco human artifacts, but also for hundreds of other discoveries documented in the scientific literature of the past 150 years.
REVISING THE DARWINIAN EVOLUTIONARY PICTURE
There is also fossil evidence showing that the current Darwinian picture of the evolution of nonhuman species is also in need of revision. Beginning in the 1940s, geologists and paleobotanists working with the Geological Survey of India explored the Salt Range Mountains in what is now Pakistan. They found, deep in salt mines, evidence for the existence of advanced flowering plants and insects in the early Cambrian periods, about 600 million years ago. According to standard evolutionary ideas, no land plants or animals existed at that time. Flowering plants and insects are thought to have come into existence hundreds of millions of years later. To explain the evidence some geologists proposed that there must have been a massive overthrust, by which Eocene layers, about 50 million years old, were thrust under Cambrian layers, over 550 million years old. Others pointed out that there were no geological signs of such an overthrust. According to these scientists, the layers bearing the fossils of the advanced plants and insects were found in normal position, beneath strata containing trilobites, the characteristic fossil of the Cambrian. One of these scientists, E. R. Gee, a geologist working with the Geological Survey of India, proposed a novel solution to the problem. In the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of India for the year 1945, paleobotanist Birbal Sahni noted:
Evidence from biochemistry, genetics and developmental biology also contradicts the Darwinian theory of human evolution ... As far as evolution itself is concerned, it has not been demonstrated in any truly scientific way. It remains an article of faith.
Quite recently, an alternative explanation has been offered by Mr. Gee. The suggestion is that the angiosperms, gymnosperms and insects of the Saline Series may represent a highly evolved Cambrian or Precambrian flora and fauna! In other words, it is suggested that these plants and animals made their appearance in the Salt Range area several hundred million years earlier than they did anywhere else in the world. One would scarcely have believed that such an idea would be seriously put forward by any geologist today.
The controversy was left unresolved. In the 1990s, petroleum geologists, unaware of the earlier controversy, restudied the area. They determined that the salt deposits below the Cambrian deposits containing trilobites were early Cambrian or Precambrian. In other words, they found no evidence of an overthrust. The salt deposits were in a natural position below the Cambrian deposits. This supports Gee's suggestion that the plant and insect remains in the salt deposits were evidence of an advanced fauna and flora existing in the early Cambrian. This evidence contradicts not only the Darwinian concept of the evolution of humans but of other species as well.
Evidence from biochemistry, genetics and developmental biology also contradicts the Darwinian theory of human evolution. Although the origin of life from chemicals is technically not part of the evolution theory, it has in practice become inseparably connected with it. Darwinists routinely assert that life arose from chemicals. But after decades of theorizing and experimenting, they are unable to say exactly which chemicals combined in exactly which way to form exactly which first living thing. As far as evolution itself is concerned, it has not been demonstrated in any truly scientific way. It remains an article of faith.
The modern evolutionary synthesis is based on genetics. Evolutionists posit a relationship between the genotype (genetic structure) of an organism and its phenotype (physical structure). They say that changes in the genotype result in changes in the phenotype, and by natural selection the changes in phenotype conferring better fitness in a particular environment accumulate in organisms. Evolutionists claim that this process can account for the appearance of new structural features in organisms. But on the level of microbiology, these structures appear to be irreducibly complex. Scientists have not been able to specify exactly how they have come about in step-by-step fashion. They have not been able to tell us exactly what genetic changes resulted in what phenotypic changes to produce particular complex features of organisms. This would require the specification of intermediate stages leading up to the complex structures we observe today. In his book Darwin's Black Box, biochemist Michael Behe says,
In the past ten years, Journal of Molecular Evolution has published more than a thousand papers ... There were zero papers discussing detailed models for intermediates in the development of complex biomolecular structures. This is not a peculiarity of JME. No papers are to be found that discuss detailed models for intermediates in the development of complex biomolecular structures, whether in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Nature, Science, the Journal of Molecular Biology or, to my knowledge, any science journal.
Attempts by scientists to use genetic evidence to demonstrate the time and place that anatomically modern humans have come into existence have resulted in embarrassing mistakes and contradictions. The first widely publicized reports that genetic evidence allowed scientists to say that all living humans arose from an African Eve who lived 200,000 years ago in Africa turned out to be fatally flawed. Researchers have attempted to correct the mistakes, but the results remain confused. Considering the complexities surrounding genetic data, some scientists have suggested that fossils remain the most reliable evidence for questions about human origins and antiquity. In an article in American Anthropologist, David W. Frayer and his co-authors said:
Unlike genetic data derived from living humans, fossils can be used to test predictions of theories about the past without relying on a long list of assumptions about the neutrality of genetic markers, mutational rates, or other requirements necessary to retrodict the past from current genetic variation ... genetic information, at best, provides a theory of how modern human origins might have happened if the assumptions used in interpreting the genetic data are correct.
This means that the archaeological evidence for extreme human antiquity documented in Forbidden Archeology provides a much-needed check on the rampant speculations of genetic researchers. This evidence contradicts current Darwinian accounts of human origins.
A REAL NEED FOR AN ALTERNATIVE ACCOUNT—THE PARANORMAL
So evidence from archaeology, paleontology, biochemistry, genetics and developmental biology demonstrates a real need for an alternative to the current Darwinian account of human origins. The work of Alfred Russel Wallace, cofounder with Darwin of the theory of evolution by natural selection, provides an introduction to the alternative explanation. Wallace, along with other British scientists, such as Sir William Crookes, a prominent physicist and president of the Royal Society, conducted extensive experiments into the paranormal. These experiments and observations led Wallace to revise the worldview of science. Wallace concluded that the universe is populated with spirit beings. Some of the minor spirit beings, he proposed, are in contact with the human population on earth, usually through mediums. According to Wallace, the minor spirit beings, acting through mediums, were responsible for a variety of paranormal phenomena, including clairvoyance, miraculous healings, communications from the dead, apparitions, materializations of physical objects, levitations, etc. More powerful spirit beings may have played a role in the origin of species.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from disinformation guide to ANCIENT ALIENS, LOST CIVILIZATIONS, ASTONISHING ARCHAEOLOGY & HIDDEN HISTORY by Preston Peet. Copyright © 2013 Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. Excerpted by permission of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.
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