Forbidden Archeology's Impact: How a Controversial New Book Shocked the Scientific Community and Became an Underground Classic [Hardcover]

Michael A. Cremo (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1998

Forbidden Archeology's Impact offers readers an inside look at how mainstream science reacts with ridicule, threats and intimidation to any challenge to its deeply held beliefs.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Michael A. Cremo is an author and researcher specializing in the history and philosophy of science. His persistent investigations during the eight years of writing Forbidden Archeology documented a major scientific cover-up, making him a world authority on archeological anomalies regarding human antiquity.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 592 pages
• Publisher: Torchlight Publishing (January 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892132833
• ISBN-13: 978-0892132836
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.2 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,145,260 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

100 of 118 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Problem With Science., August 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Forbidden Archeology's Impact: How a Controversial New Book Shocked the Scientific Community and Became an Underground Classic (Hardcover)

The problem with the scientific method is that it is driven far too much by theory, and not enough by fact. By which I mean that science moves forward by the development, and subsequent testing, of hypotheses, when at times formation of hypotheses should be strenuously avoided-- because they grow into filters which taint otherwise vital and compelling data.

Science is not comfortable with unknowns. (You thought nature abhorred a vaccuum? Nature's got nothing on science.) So rather than leave a question unanswered (e.g., "How old is mankind?"), science tends to fill in the vaccuum by providing an answer, based on the theory that can obtain the greatest consensus.

The problem arises when these theories and hypotheses become mental constructs-- it is a short hop in the collective consciousness from "the theory supported by the most scientists" to "scientific fact". New data that falls outside these constructs (that is, data which "flies in the face of accepted scientific wisdom!") are assumed to be anomolous, and are tossed aside; data that supports, fits the constructs is sought out and embraced.

Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes often described his detection method as scrupulously collecting facts, while AVOIDING the formation of theories. Keep collecting facts-- without the blind spots imposed by hypotheses-- until you have ruled out all possibilities but one. That remaining possibility, no matter how improbable, is the one true possibility.

I think Cremo has been a bit dramatic in characterizing science as conspiratorial, and it is understandable how the anthropologist (below) could take umbrage. It is not so much "cloak-and-dagger" conspiracy at play, but rather a very tangible limit on-- and flaw in-- the scientific method. That flaw is the need to develop consensus theories to explain the unexplained (rather than leaving a question unknown), and the subsequent phenomenon that these theories become constructs for filtering all new data.

Given that the world is flat, what do you do with evidence that the world is round? Well, you ignore it. Not because you are a conspirator. But because you accept as a given that the world is flat, and that colors your perception of any relevant-- or contrary-- data.

72 of 88 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Read and think before you fight for your views, February 12, 1999

By 

JESPER SAMPAIO - See all my reviews

This review is from: Forbidden Archeology's Impact: How a Controversial New Book Shocked the Scientific Community and Became an Underground Classic (Hardcover)

"Forbidden Archeology's Impact" might be said more appropriately to be a large dossier of letters, papers and documents written by the author and by a great number of people wishing to comment - among other things - on his and Richard Thompson's research into archeological papers containing evidence for extreme human antiquity. The author obviously had no intention of intertwining these textual elements into a cohesive woof, so readers should not expect the book to develop any central argument. Such an argument, however, is to be found in "Forbidden Archeology - The Hidden History of the Human Race" whose intellectual and social impact the present book is intended to register (thus, the dossier-format of this book - and not its contents - explains why I have given it no more than three stars).

Readers interested in the issues of human origins (for which archeologists have unearthed quite a bit of puzzling evidence) and the sociology of scientific knowledge (particularly as applied to Paleo-anthropology and Archeology) should hurry up and acquire the extremely well-written and painstakingly researched "Forbidden Archeology - The Hidden History of the Human Race" (914 pages). Readers will also benefit from a perusal of the customer reviews posted on the respective Amazon.com page. Many of them (excepting my own) are beautifully argumented.

However, the implications of a deep-rooted belief in Darwinism, the unavoidable practice of peer reviews for scientific journals, the few well-known cases of evidence suppressed or twisted by academic institutions, and the utterly subjective nature of all sciences which pretend to account for our true nature and raison d'ętre, have given rise to a very heated debate on the possible existence of worldwide conspiracies and powerful groups of mischievous academicians. Such debates, though they must happen, often lead our attention away from the intellectual revision required by discoveries such as those discussed in Cremo and Thompson's "Forbidden Archeology - The Hidden History of the Human Race". Of course, there's no denying that conspiracies and falsifications of History have occurred and may still occur (sometimes even providentially!), but I think readers should be careful not to get caught up too much in the unwholesome anxiety such speculations are prone to produce.

Conspiracy is not at all at the heart of the matter, so instead of loitering in a state of indignation and fingerpointing, non-zealots would do better in calmly concentrating on two essential facts: 1) There really is a large bulk of acceptable evidence, both archeological and anthropological, for anatomically modern humans living in very remote times, and 2) there is not one example in the fossil record nor a single logical or scientific basis for the claim that animal or plant species can or did create themselves or could ever transform themselves into completely new forms.

Cremo's work has helped expose the fragility and inconsistency of currently favored theories on human evolution, and so has taken an important step towards a new understanding of the discipline of Anthropology. So maybe it really is time we gave up our unintelligible, mechanistic evolutionary models and started taking the wisdom of our forefathers a bit more seriously.

30 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Been there,Done That.........Finally someone else Knows!!, June 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Forbidden Archeology's Impact: How a Controversial New Book Shocked the Scientific Community and Became an Underground Classic (Hardcover)

I am a person who has seen both sides of who,what,and when in anthropology and archeology. I Practiced true skeptism and felt the backlash of the mainstream scientist to other credible evidence. I say this book is the reality check needed by anyone interested in both sides of the story. Highly recommended. Very truthful. I've been there!!