5.0 out of 5 stars
Caution - Proceed with much Caution !
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 30 August 2005
No one should be afraid to read this book --- It really worth the time spent, and it certainly is not a boring book. It is easy to read, and you can start at ANY page you wish. But, if you accept a piece of advice, to begin, pay special attention to the ONE stars' reviews. I could believe in - two, three, or four stars as being a honest and reliable one, but ONE star, in the case of this book, could mean *WAR*. A desperate attack w/ no TRUE consideration to the value of the book - only defending the Darwinism establishment under siege.
One could consider that it is not a matter if we agree or disagree, Darwinism is a theory of evolution. Darwinism is a theory only. It is not a fact. Many people believe it is an established, scientific fact. It is not. Scientists have been searching the world over for the missing link, but it has NEVER been found, as the foremost scientists readily admit.
That is flat, but nevertheless it is the verdict of the foremost scientists of the world today. Darwinism is an accumulation of probabilities without proof, and of attractive explanations without demonstration. Science is experimental. It is changing continually. What it teaches today it discards tomorrow. In the process of change science assumes various temporary forms.
In this way one could say that some negative reviews are in fact an attempt to STOP people from reading this material. But the more people know about anything the less dictatorial they become on that subject.
That is why real scientists tread the ground carefully. True science knows its limitations. The great scientists are humble and conservative. They know the difference between theory and fact. They distrust themselves and their findings.
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The authors sould be congratulated, because they spent eight years producing the only definitive, precise, exhaustive and complete record of pratically all the fossil finds of man, regardless of wheter they fit the established scientific theories or not. NO other book of this caliber EXISTS. It should be compulsory reading for every first year biology, archeology and anthropology student and many others, too! The authors` UNIQUE perspective provides postmodern scholars with an invaluable parallax view of historical scientific praxis, debate, and development.
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This volume combines a vast amount of both accepted and controversial evidence from the archeological record with sociological, philosophical, and historical critiques of the scientific method to challenge existing views and expose the suppression of information concerning history and human origins.
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SOME say that the Vedic backgroud of the autor is one of the problems. This is absurd, since the book contain no religious arguments of any sort, Hindu-oid or otherwise. But in fact it explains that the time concept of modern archeology, and modern anthropology in general, resembles the general cosmological-historical time concept of Europe`s Judeo-Christian culture, and that modern archeology also shares w/ Judeo-Christian teology the idea that humans appear after the other major species.
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Perhaps as a first step our textbooks should be more realistic and honest about what we know and don't know.
I've decided to give the authors a chance. And ---
The book reveals that over the past two centuries researchers have found bones and artifacts showing that people like ourselves existed on earth millions of years ago. But the scientific establishment has ignored these remarkable facts because they contradict the dominant views of human origins and antiquity. Cremo and Thompson challenge us to rethink our understanding of human origins, identity, and destiny. And invites us to take a courageous first step towards a new perspective.
You can find a sample chapter at (mcremo dot com)
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Some consider the purpose of science SHOULD be to develop, without prejudice or preconception of any kind, a knowledge of the facts, the laws and the processes of nature.
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OR to serve humanity, explain how things happen. And the quality of that service depends on the person or persons using science.
"The only statement consistent with her dignity that science can make is to say that she knows nothing about the origin of man." (Modern Biology, p. 480.)
Are some of us attached to Darwinism for reasons other than really scientific ones?
ON Darwinism -
Darwinism is an attempt to explain how one species of plant or animal changed into another altogether distinct and different species. Darwinism, therefore, takes for granted that evolution is a fact, namely, that the various species we see in the world today are transitions from preceding different species.
Yet today in many of our school text-books students are taught that in accordance with Darwinism man has descended from the monkey. If you call in question their infallibility they will give you a look of pity.
The author attests that there are TWO kinds of Darwinists. The first is the fundamentalist type and the second more open-minded Darwinists that can give platforms to present diferent views at scientific societies, scientific conferences, and science departments at universities around the world.
There are some scientists who have reported that Homo habilis (the "handy man") and Australopithecus afarensis ("Lucy") were constructed from bones of two or more species, yet these hominids also do have their supporters.
Despite the controversy, models of these hominids are in fact STILL displayed in many museums. These exhibits give no hint of the controversy that exists about these creatures in the scientific world. In this way, people are being MISLED.
Of course, the museums also give no hint of the archeological evidence for extreme human antiquity, the evidence that shows that humans like us existed alongside our supposed ape-man ancestors, like Homo habilis and Australopithecus afarensis.
A variation of a species is not an essentially different species. And - even if evolution were a fact, Darwinism does not and cannot explain it. The foremost scientists of the world are now agreed that Darwin's theory of natural selection does not work all the times.
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Mr Cremo is not the ONLY person challenging the now dominant Darwinian theory of evolution. That doctrine is now under sustained attack from many directions.
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Some say that supporters of the Darwinist paradigm are now in the beginning stages of a major crisis, as can be judged from the volume of the howls of protest coming from them.
Indeed, according to philosopher of science, Karl Popper, all scientific theories must be "falsifiable," that is, subject to prediction, testing and falsification. In his book, Conjectures and Refutations, he explains, "There will be well-testable theories, hardly testable theories, and non-testable theories. Those which are non-testable are of no interest to empirical scientists. They may be described as metaphysical."
"It must be acknowledged that Forbidden Archeology brings to attention many interesting issues that have not received much consideration from historians; and the authors' detailed examination of the early literature is certainly stimulating and raises questions of considerable interest, both historically and from the perspective of practitioners of sociology of scientific knowledge." Jo Wodak and David Oldroyd, in Social Studies of Science, Vol. 26(1), 1996, p. 196.
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According to a statement of a dear friend of mine:
"As an undergraduate anthropology major, my first physical anthropology course was quite an experience. It was the 1st meeting of the class that is hard to forget. In the midst of jokes there was an unsettling undercurrent. The instructor was not so jovial about one thing: that Darwinian evolution was a FACT and NOT a THEORY. She warned us in no uncertain terms that she would entertain NO questions with regard to the facticity of evolution. What struck me as odd at the time was her tone of exasperation at even the anticipation of an underling wasting her time arguing this 'fact.'"
"Well, noses run in my family too. I knew, right off the proverbial bat wing, that something smelled fishy, but it took me several years to realize that she was only one of the countless college professors, biologists, science writers, scientific researchers, philosophers, and publishers with a vested psychological, emotional and financial interest in Darwinian evolution. Evolutionary theorists bank on the hope that this theory is too complicated for most of us to fathom, and that we will not ask questions out of fear of appearing ignorant of the supposed facts. More often than not, however, the questions most people have about evolution are very appropriate and intelligent. The truth is, some logic and a little horse sense is really all you need to understand what Darwin was trying to say. It's the mess his followers, so-called neo-Darwinists, have made of it that often takes real patience to decipher"
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For quite the same reasons as above, British astronomer, Sir Fred Hoyle, proponent of the Modern Theory of Panspermia, has mathematically dismissed the chance of evolution being an actual occurrence, arguing that "even if the whole Universe consisted of organic soup ... the chance of producing merely the basic enzymes of life by random processes without intelligent direction would be about 1 over a 1 with 40,000 zeros after it; a probability too small to imagine."
Hoyle concludes that "Darwinian evolution is most unlikely to get even one polypeptide sequence right, let alone the thousands on which living cells depend for survival."
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To finish my review ---
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=>Darwin's Many Errors<=
Numerous books could be written about Darwin's many errors, and many excellent books have been written.
Another of Darwin's significant errors was actually the basis for his natural selection hypothesis: that is, the "struggle for existence." Darwin drew an analogy from Thomas Malthus's view of the human "struggle for existence" to animals in the wild, claiming that animals fight for the same "niches." Darwin proposed that due to this struggle animals were forced to evolve into subsidiary forms in order to survive in different niches.
In fact, as we now know from a profusion of animal studies, animal populations do not conform to this prognosis. As Lee Spetner notes, "Darwin erred in the insight that led him to his theory of evolution.
Animals do not hug the brink of disaster. Population size is not controlled by starvation, disease or predation. Populations are kept in check ... by intrinsic forces built into the animals themselves."
There is no struggle for existence in the animal world. This point is also made starkly clear in James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis's GAIA Theory.
Darwin's second error, according to Spetner, is that if positive mutations occurred often enough, they "may readily become established in the populations."
As Spetner notes, this has been shown to be wrong. "Darwin erroneously thought that even the smallest improvements would be selected," in individuals and saved in the population like hitting the "saved" button.
In fact, paleontologist, George Gaylord Simpson, acknowledged that "a single mutation has little chance of staying in the population." Spetner points out a common error in popular Darwinist writings that might lead to this misconception. Darwinists tend to transpose the language of "transmission genetics" (how individuals pass on their genes to descendants) into the language of "population genetics" (how gene frequencies change in a population) without noting that they are talking about two different things.
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(Spetner, 56) Following is a list of just some of the problematic assumptions of the NDT that Spetner magnificently highlights:
* =>Genetic rearrangements appear to be non-random they occur with precision
* =>Mutations in higher animals are infrequent
* =>Rarity of copying errors, low error rates in DNA copying
* =>NDT allows only the smallest mutation rate. A mutation must be both beneficial and must also add a little bit of information to the genome, but not too much information
* =>In order to explain all the complexity around us, a mutation must add information. There are no known, clear examples of a mutation that has added information.
* =>The mutation that leads to the improvement must be a dominant gene, that is, must be expressed in the phenotype even if it's on only one of the two chromosomes that carries the gene. Otherwise, the male and female (if it were a recessive gene) would have to find each other to mate.
* =>A mutation, even if favorable, has a small chance of establishing itself in the species if it occurs only once. Slight individual improvements have a tendency to disappear in the population.
* =>Small populations promote the survival of a single gene more than large ones do. This poses a problem for the NDT.
As Spetner writes, "The events necessary for cumulative selection are much too improbable to build a theory on.
The events needed for the origin of life are even more improbable."
Spetner concludes:
There may be good reasons for being an atheist, but the neo-Darwinian Theory of Evolution isn't one of them.
- Lee Spetner, Not By Chance
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Suggested Reading in - Darwinian Dissent / Intelligent Design / History of Science / Conscious Universe
*Gregory Bateson, et. al.
Angels Fear: Towards an Epistemology of the Sacred.
Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity (Advances in Systems Theory, Complexity, and the Human Sciences).
Sacred Unity.
*Michael Behe, et al.
Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge To Evolution.
Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe.
*David Bohm
Thought As a System.
The Undivided Universe.
Wholeness and the Implicate Order.
*Deepak Chopra, et. al.
The Conscious Universe.
The Cosmic Mind and the Submanifest Order of Being.
The Quantum Physics of Soul and Spirit.
Science and Soul: The Survival of Consciousness After Death.
*Michael Cremo
Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race (1998)
The Hidden History of the Human Race (Condensed Edition) (1999)
Forbidden Archeology's Impact: How a Controversial New Book Shocked the Scientific Community and Became an Underground Classic (1998)
Human Devolution: A Vedic Alternative to Darwin's Theory (2003)
*William Dembski, et. al.
The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities.
The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions about Intelligent Design.
How Blind Is the Watchmaker?: Nature's Design
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