by
Will Hart
2002
Extracted from Nexus Magazine
Volume 9, Number 3
April-May 2002
The scientific establishment tends to reject, suppress or ignore evidence
that conflicts with accepted theories, while denigrating or persecuting the
messenger. |
"The Brain Police" and "The Big Lie"
Any time you allege a conspiracy is afoot, especially in the field of
science, you are treading on thin ice. We tend to be very skeptical about
conspiracies--unless the Mafia or some Muslim radicals are behind the
alleged plot. But the evidence is overwhelming and the irony is that much of
it is in plain view.
The good news is that the players are obvious. Their game plan and even
their play-by-play tactics are transparent, once you learn to spot them.
However, it is not so easy to penetrate through the smokescreen of
propaganda and disinformation to get to their underlying motives and goals.
It would be convenient if we could point to a plumber's unit and a boldface
liar like Richard Nixon, but this is a more subtle operation.
The bad news: the conspiracy is global and there are many vested interest
groups. A cursory investigation yields the usual suspects: scientists with a
theoretical axe to grind, careers to further and the status quo to maintain.
Their modus operandi is "The Big Lie" -- and the bigger and more widely
publicized, the better. They rely on invoking their academic credentials to
support their arguments, and the presumption is that no one has the right to
question their authoritarian pronouncements that:
1. there is no mystery about who built the
Great Pyramid or what the methods
of construction were, and the Sphinx shows no signs of water
damage 2. there were no humans in the Americas before
20,000 BC 3. the first civilization dates back no further
than 6000 BC 4. there are no documented anomalous,
unexplained or enigmatic data to take into account 5. there are no lost or unaccounted-for
civilizations.
Let the evidence to the contrary be damned!
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Personal Attacks: Dispute over Age of the Sphinx and Great Pyramid
In 1993, NBC in the USA aired The Mysteries of the Sphinx,
which presented
geological evidence showing that
the Sphinx was at least twice as old (9,000
years) as Egyptologists claimed. It has become well known as the "water
erosion controversy". An examination of the politicking that Egyptologists
deployed to combat this undermining of their turf is instructive.
Self-taught Egyptologist John Anthony West brought the water erosion issue
to the attention of geologist Dr Robert Schoch. They went to Egypt and
launched an intensive on-site investigation. After thoroughly studying the
Sphinx first hand, the geologist came to share West's preliminary conclusion
and they announced their findings.
Dr Zahi Hawass, the Giza Monuments chief, wasted no time in firing a barrage
of public criticism at the pair. Renowned Egyptologist Dr Mark Lehner,
who
is regarded as the world's foremost expert on the Sphinx, joined his attack.
He charged West and Schoch with being "ignorant and insensitive". That was a
curious accusation which took the matter off the professional level and put
the whole affair on a personal plane. It did not address the facts or issues
at all and it was highly unscientific.
But we must note the standard tactic of discrediting anyone who dares to
call the accepted theories into question. Shifting the focus away from the
issues and "personalizing" the debate is a highly effective strategy--one
which is often used by politicians who feel insecure about their positions. Hawass
and Lehner invoked their untouchable status and presumed authority. (One
would think that a geologist's assessment would hold more weight on this
particular point.)
A short time later, Schoch, Hawass and Lehner were invited to debate the
issue at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. West was
not allowed to participate because he lacked the required credentials.
This points to a questionable assumption that is part of the establishment's
arsenal: only degreed scientists can practice science. Two filters keep the uncredentialled, independent researcher out of the loop: (1) credentials,
and (2) peer review. You do not get to number two unless you have number one.
Science is a method that anyone can learn and apply. It does not require a
degree to observe and record facts and think critically about them,
especially in the non-technical social sciences. In a free and open society,
science has to be a democratic process.
Be that as it may, West was barred. The elements of the debate have been
batted back and forth since then without resolution. It is similar to the
controversy over who built the
Giza pyramids and how.
This brings up the issue of The Big Lie and how it has been promoted for
generations in front of God and everyone. The controversy over how the
Great
Pyramid was constructed is one example. It could be easily settled if
Egyptologists wanted to resolve the dispute. A simple test could be designed
and arranged by impartial engineers that would either prove or disprove
their longstanding disputed theory--that it was built using the primitive
tools and methods of the day, circa 2500 BC.
Why hasn't this been done? The answer is so obvious, it seems impossible:
they know that the theory is bogus. Could a trained, highly educated
scientist really believe that 2.3 million tons of stone, some blocks
weighing 70 tons, could have been transported and lifted by primitive
methods? That seems improbable, though they have no compunction against
lying to the public, writing textbooks and defending this theory against
alternative theories. However, we must note that they will not subject
themselves to the bottom-line test.
We think it is incumbent upon any scientist to bear the burden of proof of
his/her thesis; however, the social scientists who make these claims have
never stood up to that kind of scrutiny. That is why we must suspect a
conspiracy. No other scientific discipline would get away with bending the
rules of science. All that Egyptologists have ever done is bat down
alternative theories using underhanded tactics. It is time to insist that
they prove their own proposals.
Why would scientists try to hide the truth and avoid any test of their
hypothesis? Their motivations are equally transparent. If it can be proved
that the Egyptians did not build the Great Pyramid in 2500 BC using
primitive methods, or if the Sphinx can be dated to 9000 BC,
the whole house
of cards comes tumbling down. Orthodox views of cultural evolution are based
upon a chronology of civilization having started in
Sumeria no earlier than
4000 BC. The theory does not permit an advanced civilization to have existed
prior to that time. End of discussion. Archaeology and history lose their
meaning without a fixed timeline as a point of reference.
Since the theory of "cultural evolution" has been tied to Darwin's general
theory of evolution, even more is at stake. Does this explain why facts,
anomalies and enigmas are denied, suppressed and/or ignored? Yes, it does.
The biological sciences today are based on Darwinism.
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Pressure Tactics: The Ica Stones of Peru
Now we turn to another, very different case. In 1966, Dr Javier Cabrera
received a stone as a gift from a poor local farmer in his native Ica, Peru.
A fish was carved on the stone, which would not have meant much to the
average villager but it did mean a lot to the educated Dr Cabrera. He
recognized it as a long-extinct species. This aroused his curiosity. He
purchased more stones from the farmer, who said he had collected them near
the river after a flood.
Dr Cabrera accumulated more and more stones, and word of their existence and
potential import reached the archaeological community. Soon, the doctor had
amassed thousands of "Ica stones". The sophisticated carvings were as
enigmatic as they were fascinating. Someone had carved men fighting with
dinosaurs, men with telescopes and men performing operations with surgical
equipment. They also contained drawings of lost continents.
Several of the stones were sent to Germany and the etchings were dated to
remote antiquity. But we all know that men could not have lived at the time
of dinosaurs; Homo sapiens has only existed for about 100,000 years.
The BBC got wind of this discovery and swooped down to produce a documentary
about the Ica stones. The media exposure ignited a storm of controversy.
Archaeologists criticized the Peruvian government for being lax about
enforcing antiquities laws (but that was not their real concern). Pressure
was applied to government officials.
The farmer who had been selling the stones to Cabrera was arrested; he
claimed to have found them in a cave but refused to disclose the exact
location to authorities, or so they claimed.
This case was disposed of so artfully that it would do any corrupt
politician proud. The Peruvian government threatened to prosecute and
imprison the farmer. He was offered and accepted a plea bargain; he then
recanted his story and "admitted" to having carved the stones himself. That
seems highly implausible, since he was uneducated and unskilled and there
were 11,000 stones in all. Some were fairly large and intricately carved
with animals and scenes that the farmer would not have had knowledge of
without being a paleontologist. He would have needed to work every day for
several decades to produce that volume of stones. However, the underlying
facts were neither here nor there. The Ica stones were labeled "hoax" and
forgotten.
The case did not require a head-to-head confrontation or public discrediting
of non-scientists by scientists; it was taken care of with invisible
pressure tactics. Since it was filed under "hoax", the enigmatic evidence
never had to be dealt with, as it did in the next example.
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Censorship of "Forbidden" Thinking: Evidence for Mankind's Great Antiquity
The case of author
Michael Cremo is well documented, and it also
demonstrates how the scientific establishment openly uses pressure tactics
on the media and government. His book Forbidden Archeology examines many
previously ignored examples of artifacts that prove modern man's antiquity
far exceeds the age given in accepted chronologies.
The examples which he and his co-author present are controversial, but the
book became far more controversial than the contents when it was used in a
documentary.
In 1996, NBC broadcast a special called The Mysterious Origins of Man, which
featured material from Cremo's book. The reaction from the scientific
community went off the Richter scale. NBC was deluged with letters from
irate scientists who called the producer "a fraud" and the whole program "a
hoax".
But the scientists went further than this--a lot further. In an extremely
unconscionable sequence of bizarre moves, they tried to force NBC
not to
rebroadcast the popular program, but that effort failed. Then they took the
most radical step of all: they presented their case to the federal
government and requested the Federal Communications Commission to step in
and bar NBC from airing the program again.
This was not only an apparent infringement of free speech and a blatant
attempt to thwart commerce, it was an unprecedented effort to censor
intellectual discourse. If the public or any government agency made an
attempt to handcuff the scientific establishment, the public would never
hear the end of it.
The letter to the FCC written by Dr Allison Palmer, President of the
Institute for Cambrian Studies, is revealing:
At the very least, NBC should be required to make substantial prime-time
apologies to their viewing audience for a sufficient period of time so that
the audience clearly gets the message that they were duped. In addition,
NBC
should perhaps be fined sufficiently so that a major fund for public science
education can be established.
I think we have some good leads on who
"the Brain Police" are. And I really
do not think "conspiracy" is too strong a word--because for every case of
this kind of attempted suppression that is exposed, 10 others are going on
successfully. We have no idea how many enigmatic artifacts or dates have
been labeled "error" and tucked away in storage warehouses or circular
files, never to see the light of day.
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Data Rejection: Inconvenient Dating in Mexico
Then there is the high-profile case of Dr Virginia Steen-McIntyre, a
geologist working for the US Geological Survey (USGS), who was dispatched to
an archaeological site in Mexico to date a group of artifacts in the 1970s.
This travesty also illustrates how far established scientists will go to
guard orthodox tenets.
McIntyre used state-of-the-art equipment and backed up her results by using
four different methods, but her results were off the chart. The lead
archaeologist expected a date of 25,000 years or less, and the geologist's
finding was 250,000 years or more.
The figure of 25,000 years or less was critical to the Bering Strait "crossing"
theory, and it was the motivation behind the head archaeologist's tossing Steen-McIntyre's results in the circular file and asking for a new series of
dating tests. This sort of reaction does not occur when dates match the
expected chronological model that supports accepted theories.
Steen-McIntyre was given a chance to retract her conclusions, but she
refused. She found it hard thereafter to get her papers published and she
lost a teaching job at an American university.
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Government Suppression and Ethnocentrism:
Avoiding Anomalous Evidence in NZ,
China and Mexico
In New Zealand, the government actually stepped in and enacted a law
forbidding the public from entering a controversial archaeological zone.
This story appeared in the book, Ancient Celtic New Zealand, by Mark Doutré.
However, as we will find (and as I promised at the beginning of the
article), this is a complicated conspiracy. Scientists trying to protect
their "hallowed" theories while furthering their careers are not the only
ones who want artifacts and data suppressed. This is where the situation
gets sticky.
The Waipoua Forest became a controversial site in New Zealand because an
archaeological dig apparently showed evidence of a non-Polynesian culture
that preceded the Maori--a fact that the tribe was not happy with. They
learned of the results of the excavations before the general public did and
complained to the government. According to Doutré, the outcome was "an
official archival document, which clearly showed an intention by New Zealand
government departments to withhold archaeological information from public
scrutiny for 75 years".
The public got wind of this fiasco but the government denied the claim.
However, official documents show that an embargo had been placed on the
site. Doutré is a student of New Zealand history and archaeology. He is
concerned because he says that artifacts proving that there was an earlier
culture which preceded the Maori are missing from museums. He asks what
happened to several anomalous remains:
Where are the ancient Indo-European hair samples
(wavy red brown hair), originally obtained from a rock shelter near
Watakere, that were on display
at the Auckland War Memorial Museum for many years? Where is the giant
skeleton found near Mitimati?
Unfortunately this is not the only such incident. Ethnocentrism has become a
factor in the conspiracy to hide mankind's true history. Author Graham
Hancock has been attacked by various ethnic groups for reporting similar
enigmatic findings.
The problem for researchers concerned with establishing humanity's true
history is that the goals of nationalists or ethnic groups who want to lay
claim to having been in a particular place first, often dovetail with the
goals of cultural evolutionists.
Archaeologists are quick to go along with suppressing these kinds of
anomalous finds. One reason Egyptologists so jealously guard the Great
Pyramid's construction date has to do with the issue of national pride.
The case of the Takla Makan Desert mummies in western China is another
example of this phenomenon. In the 1970s and 1980s, an unaccounted-for
Caucasian culture was suddenly unearthed in China. The arid environment
preserved the remains of a blond-haired, blue-eyed people who lived in
pre-dynastic China. They wore colorful robes, boots, stockings and hats.
The Chinese were not happy about this revelation and they have downplayed
the enigmatic find, even though Asians were found buried alongside the
Caucasian mummies.
National Geographic writer Thomas B. Allen mused in a 1996 article about his
finding a potsherd bearing a fingerprint of the potter. When he inquired if
he could take the fragment to a forensic anthropologist, the Chinese
scientist asked whether he "would be able to tell if the potter was a white
man". Allen said he was not sure, and the official pocketed the fragment and
quietly walked away. It appears that many things get in the way of
scientific discovery and disclosure.
The existence of the Olmec culture in Old Mexico has always posed a problem.
Where did the Negroid people depicted on the colossal heads come from? Why
are there Caucasians carved on the stele in what is Mexico's seed
civilization? What is worse, why aren't the indigenous Mexican people found
on the Olmec artifacts? Recently a Mexican archaeologist solved the problem
by making a fantastic claim: that the Olmec heads -- which generations of
people of all ethnic groups have agreed bear a striking resemblance to
Africans -- were really representations of the local tribe.
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STORM-TROOPERS FOR DARWINISM
The public does not seem at all aware of the fact that the scientific
establishment has a double standard when it comes to the free flow of
information. In essence, it goes like this... Scientists are highly
educated, well trained and intellectually capable of processing all types of
information, and they can make the correct critical distinctions between
fact and fiction, reality and fantasy. The unwashed public is simply
incapable of functioning on this high mental plane.
The noble ideal of the scientist as a highly trained, impartial, apolitical
observer and assembler of established facts into a useful body of knowledge
seems to have been shredded under the pressures and demands of the real
world. Science has produced many positive benefits for society; but we
should know by now that science has a dark, negative side. Didn't those meek
fellows in the clean lab coats give us nuclear bombs and biological weapons?
The age of innocence ended in World War II.
That the scientific community has an attitude of intellectual superiority is
thinly veiled under a carefully orchestrated public relations guise. We
always see Science and Progress walking hand in hand. Science as an
institution in a democratic society has to function in the same way as the
society at large; it should be open to debate, argument and
counter-argument. There is no place for unquestioned authoritarianism. Is
modern science meeting these standards?
In the Fall of 2001, PBS aired a seven-part series, titled Evolution. Taken
at face value, that seems harmless enough. However, while the program was
presented as pure, objective, investigative science journalism, it
completely failed to meet even minimum standards of impartial reporting. The
series was heavily weighted towards the view that the theory of evolution is
"a science fact" that is accepted by "virtually all reputable scientists in
the world", and not a theory that has weaknesses and strong scientific
critics.
The series did not even bother to interview scientists who have criticisms
of
Darwinism: not "creationists" but bona fide scientists. To correct this
deficiency, a group of 100 dissenting scientists felt compelled to issue a
press release, "A Scientific Dissent on Darwinism", on the day the first
program was scheduled to go to air. Nobel nominee Henry "Fritz" Schaefer
was
among them. He encouraged open public debate of Darwin's theory:
Some defenders of Darwinism embrace standards of evidence for evolution that
as scientists they would never accept in other circumstances.
We have seen this same "unscientific" approach applied to archaeology and
anthropology, where "scientists" simply refuse to prove their theories yet
appoint themselves as the final arbiters of "the facts". It would be naive
to think that the scientists who cooperated in the production of the series
were unaware that there would be no counter-balancing presentation by
critics of Darwin's theory.
Richard Milton is a science journalist. He had been an ardent true believer
in Darwinian doctrine until his investigative instincts kicked in one day.
After 20 years of studying and writing about evolution, he suddenly realized
that there were many disconcerting holes in the theory. He decided to try to
allay his doubts and prove the theory to himself by using the standard
methods of investigative journalism.
Milton became a regular visitor to London's famed Natural History Museum.
He
painstakingly put every main tenet and classic proof of Darwinism to the
test. The results shocked him. He found that the theory could not even stand
up to the rigors of routine investigative journalism.
The veteran science writer took a bold step and published a book titled The
Facts of Life: Shattering the Myths of Darwinism. It is clear that the
Darwinian myth had been shattered for him, but many more myths about science
would also be crushed after his book came out. Milton says:
I experienced the witch-hunting activity of the Darwinist police at first
hand - it was deeply disappointing to find myself being described by a
prominent Oxford zoologist [Richard Dawkins] as "loony", "stupid" and "in
need of psychiatric help" in response to purely scientific reporting.
(Does this sound like stories that came out of the Soviet Union 20 years ago
when dissident scientists there started speaking out?)
Dawkins launched a letter-writing campaign to newspaper editors, implying
that Milton was a "mole" creationist whose work should be dismissed. Anyone
at all familiar with politics will recognize this as a standard
Machiavellian by-the-book "character assassination" tactic. Dawkins is a
highly respected scientist, whose reputation and standing in the scientific
community carry a great deal of weight.
According to Milton, the process came to a head when the London Times Higher
Education Supplement commissioned him to write a critique of Darwinism. The
publication foreshadowed his coming piece: "Next Week: Darwinism - Richard
Milton goes on the attack". Dawkins caught wind of this and wasted no time
in nipping this heresy in the bud. He contacted the editor, Auriol Stevens,
and accused Milton of being a "creationist", and prevailed upon Stevens to
pull the plug on the article. Milton learned of this behind-the-scenes
backstabbing and wrote a letter of appeal to Stevens. In the end, she caved
in to Dawkins and scratched the piece.
Imagine what would happen if a politician or bureaucrat used such pressure
tactics to kill a story in the mass media. It would ignite a huge scandal.
Not so with scientists, who seem to be regarded as "sacred cows" and beyond
reproach. There are many disturbing facts related to these cases. Darwin's
theory of evolution is the only theory routinely taught in our public school
system that has never been subjected to rigorous scrutiny; nor have any of
the criticisms been allowed into the curriculum.
This is an interesting fact, because a recent poll showed that the American
public wants the theory of evolution taught to their children; however, "71
per cent of the respondents say biology teachers should teach both Darwinism
and scientific evidence against Darwinian theory". Nevertheless, there are
no plans to implement this balanced approach.
It is ironic that Richard Dawkins has been appointed to the position of
Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University.
He is
a classic "Brain Police" stormtrooper, patrolling the neurological front
lines. The Western scientific establishment and mass media pride themselves
on being open public forums devoid of prejudice or censorship. However, no
television program examining the flaws and weaknesses of Darwinism has ever
been aired in Darwin's home country or in America. A scientist who opposes
the theory cannot get a paper published.
The Mysterious Origins of Man was not a frontal attack on Darwinism; it
merely presented evidence that is considered anomalous by the precepts of
his theory of evolution.
Returning to our bastions of intellectual integrity, Forest Mims was a solid
and skilled science journalist. He had never been the centre of any
controversy and so he was invited to write the most-read column in the
prestigious Scientific American, "The Amateur Scientist", a task he gladly
accepted. According to Mims, the magazine's editor Jonathan Piel then
learned that he also wrote articles for a number of Christian magazines. The
editor called Mims into his office and confronted him.
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"Do you believe in the theory of evolution?"
Piel asked.
-
Mims replied, "No, and neither does
Stephen Jay Gould."
His response did not affect Piel's decision to bump Mims off the popular
column after just three articles.
This has the unpleasant odor of a witch-hunt. The writer never publicly
broadcast his private views or beliefs, so it would appear that the
"stormtroopers" now believe they have orders to make sure "unapproved"
thoughts are never publicly disclosed.
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Taboo or Not Taboo?
So, the monitors of "good thinking" are not just the elite of the scientific
community, as we have seen in several cases; they are television producers
and magazine editors as well. It seems clear that they are all driven by the
singular imperative of furthering "public science education", as the
president of the Cambrian Institute so aptly phrased it.
However, there is a second item on the agenda, and that is to protect the
public from "unscientific" thoughts and ideas that might infect the mass
mind. We outlined some of those taboo subjects at the beginning of the
article; now we should add that it is also "unwholesome" and "unacceptable"
to engage in any of the following research pursuits: paranormal phenomena,
UFOs, cold fusion, free energy and all the rest of the "pseudo-sciences".
Does this have a familiar ring to it? Are we hearing the faint echoes of
religious zealotry?
Who ever gave science the mission of engineering and directing the
inquisitive pursuits of the citizenry of the free world? It is all but
impossible for any scientific paper that has anti-Darwinian ramifications to
be published in a mainstream scientific journal. It is also just as
impossible to get the "taboo" subjects even to the review table, and you can
forget about finding your name under the title of any article in Nature
unless you are a credentialled scientist, even if you are the next Albert
Einstein.
To restate how this conspiracy begins, it is with two filters: credentials
and peer review. Modern science is now a maze of such filters set up to
promote certain orthodox theories and at the same time filter out that data
already prejudged to be unacceptable. Evidence and merit are not the guiding
principles; conformity and position within the established community have
replaced objectivity, access and openness.
Scientists do not hesitate to launch the most outrageous personal attacks
against those they perceive to be the enemy. Eminent paleontologist Louis
Leakey penned this acid one-liner about
Forbidden Archeology:
"Your book is
pure humbug and does not deserve to be taken seriously by anyone but a
fool."
Once again, we see the thrust of a personal attack; the merits of the
evidence presented in the book are not examined or debated. It is a blunt,
authoritarian pronouncement.
In a forthcoming installment, we will examine some more documented cases and
delve deeper into the subtler dimensions of the conspiracy.
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References and Resources:
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Cremo, Michael A. and Richard L. Thompson, Forbidden Archeology, Govardhan
Hill, USA, 1993.
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Cremo, Michael A., "The Controversy over 'The Mysterious Origins of Man'",
NEXUS 5/04, 1998; Forbidden Archeology's Impact, Bhaktivedanta Book
Publishing, USA, 1998, website
http://www.mcremo.com.
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Doore, Kathy, "The Nazca Spaceport & the Ica Stones of Peru",
http://www.labyrinthina.com/ica.htm ; see website for copy of Dr Javier
Cabrera's book, The Message of the Engraved Stones.
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Doutré, Mark, Ancient Celtic New Zealand, Dé Danann, New Zealand, 1999,
website
http://www.celticnz.co.nz.
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Milton, Richard, The Facts of Life: Shattering the Myths of Darwinism,
Corgi, UK, 1993,
http://www.alternativescience.com.
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Steen-McIntyre, Virginia, "Suppressed Evidence for Ancient Man in Mexico",
NEXUS 5/05, 1998.
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Sunfellow, David, "The Great Pyramid & The Sphinx", November 25, 1994, at
http://www.nhne.com/specialrepots/spyramid.html.
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Tampa Bay Tribune, October 12, 2001 (Darwinism/evolution quote),
http://www.tampatrib.com
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