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Joining The Dots
I have now published my new book, Joining The Dots, which offers a fresh look at the Atlantis mystery. I have addressed the critical questions of when, where and who, using Plato’s own words, tempered with some critical thinking and a modicum of common sense.Read More »
creationists
Giants
Giants are featured in the mythologies of many cultures globally. However, many of these same cultures also have ‘little people’ in their folklore (a). In Ireland, they were known as leprechauns.
Some commentators have striven to prove that a race of giants, as described in the Bible, such as the Nephilim, actually existed. This idea appeared to gain traction with the discovery of what appeared to be human bones in the 19th and early 20th centuries, that suggested above normal stature. This has led to ongoing controversy. A study of the biblical Goliath and his family is relevant here(j).
There is a rare genetic form of giantism known as acromegaly. The BBC published an interesting article on the genetic mutation that causes the condition being more common in Mid Ulster in Northern Ireland than anywhere else in the British Isles(h). A scientific study confirmed this localised prevalence(i).
Wikipedia has noted that the giants’ bones were either the result of “hoaxes, scams, fabrications or the misidentifications of extinct megafauna”(b). It also notes that as early as 1934, the idea of giants was debunked by Aleš Hrdlicka, curator of anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution(l). The Smithsonian has since been accused of a cover-up by creationists and conspiracy theorists. However, that institution has been ably defended by more rational researchers, such as Jason Colavito (c)(d)(e). He returned to the subject again in August 2025(k), when it was reported that US congressman Eric Burlinson, a creationist and UFO believer, suggested that there should be an investigation into the claim that the Smithsonian is hiding the bones of biblical giants!
A more recent development has been the linking of giants with Atlantis. I suspect that in some instances, Atlantis was added to the book titles, simply to enhance their salebility! The best known and probably the earliest extensive study came from Denis Saurat in the 1950s [536][537]. Since then, many, such as Tony Finlay(f), have touched on the subject. Richard Cassaro has advocated that megalithic structures in Italy had been built by giants from Atlantis(g). In the 2020s, the related book titles became more blatant – Giants of Atlantis[2115] (Patrick Chouinard, 2025), Giants and Atlantis[2114] (Laurent Glauzy, 2015). However. hard, irrefutable evidence is still lacking.
(a) Little people (mythology) – Wikipedia
(b) Giant human skeletons – Wikipedia
(c) http://www.jasoncolavito.com/1/post/2013/05/the-human-tendency-to-attribute-greatness-to-giants.html
(f) https://www.tonyfinlay.co.uk/
(g) Hidden Italy: The Forbidden Cyclopean Ruins (Of Giants From Atlantis?) – Richard Cassaro
(h) (BBC June 8, 2022) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-61726811
(j) Hereditary Gigantism-the biblical giant Goliath and his brothers – PMC (nih.gov)
(l) The Oshkosh Northwestern. 3 March 1934.
Cremo, Michael A.
Michael A. Cremo (1948- ) together with Richard L. Thompson, are the authors of Forbidden Archaeology (FA) [1703]. This is a huge work of over 900 pages.
To be candid, I have not read all of it, but usually use it as a reference work. Both authors are Vedic creationists with a core belief that mankind has existed on Earth for millions if not billions of years. Consequently, readers can be forgiven for expecting that this book is primarily intended to promote a creationist agenda.
FA is greatly concerned with archaeological anomalies, but one reviewer found it odd that “FA devotes 400 pages to analyzing anomalous stone tools depicted in obscure literature over the past 150 years. Worse, these specimens no longer exist. So FA compensated by providing page after page of drawings taken from their original sources. But in his reprinted review on page 103, Kenneth Feder frets that these illustrations are absolutely useless because it is impossible to determine whether these Palaeolithic tools are drawn to scale or accurately rendered.”(a)
A more jaundiced review of Cremo’s work can be found on the Rationalwiki website(b). Two of the best-known refutations of Cremo’s book are on offer from Wade Tarzia(c) and Bradley Lepper(d) to whom Cremo responded and in turn had his response reviewed by Tom Morrow of the National Center for Science Education(e).
My overall impression is that Forbidden Archaeology is another instance of quantity triumphing over quality. Equally depressing is Cremo’s belief that conventional science is engaged in a huge conspiracy to conceal historical facts, reminiscent of Graham Hancock‘s paranoidal rants!
(a) https://ncse.ngo/review-forbidden-archaeologys-impact
(b) http://web.archive.org/web/20190606122848/https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Michael_Cremo
(c) http://web.archive.org/web/20250505093923/http://www.ramtops.co.uk/tarzia.html
(d) http://web.archive.org/web/20230414172055/http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mom/lepper.html
(Skeptic, Vol 4, No.1, pp 98-100. 1996)
Bananas
Bananas were introduced into the Atlantis debate by Ignatius Donnelly, who adapted the views of Otto Kuntze and questioned[021.57] whether “it was more reasonable to suppose that the plantain or banana was cultivated by the people of Atlantis and carried by their civilised agricultural colonies to the east and the west?” Over a century later, it was still being suggested that only the existence of Atlantis could explain the global spread of the seedless, sexless fruit that we enjoy today(a). David Hatcher Childress, in his Lost Cities of Ancient Lemuria and the Pacific[1229] suggested that ancient genetic engineering led to the banana we have today. Theosophical belief is that “the banana was developed from a melon on the lost continent of Atlantis.”(d) Not to be outdone, Erich von Däniken claimed[0272.202] that the banana has been brought to Earth by extraterrestrials(e)!
At the other end of the belief spectrum, Ray Comfort, a Christian creationist and televangelist, used the banana to demolish the theory of evolution. In a 2006 video clip(f) he offered up the ‘ironclad argument’ that bananas are proof of God’s intelligent design of the natural world because “the banana and the hand are perfectly made, one for the other.”
“Behold, the atheists’ nightmare!” declares Comfort, before detailing the many user-friendly features of bananas, which include their “non-slip surface,” “tab at the top” for easy opening, and convenient shape, which is “even curved toward the face to make the whole process so much easier.”(f)
I can only say that with such an idiotic statement, Mr. Comfort himself cannot claim to be the result of intelligent design.
A more sober view of the diffusion of the banana from southeast Asia is to be found on the academia.edu website(b). The BBC also offers an article on the cultural importance of the fruit in the region(g).
(a) https://thebiggestsecretsoftheworld.blogspot.com/2011/02/banana-fruit-that-really-should-not.html https://frontiers-of-anthropology.blogspot.ie/search/label/Bananas (link broken July 2018)
(c) http://www.mondoernesto.com/2010/06/who-genetically-engineered-banana.html
(d) https://in5d.com/plants-trees-and-foods-brought-to-earth-by-alien-gods/
(e) forgetomori » Erich von Daniken: Fraud, Lies and Bananas (archive.org)
(f) https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/24/ray-comforts-banana-argument_n_4847082.html
(g) (BBC Nov 19, 2020) http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20201118-where-bananas-are-considered-sacred?referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews