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Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact

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If "science" is defined as a technique for gaining an understanding of the world around us, many "scientific" disciplines are in fact profoundly unscientific. In "Red Earth, White Lies," Vine Deloria, Jr. clearly demonstrates how conjecture can attain the status of fact, even in the face of overwhelming contradictory evidence. Perhaps even more condemning is Deloria's depiction of how alternative ideas, most notably indigenous traditions, are frequently (typically) cast aside without any investigation whatsoever, simply because they conflict with currently accepted norms.

"Red Earth, White Lies" is a wonderfully provocative indictment of how historical sciences, such as anthropology, geology, and ecology (my own field) frequently fail in practice. Nevertheless, perhaps without realizing it, Deloria relies on the very hallmarks of modern science; alternative hypotheses, critical analysis, and crucial evidence, to make his case.

Here, unfortunately, is where "Red Earth, White Lies" loses much of its power. While Deloria succeeds in casting doubt on many beliefs cherished by entrenched academics, he typically does not subject his own hypotheses to the same treatment. Even more unfortunate, Deloria himself employs some of the techniques he most violently condemns in academics, including the selective use of information (the most obvious example is on page 58) and summary dismissal of entire world-views on the basis of a superficial understanding (his entire discussion of evolutionary biology, for example).

Even though "Red Earth, White Lies" occasionally stumbles, Deloria has done all of us a great service, by proving that scientists are only human and that many scientific "facts" are in reality little more than conjectures. If you identify yourself as a "scientist," you will be (and should be) challenged! If you are not a scientist, then perhaps you will see those who are in a whole new light. "Red Earth, White Lies" is a fascinating read, no matter who you are.

Vine Deloria Jr.'s book is a very useful and merited challenge to a whole host of theories, especially the Bering Strait land bridge, magafauna extinction ("Overkill") and some other things in which U.S. racism, capitalist waste and ruthlessness towards the environment, and scientistic narrowness are shown to be the underlying roots of these theories. However, I can't help but feel that Deloria both throws the baby out with the bathwater based on a kind of "multicultural creationism". For example, his attacks on Stephen J. Gould are almost ridiculous at times (given his prominence, not as a mainstream Darwinian, but as a 'catastrophist' and anti-sociobiologist) and represent the fact that he never got past Gould's first collection of essays. Also, Gould and others have for years defended allopatric speciation, which would allow a species' 'gestation' in 5-10,000 years. This type of narrow, shotgun scholarship makes Deloria subject to exactly the type of criticism he so correctly levels at academia. Also, his knowledge of genetics and evolution seem to leave a lot to be desired, and he clearly does not expect the reader to be scientifically literate (otherwise, he would not be able to make some of the peculiar remarks he makes about speciation). Anyone familiar with modern biology cannot but be amazed at how his work is little more than a reworking of Christian Fundamentalist creationism (or vice versa). Having said that, Deloria's value as an anti-racist, as a defender of the worth and validity and richness of non-white, non-European sources of knowledge is more than worth the occaissional bad science and anti-intellectualism. All I can say is that this is essential reading for anyone learning about the material he covers, and for thinking about how racism and power can determine whose knowledge is 'myth and fantasy' as much as it determines who is the 'terrorist' and who is the 'freedom fighter'. A must read book.

This book is valuable and timely, as it rips apart the frankly idiotic notion - peddled by the likes of Paul Martin - that prehistoric man wiped out the Pleistocene megafauna in North America - and presumably everywhere else in the world. Such nonsense can, of course, only be propagated by completely ignoring volumes of geological and palaeontological evidence showing clearly that these creatures were destroyed in a natural cataclysm. Deloria reviews some of this evidence, as well as some of the evidence of Native American tradition, which described this catastrophe in some detail. In fact, native traditions from all over the world, as Ignatius Donnelly and Immanuel Velikovsky observed, tell much the same story. People like Paul Martin, however, studiously ignore this material. (How do such people manage to get tenured positions in our universities? Or does that in itself tell us something terrible about the university system?).
Be that as it may, the scholarly consensus is now moving decisively away from Martin and his "overkill" theory in favour of Deloria's catastrophe. One of the most recent books on the topic, The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes, provides a comprehensive overview of the latest scientific findings, such as the iridium layer at the termination of the Pleistocene, which speaks conclusively of a cataclysm. It's a pity Deloria did not live to see these developments.

As a years-long student of prehistory, Mr. Deloria's book was a breath of fresh air. As other reviews here have mentioned, the science here is hardly flawless, but Mr. Deloria does a valuable service in pointing out (among other things) where modern scholarship itself ranges from flawed to unsatisfying to ridiculous. Perhaps the best example he offers is the mass extinctions blamed on the Native American population; for many of us who have studied this matter in depth via geological strata and other methods, climactic change (which Deloria favors) is a far, far better explanation than claiming the Native Americans hunted them into the grave. I highly recommend this book for that reason, as well as the examples he points out of what amounts to racist scholarship--or at best, neglect. While I don't always agree with his work and often wished that he had provided us with more detail in several areas where both the folklore and scientific arguments were concerned, I generally agree with his conclusions, and consider this book a necessary read for anyone wanting to gain a broad understanding of American prehistory.

Deloria attempts to undermine modern science by claiming that scientists are engaged in a massive conspiracy to cover up the truth. He alleges their motivation is to gain favor with the important names in their fields. Calling science "the sterile language of cause and effect," Deloria promotes using Indian legends as the basis of our understanding of the natural world.

Even at the time it was written, many of the ideas Deloria attacks were not held by modern scientists. He often simplifies and distorts scientific theories and methods in order to provide a straw man to argue against. In addition, rather than simply stating his ideas and the evidence he sees in support, he offers little but personal attacks on virtually every scientist with whom he does not agree.

An example of this is his attack on Stephan Jay Gould's comments regarding the migration of the Irish elk over the land bridge between Ireland and continental Europe during a warming period in the last glaciation. Deloria's curious claim that Irish elk could not possibly have migrated over the land bridge because the interstadial period of 1,000 years was too short for the animal to have moved the 21 miles between the continent and England, and the even shorter distance across the land bridge between England and Ireland. His attempt at sarcasm is typical.
"Since the interstadial was only 1,000 years long, or about the time between the fall of Rome and the discovery of America, the Irish elk must have been gathered on the shore waiting for the land bridge to open. It does not seem possible, considering the time that most scientists require for species to pass over a land bridge, for the large deer to make the transfer."

Deloria does make some plausible arguments regarding the Pleistocene overkill (though he loses any credibility by claiming that Eurpoeans must have come to North America, killed the megafauna, and then "just left") and potassium-argon dating. He also makes a useful point that Indian legends can contain helpful clues to understanding natural events. However, there is an error of fact or reasoning on virtually every page of the book, which makes his few solid points difficult to appreciate.

This book has appealed to those who don't understand science. Clearly, Deloria does not, prefering the subjective stories of oral legend. Science often moves slowly to correct its mistakes, and Deloria mischaracterizes that as dishonesty. His book offers an intolerant view of how the world should operate. Deloria is guilty of hypocrisy in arguing in the way he says scientists do.

I'll start this off with a disclaimer. When I was in graduate school at the University of Colorado, Vine Deloria jr. was my favorite professor. He was funny, cynical, iconoclastic, and thought-provoking. This book is Vine Deloria in print.

Vine challenges your assumptions. Do you believe in evolution or the idea that the ancestors of the American Indians came from Asia on the Bering Strait land bridge? You do? For gosh sakes, why???
Vine, with exquisite detail, relentless logic, and taunting satire, reveals the utter absurdities of these theories until you wonder with embarrassment how anyone, scientist or layman, could ever have believed such tall tales.

Likewise Vine demolishes the myth of carbon-dating, tears apart the racist doctrine that early American Indian hunters hunted the wooly mammoth and other megafauna to extintion, and makes a strong case (even stronger in some of his other books) for the works of Immanuel Velikovsky, whose works were banned, boycotted, and ridiculed -- but never disproven -- by mainline "scientists."

I started with a disclaimer, I'll end with a caveat. Just because Vine rips to shreds the myth of evolution, don't assume that he is taking a fundamentalist Christian position. He most assuredly is not. Vine believes the truth of human origins is to be found in the stories of American Indians and of other native peoples around the world. The assault on the glass house of evolution is NOT a science-vs.-fundamentalism thing, it is a bad-science-vs.-truth thing. But it took Vine Deloria to get many of us to realize that just because the theory of evolution is badly flawed and propped up only by the dogmatic religious assertions of the priests of the cult of science, that the creation-stories of the Hebrew Bible are not the only possible alternative.

This book deserves to be read by everyone: white or Indian, Christian or antichrist. Even people who fancy themselves scientific should read this book; if they are brave enough to explore Vine's premises, maybe there will be a little less bad science in the world.

Dr. Deloria writes an interesting book dispelling the "Asian Land Bridge" Theory, showing it to be very bad science. He also shows the arrogant attitude of the scientific community and how they are unwilling to change their basic theories, no matter how many times they are shown they are wrong. He also attacks the idea that Native American legends are necessarily wrong.

An earlier reviewer, Deloria's former student, maintains that this book is not a harbinger of fundamentalism encroaching on new territory, but rather an critique of faulty science. On the contrary, the book itself demonstrates that Deloria does not understand the science he seeks to criticise, using exactly the same specious pseudo-scientific fallacies & sophistries employed with such amazing frequency by Christian creationists. Deloria does not grapple with any of the mature forms of Neo-Darwinian synthesis that constitute present-day biology. Simple test: Look at the index. While Stephen Jay Gould is referenced sixteen times, & Darwin ten, seminal figures such as J.B.S. Haldane, E.O. Wilson, Richard Dawkins, R.A. Fisher, William Hamilton, Robert Trivers, or John Manyard Smith exacly zero. He is 'ripping to shreds' a straw man that the scientists he intends to discredit dismantled long before he got around to it.

Like Deloria's student, I think it wise to keep a distance from wrangling over accusations of fundamentalism or racism, & concentrate instead on Deloria's misapprehension of what science says, & at bottom, is. Rather than futilely kicking against the pricks in a short review such as this, however, I recommend instead that all who are interested in exploring the matter with intellectual integrity read Richard Dawkins, a congenial popularizer, Philip Kitcher (particularly his book *Abusing Science*), a philosopher of science who tackles old-school creationism, & *Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics* (ed. Robert T. Pennock), which counters the new facade of creationsim (used by Deloria), so-called Intelligent Design.

Better yet, have a look at this thorough Amazon So You'd Like To. . . list: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/guides/guide-display/-/1ZVZDKO9Z0ETC/ref=cm_bg_dp_m_2/002-6368276-0565648

One final note. Many people fail to comprehend the meaning of the word 'theory' as it is used within the context of the scientific method. A scientific theory is not some gauzy idea that awaits experimental validation. That is an *hypothesis*. A theory, in the language of science, is a statement of scientific fact that has been subjected to the most rigorous possible experimentation & not been falsified. This differs from the colloquial understanding of the word 'theory'. It is a simple matter of definition that anybody who intends to discuss this issue seriously must grasp. If one doesn't know it one can have no conception of the scientific method, hence rational criticism of it becomes impossible.

The scholarly and political content of Red Earth, White Lies is difficult to parse because 'so called' scientific theory has been detrimentally applied by politicians to the administration of Indian affairs through U.S. government bureaucracy. The attrocities perpetrated against many tribal groups, retold in disturbing detail by Dee Brown's book, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West
would be enough to choke the heart with bitterness, were you or I descended from any one of the peoples so maliciously misused. But Vine DeLoria, scholar and educator that he is, draws us towards historical and scientific evidence that is both ignored and overlooked by scientific and religious ivory towers. (academicians) Though citing scientific evidence, he doesn't argue scientific method, but as a lawyer, argues that the presentation and preservation of evidence is flawed with bias.
In the wisdom of the elders of his people he has the audacity to suggest that the geological record, the fossil record and the political track record have all been shamefully and deliberately, dishonestly reported.

If you purchase this book, I recommend first reading the chapter on Living Fossils (It's the final chapter of the book, enigmatically titled: "At The Beginning") and then going back and studying the political fiasco and scientific (un) documentation of the B.S. (Bering Strait) migration theory. It'll prime your instincts to appreciate DeLoria's tone of sarcasm as he discusses the political science of inter-tribal relations with the government agencies. You should also sense that this sarcasm is supplanting an otherwise very justifiable anger. Even when academicians make a great and useful discovery, it vanishes under the radar where it won't be likely to threaten the well established hierarchical mythology. And there have been congressional representatives past and present, who discussed the interests of American Indians in their districts as though they all should be invited to "go back to China."

Our relationship to our fellow creatures of the world around us is fundamentally different, as told by the traditions of the Elders. And it's some ways amusing to see DeLoria bemoan the lack of cooperation between diverse tribes when engaged in government negotiations. Some of these tribes will not forget their displacement by the Sioux, who were invading from the north. This is a good read to self-critique your own world view, and the manner in which it affects your treatment of others. Foremost, DeLoria challenges the assumption that we are all immigrants to this land.

Vine Deloria Jr. is a true scholar who characteristically approaches his subject with thorough research and disciplined reasoning. Applying geology and precise logic Deloria uncovers some major flaws in the Bering Strait theory. He also points to the fascinating fact that oral histories and legends of Indian nations carry pre-historic events such as major geologic upheavals. In this way, he makes the important point that oral histories should on no account be dismissed. On the other hand, he shows how flawed scientific theories are supported when powerful academics will shut out any new facts or alternate theories just to hold on to their pre-eminence. Even worse, Deloria cites cases where those who dared challenge the authorized theory, can have their careers destroyed. After finding medical pronouncements which contradict each other - ie. margarine is good for you; margarine is bad for you, etc. - it is clear that "science" is an exploratory discipline and that final pronouncements or theories should only be given qualified consideration until all the facts and information are in. This should be kept in mind with the recent speculations regarding the "caucasian" skeletons that have been found on this continent. The political dimensions of "science" are glaringly apparent where some, including scientists, leap to conclusions and use science as a tool for further dispossession of the indigenous nations of the western hemipshere.