New Scientist denies the fossil record

It is a rare treat these days to see a scientific journal that openly denies the fossil record. It takes a lot of courage and conviction.

So praise then to Jo Marchant in New Scientist for showing that freedom of speech is so cherished that deniers still are allowed to publish in serious magazines even in the Darwin Bicentennial year.

The fossils that comes into play here are of course the strata of sources and eye witnesses from the times in question. One cannot make serious historical claims while ignoring written material and real historians. It is worse than bad science, it is bad manners.

Two examples will suffice.

WHEN Roman civilisation fell in the early centuries AD, the light of scholarship was extinguished. It was close to a thousand years before civilisation recovered, thanks to European scholars who rediscovered classical Greek learning and ushered in the new dawn of the Renaissance.

At least, this is how history is taught. Now two books argue that this view ignores the crucial role of Islamic scholars.

That a long range of books by professional historians like Edward Grant and David Lindberg for decades have shown that the whole outline of history on this "fall" and "recovery" is a myth, is beyond New Scientist.

After this start it is not surprising than New Scientist even denies the dinosaur in the room. The Flat Earth Myth is present in all it's gore.

While the Islamic world was enjoying astronomy, philosophy and medicine, those in Europe could not tell the hours of the day, thought the Earth was flat, and saw disease as punishment from God, says Jonathan Lyons in "The House of Wisdom".

So much the worse for Jonathan Lyons. That a modern scientific magazine perpetuates the myth that European scholars in the middle ages believed to earth to be flat is nothing short than a miracle.

The only hope is to prescribe the normal antidotes, by Russell and Garwood.

Even if it always has been hard to argue against fossil deniers, it may provide some enlightenment.

Though one has some doubts after reading revealing passages like the following.

By the late 12th century, though, the Islamic world was increasingly under threat from Christian armies, and Muslim leaders responded with a return to fundamental religious values. The battle between scientists and theologians was ultimately settled in favour of God. But in Europe, the genie was out of the bottle. The rationalist approach bequeathed by the Arabs "changed forever the landscape of Western thought", says Lyons, and led directly to the scientific revolution.

The reviewer doesn't even begin to get suspicious about the much maligned European society. Why not ask a simple control question on why science in Europe, though allegedly in the clutches of The Church and the Clergy for still many a century, was able to set roots, and have the reasons and resources to grow into modern science?

Not the least as the Arab and Ottoman world had a lot more money and manpower, at least til the 17th century. And the Europeans definitely lost the crusades in precisely the late 12th.

Well, fossils deniers always have had their own peculiar logic.

Cats and credulity

Among a myriad of myths on the Medieval Church is the order to kill cats, millions of them. Which helped contribute to the Black Death, as it was spread by fleas on rats. While other cultures kept their cats and were far less severely hit.

One never gets used to the lack of elementary logic and research behind such stories. It shouldn't take long to see that the Black Death was not much less virulent in China and the Middle East. And that one strand of the plague was air born. Breathing the germs hacked up by someone having it, made you easily get it.

In short, looking at sources provides a different picture.

Cats suffered horribly during witch hunts, which fostered or encouraged all kinds of superstition and brutality. Yet manuscripts show them about the house, playing with the spinster's twirling bobbin, and earning their living on farms. (Excerpts from: Lost Country Life by Dorothy Hartley. New York: Pantheon Books, 1979).

It is hard to avoid the feeling that while the sources tell us that cats were loved and abundant, one has to stick with the myth, as everyone just know it is true.

And it all seems alligned to modern day satanist crazes (and more here).

Still, the standard story is everywhere, even serious places.

"Though cats had always behaved in this manner, to the superstitious minds of the Middle Ages, cats were practicing supernatural powers and witchcraft. Most accused witches were older peasant women who lived alone, often keeping cats as pets for companionship. This guilt by association meant that roughly a million cats were burned at the stake, along with their owners, on suspicion of being witches".

To state the obvious, as no witches were burnt in the Middle Ages, this means that no cats were burnt either. Point proven.

Or perhaps the story is quite another?

"It took the authorities some time to figure out the cause of the problem. At one point they tested the theory that the disease was being spread by dogs and cats; thus the mayor of London ordered the execution of all such pets. Despite the extermination of millions of companion animals, however, the plague did not abate but actually accelerated, for, of course, the elimination of all cats was soon followed by an explosion of the rat population.

Eventually it became evident that people who had kept cats, in violation of the law, fared better; for the cats, according to their nature, killed the rats that carried the fleas that really carried the plague. People slowly began to deduce the rat-flea-disease connection. When the truth finally came to light, cats were quickly elevated to hero status, and soon became protected by law.”

So in reality it was all due to science. The authorities made a testable hypothesis, which then was falsfied.

From this we learn again how dangerous science is. It poisons everything. So be sure to visit you nearest hospital if you ever get hit by a scientist.

1434 and all that

Damian Thompson has another well deserved, timely and to the point go at "Gavin Menzies’ drivel" in The Telegraph.

Every bookshop in Britain is presenting a book called 1434 by Gavin Menzies as a major history title. Like the Olympic spectacular, Menzies' book celebrates Chinese history. Its subtitle is: "The year a magnificent Chinese fleet sailed to Italy and ignited the Renaissance." But, like the Beijing firework display, it is not quite what it seems.

In fact, 1434, published by Rupert Murdoch's HarperCollins, is not a history book in any meaningful sense of the term. That is because, to put it bluntly, a magnificent Chinese fleet did not sail to Italy in 1434 – or, if it did, not a single eyewitness recorded this amazing event. Did the Venetians have their backs to the water when it slipped past?

Read more about this counterknowledge at... eh... Counterknowledge

Vesalius vs. the rib

I have for some time looked at the story of the 16th century anatomist Vesalius who allegedly was persecuted for insisting that men did not have one rib fewer that women.

This is ofte connected to the myth that medical science was held back because the church did not allow the dissection of corpses.

In reality dissection was permitted in Medieval Europe - it was other cultures (the Greeks, Romans and Muslims) that forbade it. Galen's authoritative description of anatomy was in stead based on animals anatomy. As did this not quite match human anatomy, doctors long imagined there to be some errors in their own findings (which mostly was done by assistants anyhow), as Galen was too clever to be wrong.

Medical science seems more hold back by a well deserved respect for the genius of Galen, than from any other single factor.

Anyone interested in medieval medicine could do worse than check out Mondino de’ Luzzi (1270-1326) who wrote a textbook on the dissection of corpses. And the illustration above shows a public dissection in the 1300's.

What about Vesalius and the rib?

The story is told like this by the notorious mythmaker A.E. White in his book on the "Warfare" between science and theology:

"Still other enroachments upon the theological view were made by the new school of anatomists, and especially by Vesalius. During the Middle Ages there had been developed various theological doctrines regarding the human body; these were based upon arguments showing what the body, ought to be, and naturally, when anatomical science showed what it is, these doctrines fell. An example of such popular theological reasoning is seen in a widespread belief of the twelfth century, that, during the year in which the cross of Christ was captured by Saladin, children, instead of having thirty or thirty-two teeth as before, had twenty or twenty-two. So, too, in Vesalius's time another doctrine of this sort was dominant: it had long been held that Eve, having been made by the Almighty from a rib taken out of Adam's side, there must be one rib fewer on one side of every man than on the other. This creation of Eve was a favourite subject with sculptors and painters, from Giotto, who carved it upon his beautiful Campanile at Florence, to the illuminators of missals, and even to those who illustrated Bibles and religious books in the first years after the invention of printing; but Vesalius and the anatomists who followed him put an end among thoughtful men to this belief in the missing rib, and in doing this dealt a blow at much else in the sacred theory. Naturally, all these considerations brought the forces of ecclesiasticism against the innovators in anatomy."

The story is given more twists in a page about P. I. Nixon Medical Historical Library's most valuable book:

"Prior to Pope Sixtus IV's decision at the end of the fifteenth century authorizing human dissection for scientific purposes, "to touch with a scalpel the dead 'image of God' was reckoned impious theology." Sixtus' decree opened the stage for experimentation. As professor of anatomy, Vesalius enjoyed an international reputation that drew huge crowds to the lecture halls. Instead of hiring assistants to handle the cadavers, as was customary in his time, Vesalius personally demonstrated all dissections. He was an irrepressible showman, whose classes were as riveting as theatrical productions."

"With characteristic vigor, Vesalius probed into traditionally held beliefs and, like Galileo, engaged in a lifelong struggle against the established authority. In the "Adam's Rib Controversy" Vesalius contested Church doctrine by proving that the male and the female of the species have an equal number of ribs. He also disputed the "indestructible bone" theory, which had stated that after death, human beings are left with one bone from which a new body is formed at the Resurrection. Under pressure from the Catholic Church, Vesalius finally left Italy to become medical advisor to the kings of Spain, Charles V and Philip II, but his spirit was broken."

Some also insist for some peculiar reason that it instead was the Hellenistic Galen who hold the view (and not the Church based on the Bible

):"Vesalius also disproved the Galen theory that men had a rib less than women and Aristotle's theory that the heart was the body's centre of mind and emotion believing instead that it was the brain and the nervous system."

At one place we are told that

"Another scientist of the renaissance was Vesalius, who was an expert in dissection. He found hundreds of mistakes in the accepted book on anatomy, written by Galen in the second centuryi Apparently Galen had used animals to develop his human anatomy book, while Vesalius used human cadavers. Vesalius, new book on anatomy was denounced by leading teachers, with one scientist proclaiming that he would rather stick with Galen and be wrong than change and be right!

Vesalius was proclaimed a heretic because he could not find certain bones required by the orthodox religion of his day. None of his cadavers had a missing rib, which Adam had supposedly passed on to all of his male descendants, and the "resurrection bone" could not be located, a legendary bone which was supposed to start the restoration of the body at the resurrection. He also failed to locate the soul in the bodies he examined. Discouraged, he destroyed his notes and wasted the rest of his life, but his early book on anatomy was as revolutionary as the work of Copernicus."

Now, it is in fact true that Vesalius writes about the rib:

"It is commonly believed that men lack a rib on one side, and that men have one rib fewer than women. This is plainly absurd, even if Moses did say in the second chapter of Genesis that Eve was created by God out of Adam's rib. Granted that perhaps Adam's bones, had someone articulated them into a skeleton, might have lacked a rib on one side, it does not necessarily follow on that account that all men are lacking a rib as well. Aristotle attributed only eight ribs to humans, and was ready to allow that certain members of the race of the Turduli were born with only seven ribs on each side, provided he established this on the actual testimony of some suitable authority. But as in the latter instance Aristotle was willing to support his opinion only with the testimony of others, it is also not unlikely that in the former instance he ascribed eight ribs to man on hearsay evidence, and in this manner wrongly handed down to us something he had not seen. For if we discover that he was suppositious so many times concerning the fabric of man, what judgement shall we make about the rest of his research into animals?" (The Humani Corporis Fabrica, Bk. I Chapter 19)

However, what he says is that it is "commonly believed", not that most doctors believed it, or that the church had made some kind of doctrine out of it.

And there is in fact little trace of him being persecuted by the Inquisition or anyone else. The story seems in short rather unsupported.

What then is the real story here?

No doubt it may have been a common belief (among at least uneducated people) that Adam had one rib less. Popular prejudices is hard to avoid. However, I can't find any documentation of the Church or Galen really holding or teaching this. Vesalius's book never even was on the Index of books one should not read.

My tentative conclusion then, is that this is another myth. However, if anyone does know more about this, feel free to dissect my rib case.

The Alien Agenda

We all know aliens are out there, however their agenda has not been all that clear.

Why do they stop car engines? Why make all those patterns in crop fields? Why make people pregnant and then removing all traces? Ever wondered why Christians so eagerly deny the existence of UFOs?

And why there is such a conspicuous absence of the ufo subject at every and all Church Council?






The explanation is simple. Some as always truth seeking Gnostics have seen the light:

Judeo-Christian elites and their oppressive ideology (which also drove European Empires), led in turn to the development of modern Western civilization. Therefore, the prejudices by official institutions in Western civilization, (against the free and open discussion of UFO phenomenon and varied human contacts with intelligent Extraterrestrial life), can be illuminated by appreciating Gnostic insights on the alleged motivations of the Judeo-Christian-guided Church which backed founders of Western civilization.

The whole problem is that Western civilisation has been driven by manipulative Christians to seemingly emphazise on science and reason. In reality it has all been a plot by the aliens themselves, who have infiltrated the major theistic religions.

John Lash, in Metahistory.org illuminates, that the original attempt to cover-up and to deceive humanity on reported UFO-related phenomena, is the result of the use of organized religion by the aliens that sought to create opportunistic blinders to critical human awareness of the reality of alien contact. John Lash specifically traces the origins of the cover-up of UFO related phenomena, to the represented Manipulative Extraterrestrial infiltration of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

Debunkers of ufo theories don't really follow reason and evidence. Skeptics like Dawkins are controlled by Christians and alien agents. They are deceived by intelligences beyond their own, which are not difficult to find. Fortunately Gnostics are not so easily fooled.

Indeed, interestingly, the denial of UFO related phenomena including alien sightings tends to be more pervasive in societies where these particular organized religions of Christianity, zionistic Judaism, and fundamentalistic Islam, have been dominant. In China, for example, were Buddhism has been relatively dominant, governments, and the state controlled mass-media in contrast, have been more open to the reporting of UFO phenomena. The traditionally Hindu societal milieu of India has also shown more "tolerance" to reporting on UFOs, than in the West.

Aboriginal and indigenous societies which include those in Africa, and other parts of the world, (who have been able to maintain an independent spirituality from the West), continue to very openly relate historical accounts of varied forms of contacts with UFOs and aliens.

This should lead to a whole new direction for Religious Studies. Comparative Religion and all that has been blind to this for too long. There is a need for bold new paradigms and field studies.

The conclusion is hard to avoid:

Christianity, as a religion, in relation to the Gnostic-represented "doctrine of the aliens", can thus, be viewed as an apparent attempt to deceive humanity from recognizing and understanding the ultimate demonic agents of their oppression, who operate by social engineering to execute the exploitation of humanity.

Still, while alien infiltration may explain some of the more odd behaviour among bishops and muftis, it is easy to see where it all breaks down. Real aliens would have made a far better job at stopping the Gnostic publishing and conference business than just releasing all those anti Da Vinci Code books.

Should have been easy with their broad range of mind control, ray guns and teleportation devices. So there is a lingering doubt that those Gnostics may not have quite got it quite right after all.