Jenn > Recent Status Updates

This is the dang problem with ebooks, every ereader seems to give you a different page breakdown! This is the difference between the Hoopla app and the Hoopla browser extension. In the app, I think this would have been page 37? Nothing to do with the book, I just find it irritating. I'll try to stick to the extension numbers from here on.

I don't have room to quote but basically "science has been proven wrong in the past!"

Yes, that is how science works. It's a method of exploration where the goal is to continue to learn things and disprove things that we currently believe if they are incorrect, not the word of God set down in stone.

"Do academics and archaeologists actively work to suppress new, controversial archaeological finds and ruin those who insist on reporting their anomalous results?"

There are lots of problems with the academic establishment, but academics don't have time to take part in a conspiracy to discredit the latest person who has "found" Atlantis. They're busy grading papers & trying to find someone to fund their research.

"they do prove again and again that we human beings have not necessarily 'evolved' from the most primitive to the most advanced, but have risen and fallen in fits and starts..."

Again, no one is arguing with this. Look at the decline in technology/living standards after the fall of the Roman empire. Not even the most hidebound academic thinks that there's a straight upward-trending line between prehistory and today.

Well this is obviously going to take forever.

"...any theory or postulation is as valid as the next, since we cannot...'really know' our prehistory."

I mean, I can postulate that the earth was colonized by super intelligent hornets from the 9th dimension, but I'm gonna need to bring something to the table to support that, or people will rightly think I'm a nutter.

"...that mainstream guardians of the status quo...cannot hide the fact that there are unanswered questions and mysteries that abound about our prehistory..."

Literally no one is saying that we've answered all the questions about our prehistory. No one. Just because some of us believe extraordinary claims require at least a little evidence doesn't mean the experts think they've figured everything out.

Jesus Christ. I'm not going to debunk von Daniken--people have done that for decades. Hell, I just read a book, Strange Creations, that was published well before this book was compiled, that manages to debunk EvD in about five pages. Also, EVD didn't just suggest "that extraterrestrials might have visited and interacted with people" sometime in the past, he pretty much attributed every human achievement to aliens.

"that what is considered 'fringe science' today is often the 'real' science of tomorrow."

Define "often." I think "occasionally" is probably a better fit. Most "fringe science" remains fringe science, because there's usually a reason it's fringe.

"It's going to take more than a few teeny bits of 'mineral-darkened bone' to change the minds of those holding to the Clovis First theory..."

I mean, SHOULDN'T IT? Or should we throw all accepted ideas out the window at the appearance of any "teeny" anomaly?

"The study of archaeology is rife with misinterpretation..."

Self-burn, dude.

Sigh. We'll see if I can make it through this. Hopefully the actual content is better than this editorial introduction.

"...put modern humans appearing on the scene between 100,000 and 150,000 years ago...hunting and gathering, grunting and living in caves all the while."
That's not what the "accepted academics" say at all. For starters, while early humans used caves, they didn't live in them in the way we think of when we think of cavemen.

"the classic...stories about Atlantis and Lemuria"
Lemuria was postulated in the early 1800s as a hypothesis of how lemur fossils were showing up on two different continents. That hardly makes it "classic", especially in relation to the stories of Atlantis, which date back to 360 BCE. The hypothesis was discarded in favor of continental drift theory.

I don't normally do a "currently reading" update, but I'm a mere 18 pages into the Introduction and I've already seen so many things that bug me, I'm going to have to document them.
1) Peet refers to the "Morgan Sea gypsies." Ugh. They are the Moken people. Even ignoring the use of the slur, not referring to them by their name is rude.