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8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Magnificently Readable Text on Modern Science!, August 21, 2002
Michael Brass, an active archaeologist, examines not only how contemporary science works, and why its results are accurate, but does so in a clear, readable style which will delight those who dread struggling through another "techno-babble" book in their attempt to figure out what is genuinely scientific and what isn't. While there are many excellent books explaining why Bible-based creationism--the kind one normally encounters--is not science, "The Antiquity of Man" is the first book to examine the Hindu form of creationism advocated by Cremo & Thompson, and to clearly demonstrate why this form of creationism, while it claims to be scientific, is actually pseudoscience, not genuine science. As one would expect, given the fact that the author is an archaeologist, the book devotes more space to archaeological issues and methodology than to any other single discipline; yet Michael Brass still manages to cover, very knowledgeably--and readably!--the entire spectrum of the evolutionary sciences, from geology to genetics, and from anthropology to biology. If you look at his picture on the back cover, you'll be astounded that someone who looks so young can have such an encyclopedic fund of knowledge, and have it so securely that he can express it clearly, simply, and understandably. As you read this book, you gradually find yourself understanding the elements of the scientific method common to many different sciences. As you gain this knowledge, painlessly and even enjoyably, you gradually come to be able to recognize genuine science, and to distinguish it very clearly from beliefs which claim to be scientific but do not "do" science. This book is, admittedly, a polemic against a pseudoscientific set of beliefs and claims put forth by Cremo & Thompson in "Forbidden Archaeology" and other works. But the way Michael Brass has chosen to combat this particular set of beliefs and claims is to combat pseudoscience itself, by teaching the reader what genuine science is, and how it works. And the amazing thing is that Brass succeeds in doing precisely that. In summary, if you buy no other nonfiction book this year, buy "The Antiquity of Man", by Michael Brass. Read this book, and you'll never be the same--and you won't regret it.
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