New Insights into Antiquity, by Richard Petersen,
Engwald & Co. 4730 E. Indian School Road, Phoenix, AZ 85018
ISBN 0-9662134-1-6 Hardback, $27.95
This book has just been published. This review is being sent to both the
SCICHR and EVOLUTION LISTSERVs.
By copy of this post I (again) invite the author and/or the
publisher to join in dialog on the EVOLUTION LISTSERV.
A web site exists for information & discussion at
www.Swiftsite.com/engwald
The book's thesis is
(1) the principle of Uniformity is
not valid for at least part of earth's history;
(2) by using this assumption contemporary science is not able to explain
certain geological data.
(3) therefore, the POU must be abandoned.
The book is written in the style of a detective story, a
story which unfolds slowly (I think much too slowly)
until the position that the POU has been violated appears
to be the only one possible. I found it interesting
in this respect -- a "good read," although difficult
in places where some geological expertise (I clam none)
would have been useful.
One specific instance of a violation of the POU (the author claims)
happened sometime between 1536 and 1694 in the region of the world
now occupied by the cities of Phoenix/Scottsdale/Tempe. At the beginning
of that period, there existed "Seven Cities of Cibola," large
cities, occupied by thousands of people -- in 1694, the
cities were destroyed, with few ruins left behind, but with an
extensive network of canals documenting their prior existence.
Sometime during this 150 or so years an "unnatural event" occurred, one
which cannot be made to conform to the POU, which
assumes that the laws of nature are invariable over
eons of time and parsecs of space.
If the author is right, much of our "science" of origins, age
of the universe, etc. is, essentially, without meaning. But I digress.
The author claims a doctoral diploma and mentions graduate research in
physics, as well as attendance at the University of Berkeley. He
spent most (all?) of his working life in research/engineering
activities in the semi-conductor industry.
A few quotations from the book will, perhaps, better
illustrate what it is all about.
(page v11). "The central thrust of this work is to expose and
correct certain serious errors about earth's past... ."
(page viii). "...modern Science at its sophisticated best is blind
to long-standing error, ... ."
(page 1). The author quotes, without a citation, William James
as saying "around and about the accredited and orderly facts
of every science there ever floats a sort of dust-cloud
of exceptional observances -- an unresolved residuum of
occurrences, minute and irregular, that always
prove easier to ignore than to address forthrightly."
James, no scientist, may well have said this, but
unless one is predisposed to take Charles Fort seriously
(the author does), he is not likely to take James seriously.
That anomalies exist is not the question; that demonstrable
anomalies exist, anomalies which can be empirically shownd,
is something else. The author claims that he can
demonstrate such anomalies.
He mentions several at the outset -- data which admittedly is
difficult to explain, but data which has, none-the-less, admitted
of natural explanations. Frozen mammoths, ice ages, reversals of
the earth's magnetic field, atmospheric extremes, these are four
situations he asserts cannot be explained by
"normal science." But these are but minor players in his book.
(page 5). "...I had long been puzzled by a group of odd-looking hills
within walking distance of my home (in Phoenix) which by no stretch of
the imagination could have been formed by processes acting conformably
with the laws of physics. I was, therefore, confident to a certainty
that the Uniformity Principle was not strictly valid -- that otherwise
unknown processes had at times been active in forming the earth."
The next 300 or so pages are an account of the author's journey to
follow-up on his insight. There are 12 chapters; the story unfolds slowly
but steadily toward his controversial conclusion.
Ch 1. The Great Cities. Here we read a 16th century account of the "7
cities" by one Fray Marcos, an account which has, for centuries, been
labeled a tissue of lies. But is it?
Ch 2. Expedition of Conquest. In 1540, Francisco Coronado assembled a
group of volunteers, having been incented by Marcos' account, to
seek the cities. What he found were seven small villages, not the great
cities described by Marcos. Marcos was in disgrace, and confessed to the
fraud, spending his remaining years in shame.
But was there more to the story? The author deduces a different scenario,
one which is certainly possible, perhaps plausible. The
cities were real; Marcos reported factually on them and then (falsely)
said
he had lied about it. (For the explanation, you'll have to read the
book).
Petersen concludes the cities were real, and situated somewhere
about 300 miles north of Hermosillo, Mexico, or about
at the present location of Phoenix, Arizona, most probably
along the Salt River.
Ch 3. The Sequel. Coronado died a few years later; the "seven cities"
were
legends. It was over 150 years later before another explorer, Father
Kino,
(his remains lie in the square in Magdalena, Mexico to this day) entered
present-day Arizona from the south. Father Kino traveled
to the Salt River area, discovering Casa Grande (still standing)
and other ruins which conformed to Marcos' account of the seven cities.
But the ruins seemed -- strange.
This chapter continues with the discoveries in the 19th and early 20th
century of a vast ancient canal system in the Phoenix areawhich was
capable of supporting a population of 200,000 people in the cities. What
had happened to these people?
Parenthetically, I will add that, as a resident of the "Four Corners
Area," a region not far from central Arizona, that the best
interpretation of the many ancient ruins in our area show every
indication that the population here 1000 years ago was much larger than
it is today. So what Petersen has written to this point
appears not only possible, but likely.
Ch 4. Dead Men. Petersen here describes the considerable problems
of dating the remains, and understanding the canal system. The
problems are such, he concludes, that they cannot be resolved without
postulating a major catastrophe. According to POU thinking, the canals
had to have been useless since 1000 B.C. -- yet Marcos had encountered
them thriving and Kino had discovered ruins which were, in some
attributes, a few decades old!
Ch 5. Signs of Catastrophe. Petersen concludes, on the basis of
the above, that some event, or events, which violated the POU, had taken
place in the Phoenix area between 1540 and 1692. He now begins
to investigate the area looking for other signs of that event. From this
point on in the narrative, his arguments are geological, and I have no
way
to evaluate them, or even report them except by a few selected
quotations.
(page 116) "Without a doubt these residues testify to a
phenomenon beyond the reach of known physics and chemistry."
(page 118) "...various residues from the ice ages also show a
bimodal distribution in particle size, and this odd feature
is no more plausible in glacial debris than in our present material."
Ch 6. Ice-Age Residues. Petersen turns aside here to talk about
the ice ages, arguing on page 119 that "close examination reveals
weaknesses... common sense must be stretched alarmingly ... some features
are so starkly contradictory that they have to be ... ignored ... ."
All the arguments in this chapter are geo-physical. Whether, or
not, they point out real problems I leave to others.
Ch 7. Opening the Door. Petersen returns to an attack on the POU,
arguing (because of chapters 1-6) that (page 150) ""...mechanisms have
operated in the past which were not only unlike those operating today,
they even defied the laws of physics AS WE UNDERSTAND THEM (Caps mine).
This is not to say that the mechanisms acted contrary to nature; it is
only to recognize that our understanding of nature ... is somehow
incomplete."
By page 163, Petersen is finally ready to state his thesis. He writes:
"We conclude that there exists
an added dimension of space
which can come into play
abnormally at times. Under such
circumstances palpable material
can enter our world along that other
dimension, in violation of the
customary conservation laws."
Having developed evidences for anomalies,
and having developed arguments why such anomalies cannot be
explained using our current understanding of nature and nature's laws,
and having speculated on a possible (unusual to say the least) cause,
Petersen spends the remainder of the book exploring how such
an explanation might relate to other areas of interest. He spends
several pages on the writings of Charles Fort (if you have not
heard of him, you may have a gap in your education), Easter Island, UFOs,
and finally the ethics of mankind. All these are "advance speculations"
of course; the essence of his thesis rests (or falls) on his arguments
which
describe certain geophysical anomalies in such a way that they
remain unexplained, or unexplainable, by known physical laws.
If one is unimpressed by the book's thesis, but likes "detective
stories,"
it is worth reading on that account alone.
There are parallels in the book to Velikovsky's writings of a few decades
ago, but, all in all, the author has done a much more credible job. Tell
me his geological
arguments are correct and -- Houston -- we have a problem!
Burgy
_____________________________________________________________________
You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com
Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]