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Alternate Perceptions Magazine, January 2018


Skeptics, the Smithsonian, & Ages of the Giants

by: Dr. Greg Little




“I went to a skeptic’s meeting once and couldn’t believe what I heard.” Oscar Wilde

Prior to Christmas (2017) I obtained a copy of the just-issued book, “Ages of the Giants,” by Jason Jarrell and Sarah Farmer. The book (300 pages) is about “giant” or tall skeletal remains recovered primarily from American mounds during excavations performed in the 1800s to the late 1900s. The book defines “giants” as exceptionally tall individuals ranging in height from over 6-feet to 8 feet, and consistently refers to them as the “tall ones.” As many readers know, there were about two-dozen reliable reports of such skeletal remains excavated and carefully recorded by the Smithsonian and other archaeologists. Over a thousand similar reports were made in various other popular publications. Some of these “other” reports were exaggerations or hoaxes, but certainly not all of them. I’ve barely had time to delve into the book and will later make a full review. However, an aspect of the book presented in the book’s beginning and addressed again at its end caught my attention.

For a couple years I have been slowly piecing together a book that specifically addresses the overt lies, distortions, and deliberate falsifications presented by skeptics about such topics. So far it has quite a few items that have been put forth by academics, supposed professionals, archaeologists, and others who present themselves as skeptics who allegedly issue the “scientific truth” about such matters. It is astonishing and surprising how supposed scientists, Wikipedia entries, and textbooks can be littered by so many complete falsehoods. In reality, the psychological reaction by the “alternative historian” community is very understandable once one grasps how just one such false entry can drive individuals to reject anything these alleged holders of “science” purport as truth. This area is a virtual treasure chest of fodder for psychologists. One part of the book I’ve completed is a statistical evaluation of an entire cadre of “American Skeptics” listed by Wikipedia. Wikipedia has a group of devoted “guerilla skeptics” who task themselves with making “alternative” theory proposers look as bad as possible while enhancing skeptics to make them appear as reliable and sensible as possible. It’s an intriguing endeavor that is fertile ground for a psychological study. I have found that the vast army of skeptics is dominated by middle-age, older Whites, and mainly males. My most perplexing interest in this is precisely what motivates skeptics to be so militant in their actions, so extreme that some of them put out what some have perceived as hate blogs and articles designed to demean and utterly destroy individuals who they sometimes assert have mental issues. There are a few skeptics who make a fair amount of money, but that’s not the main motive festering inside most of them. What is the deeper motivation that drives individuals supposedly representing science to overtly lie to such an extent? One possible relevance to this question is in Jarrell & Farmer’s new book, and it is proposed very early.

In their “Preliminary Remarks” (p. 4) they cite a quote written by archaeologist James Griffin about how the status quo is maintained: “we accept those dates we like, we reject those we dislike, and we manipulate the rest.” This is an issue that I have repeatedly addressed in books, and in a book I’m presently completing with Britain’s Andrew Collins, it is again addressed. Just two pages later in their book, Jarrell & Farmer cite the key issue of the “tall ones:” “the problem is that the establishment does not acknowledge them in spite of their discovery. There are some modern professionals who are more than aware of the large remains but consider them to be of no significance to American prehistory, while others continually seek to discredit their existence.”

Why? Why is there a very ardent group of skeptics who continually argue that none of the reports of giant skeletons are valid? Why do others, who admit that “some” 7-foot skeletons were found, then argue that they mean nothing? In Chapter 1 of their book, Jarrell & Farmer link this to the Smithsonian’s leadership in the late 1880s to the mid-1900s who were motivated by a dark and insidious belief system. They relate, “Indeed, there was something darker, which had crept into the National Museum—and the heart of America itself…” It was the idea of eugenics and formation of the American Eugenics Society. Not surprisingly, you won’t find much information on the early ideas promoted by this group on Wikipedia—which soon changed its name. In fact, you can find very little information on the first ideas espoused by the American Eugenics Society on Wikipedia or on their own sites, as if it has been sanitized by the Wiki Skeptics.

In their Postscript, Jarrell & Farmer go into more detail into how they see that the early eugenics ideology motivated the scientific community to both discount and even deny the existence of the “Tall Ones”—who had been the leaders of some of ancient Native America’s Mound-Building populations. In essence, denying the existence of the tall and powerful leaders of ancient Naïve Americans was seen as a necessary task in order to promote the White, predominately European ancestry population as the supreme race. So, is that the deepest and darkest motive underlying skeptics’ ardent maintenance of the status quo? Are they wittingly or unwittingly promoting White supremacy?

I’m certain that many of the skeptics would react harshly to this accusation, but then it’s still necessary to ask why the existence of a statistically improbable number of tall skeletons is so threatening to them? If it’s true that ancient America did have an exceptionally tall ruling class of people, what would that mean? Clearly, it means that the view we have of America’s first migrants is a bit different that what we have been told. Clearly it would mean that some of the stories told by the early explorers to North and South America of exceptionally tall people were true. Clearly it gives credence to the observation recorded by none other than Charles Darwin as he witnessed and documented the extermination of a population of tall natives in South America.



p.s.

One of the things that the alternative community should do is create a systematic way to provide genuine and unsanitized information to the public. We write books and issue articles, but we fail to address the misinformation that pops up first on most searches of the internet. We need a Wikipedia-like site that allows us to present our ideas and theories without having skeptics change it to suit themselves. We need to have entries on the skeptics themselves that present the unvarnished truth about them. The way and the means exist for that.


Sunday, November 03, 2024