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Re: FWD: re:Forbidden Archaeology author replies
Ralph L Holloway (rlh2@COLUMBIA.EDU)
Sat, 16 Mar 1996 17:36:46 -0500
On Sat, 16 Mar 1996, John Cole. wrote:
> I just received this item from one of the authors of *Forbidden Archaeology,*
> source of much of the infamous NBC show. Cremo was interviewed several times
> on the show. Apparently the show is spawning a further "documentary" based on
> the book alone....
>
> --John R. Cole
Hopefully, there is a touch of bravado in his assertions regarding his
"success" to sell his book. On the other hand, if NBC can sell Mysterious
Origins at Prime time, I guess Cremo can sell "Forbidden Archaeology"
(I'll bet anything that conjurs up images of illicit love making for some
folks...) to the world at large. Wake me up when it is translated into
Sanskrit, please. This is just another charlatan laughing all the
way to
the bank...Real cute, disowning the footprints as 'uncertain" when
they've been proven as fakes, or totally misinterpreted, and the
disownment of the Atlantis bit gives him real credibility I suppose!
Maybe they can get Roseanne or someone from the woman's far right to do a
Charleton Heston bit . Anatomically modern Homo sapiens at tens of million
years ago, huh? The stuff about evolutionary theory and Darwin is the
giveaway that the man doesn't know hisa ass from his elbow.
Ralph Holloway
> 6 13:19:20 +0500
> Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 13:05 -0500 (EST)
> From: "LINK: Michael Cremo" <Michael.Cremo@iskcon.com>
> Subject: nbc television show
> Sender: Michael.Cremo@iskcon.com
> To: jrc@tei.umass.edu
>
> Dear John,
>
> A friend has sent me copies of some of your postings to internet discussion
> groups regarding the recent NBC television show Mysterious Origins of Man. I
> don't have time to follow all the lenghty discussions on the relevant groups,
> so I have asked that the following message be posted for me by a friend. After
> the message you will find some additional comments for you, personally.
>
> MESSAGE BEGINS
>
> A friend has forwarded to me copies of messages related to the NBC television
> show "The Mysterious Origins of Man" that aired February 25. As the principal
> author of the book Forbidden Archeology, which was featured on the show, I have
> a few general comments in response to the messages that were posted to this
> group.
>
> First, I do n ot agree with everything that was presented on that
show. For
> example, I have studied the case of the Paluxy man tracks and decided it is not
> possible to conclude whether or not they are genuine human tracks. For that
> reason, I did not include them in the evidence for extreme human antiquity
> catalogued in Forbidden Archeology. Neither do I subscribe to the views that
> the show presented on Atlantis, massive rapid displacements of the entire crust
> of the earth, etc.
>
> But I will stand behind the material that came from Forbidden Archeology and
> the conclusions that can be drawn from it. In brief, there is a lot of
> scientifically reported archeological evidence that puts the existence of
> anatomically modern humans back tens of millions of years. This evidence was
> not culled from the National Enquirer, but from standard scientific journals of
> the past 150 years. In examining the treatment of the reports of this anomalous
> evidence, there appears to be a pattern of unwarranted dismissal, based not so
> much on the quality of the evidence itself but on its out-of-bounds position
> relative to orthodox paradigms of human origins.
>
> I have presented academic papers on this topic at the World Archeological
> Congress 3 in New Delhi, in December 1994, and at the Kentucky State University
> Institure for Liberal Studies Sixth Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on
> Science and Culture, April 1995. I am quite pleased that not everyone in the
> scientific world is reacting to the book with the kind of conditioned negative
> response that seems so prevalent in the messages posted recently to this group.
>
> For example, Tim Murray, archeologist and historian of archeology at La Trobe
> University, said in a recent review of Forbidden Archeology in British Journal
> for the History of Science (1995, vol. 28, pp. 377-379): "I have no doubt that
> there will be some who will read this book and profit from it. Certainly it
> provides historians of archaeology with a useful compendium of case studies in
> the history and sociology of scientific knowledge, which can be used to foster
> debate within archaeology about how to describe the epistemology of one's
> discipline." Tim also guardedly admitted that the religious perspective of
> Forbidden Archeology might have some utitlity: "The 'dominant paradigm' has
> changed and is changing, and practitioners openly debate issues which go right
> to the conceptual core of the discipline. Whether the Vedas have a role to play
> in this is up to the individual scientists concerned." This is not to say that
> Tim endorses the conclusions or analytical methodology of Forbidden Archeology.
> He does not, and has personally told me so. But the point is this--Forbidden
> Archeology is worth reading, and I hope anyone who wants to comment on the
> elements of it that were communicated in the NBC show would read it before
> launching into their critiques. The only mention of the book's Vedic
> perspective is found in a few sentences in the introduction. Otherwise, the
> main text of Forbidden Archeology is composed of archeological reports and
> analytical discussion.
>
> MESSAGE ENDS
>
> I found the quality of your messages surprisingly low. It seems your main
> argument against Forbidden Archeology is that it is "a Hare Krsna book." That
> is no secret. I acknowledged my affiliation and motivation in the introduction.
> If appeal to religious prejudice is your strongest card, I feel sorry for you.
> Although I can understand your outrage at the NBC show, I think you should take
> it as one more sign that the cultural and intellectual hegemony of
> fundamentalist Darwinism is over. There are lots of competing ideas out here,
> and they are growing stronger, not weaker. As far as Forbidden Archeology is
> concerned, I don't think you have heard the last of it. Right after the NBC
> show, a producer called me with an offer to do a 90 minute documentary just on
> the book. I would welcome that. Also, foreign publishers are snapping up
> translation rights for the book. Contracts for German, Spanish, Italian, and
> Russian editions have already been signed, and I've recently received inquiries
> from others, including Japanese and Romanian companies. And guess what--the NBC
> show is going to be broadcast in other countries as well. You know, it must
> have been interesting to be a Darwinist in the 1860s, when it was a new and
> challenging idea, and the promoters of the idea had to stand on their own two
> feet. But to be an uncritical defender of an outmoded, dusty nineteenth-century
> dogma, on behalf of a lumbering, creaking intellectual orthodoxy, seems quite
> boring to me.
>
>
> Sincerely,
> Michael A. Cremo
>
> ****
> If I recall, I referred to "Krsna Kreationism" in one post, noting that it was
> not just Christian fundamentalism involved....and I hardly see that as a low
> blow!
> --John Cole
>
>
>
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