Which Way Does Evolution Go?

Archeology produces a scandalous sensation

Photo: Which Way Does Evolution Go?

Famous American Michael Cremo, the author of the world best sellers Forbidden Archeology and The Hidden History of the Human Race, delivered a lecture at the Ethnology and Anthropology Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It is also expected that the scientist will deliver lectures at the Philosophy Institute and will appear on radio and TV. Traditional anthropology hasn't seen yet such a trouble-maker as Michael Cremo: He calls into question the most undisputed beliefs and even has big ideas about Charles Darwin.

Michael Cremo is not an impostor; he is a certified historian and a member of the World Archeologists Congress and the European Archeologists Association. He has several times participated in and spoken at respectable international congresses and delivered lectures at Britain's Royal Geographical Society. This time, he is delivering his lectures in Russia. The atmosphere of Cremo's lectures is reminiscent of once-popular speeches about UFOs.

Michael Cremo is dressed in an austere suit, but his haircut is not in a professorial style: he wears his grayish thin hair in a bun. The duality in the professor's appearance follows a duality in his scientific theories. Before Michael Cremo acquainted readers with his research, he acted as an experienced attorney and voiced some warnings saying that a filter exists that rules out all unwanted information contradicting common dogma. We agree that this is so, but at the same time this doesn't mean at all that any conjecture contradicting the traditional theories deserves unthoughtful credit.

Michael Cremo has collected a heap of so-called artifacts that have turned the inner sanctum of the archeological world upside down. In many expeditions, archeologists have found remains that didn't fit the conventional theory of evolution going from anthropoid apes to the euhominid that appeared 100-150 thousand years ago. Any scientific experiment may result in errors, which can be shown with new experiments. The artifacts collected by Michael Cremo in archeology have been overlaid with other discoveries about from whence the existing evolutionary tree arose. But the professor acts like a deft magician and takes out of his bag only what he himself needs.

In his lectures, Michael Cremo tries not to scare the audience away and starts with discoveries that are less shocking. First, he mentions some discoveries that put the period when the modern man appeared 430 thousand years back. Then he mentions something that puts the moment back by 800 thousand years. The professor says: "Some paleo-anthopologists rate the cultural level of the ancient orthograde creature at the level of a human being. My idea is that it would be more logical to place the moment at the time the euhominid appeared."

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Cremo thinks  human beings appeared on the American continentnot12 thousand years ago after moving from Asia, but hundreds of thousands of years ago. The adjustment seems to be extremely important for America's self-esteem.
 
Waiting till the slight whispers are over, Professor Cremo consolidates his success. He reports other discoveries from which it follows that the euhominid appeared 3.5 million years ago! Science is erroneously sure that, at that time, only hominids resembling chimpanzees were running about the savanna. The professor says that quite enough remains belonging to that period have been found and even the appearance of Australopithecus has been shown. But Michael Cremo is sure that human beings were living and working side by side with Australopithecus.

The above-mentioned facts certainly may produce a revolution in science. But as it turns out, the scientist has even more shocking facts on hand. He says that contemporary man is 20 million years old! And maybe even 30 million years old! Although these discoveries were made at the earliest stage of archeology when methods for determining periods were extremely primitive, it doesn't matter that museum exhibits are said to be of different ages; all the same, Michael adds them to his reserve.

Darwin’s theory needs adjustment, the professor says. "It is not only my responsibility, but even yours! I think that Darwin's theory cannot be modified so that it could go with these discoveries. We need some other approach, I state in my book De-Evolution of the Human Being. I am going to prove, that in the development process, man doesn't go up the evolutionary stairs, but, on the contrary, he goes downstairs. Otherwise, what can be the explanation to the fact that human beings are destroying the environment and jeopardizing their survival already in the last 100-200 years?"

These ideas gave rise to different opinions in the scientific world. Anthropologist Richard Leakey says Cremo's ideas are nonsense which only stupid people can take seriously. Doctor of history Alexander Zubov says: "Evolution is a chain of continuous changes. If we take periods of tens of millions of years, as Michael Cremo does, great evolutionary changes would have taken place within that period of time. But now it turns out that homo sapiens was living 20 million years ago and at present are the same creatures. Argumentation saying that crocodiles and turtles haven't changed over millions of years is not well-founded. Primitive sponges don't change even within billions of years. But human beings are highly developed creatures with a brain. Any anthropologist knows that evolution never passes by highly developed creatures."

American anthropologist Jonathan Marks says Michael Cremo’s stories are charming fictions for those who like the so-called “popular anthropology for ignoramus.”: "It's a real collection of absurd figments."

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