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March-April 1972
Personal
(Contin11ed from page one)
what has made MAN as he is? How
did humanity come to be on this
earth? Or, going back even further,
how did the earth, itself, come to
be?
That may seem like going a long
way back. But this futile search for
PEACE gocs a long way back - as far
as history goes -
oc
farther. Man's
troublcs, evi ls, wars, extend back to the
beginning -
oc
prior to the beginning
- of history. To find the right answer,
we need to go back even to PRE-history!
That takes us even to the question of
ORIGINS - of B.EGINNJNGS! And we
shall come to the right answer quicker
by beginning at the beginning!
Many have speculated, through the
millenniums. Maoy scieotists have de–
voted their lifetimes to researching and
studying this question. But have they
found tbe
right
answers? We nced,
now, to be sure. Time is running out!
Many scholarly books have been
written, setting forth the results of
these lifetime studies, purporting to
tell the story of the origin of the earth,
and of mankind upon it. Yet is it not
significant that their studies, theories
and hypotheses
fail to tell 11s
\XIHY man
is as he is, or HOW he got that way -
WHY man seems always to be befuddled
with unsolvable problems - WHY he
is always in trouble - WHY humanity
is harassed with so many evils - and
WHY these evils are fast increasing?
This is no Jight matter. Ignoring
humanity's present dilemma will not
cause it to go away. Human SURVIVAL
hangs in the balance! We need the
right
answer - and we need it NOW!
And
we can know!
Educated Guesses?
First, let's take a glance at a couple
of these scholacly
books
setting forth
the answers scientists and historians give
us. I have before me, as I write, two
well-known books on this very problem.
They have gaioed wide acceptance m
scientific and educational spheres.
The
PLAlN TRUTH
One is the famous H. G. WeUs'
O~ttlíne
of Hístor)'·
The other,
An
EtJcyclopedía of
JI'/
orld HiJtory,
com–
piled and edited by William
L.
Langer.
Let me, first, give a few brief quotes,
typical of such histories. Histories in
general are prolific with statements such
as: "We may well suppose." Or, "We
are coming to belicvc" thus and so.
From the third edition of WeUs'
011tlíue of Hísto1·y
are the following:
"Scieotific men have discussed
the possi–
biliiJ of
..." and, "But they point
merely to
q11estionab/e possíbilities."
(Emphasis mine throughout.) Continu–
ing, "Astronomers and geologists and
those who study physics
have been able
to tell
1/S
somethíng of
the origin and
history of the earth.
They comider that,
vas/ ages ago.
..." Later: "Astronomers
give us
convíncing rettSons for mppos–
ing.
..." ( 01apter
J.)
Later:
"We do not know
how life
began upon the earth. Biologists ...
have made
guesses about these begin–
nings ....
Probably
the earliest forros
of life were small and soft,
/eaving no
twidence of theír exístence
behind
them." Later: "These first rocks
mrtst
have solidified
as a cake over glowing
liquid material beneath, muchas cooling
lava does. They
11111Sf have appeared
first as crusts and clinkecs.
They mrut
have been
constantly remelted and ...."
Later:
"Spemlatíons abo11t geologica/
time vary enormo11Jiy. EJtimales of the
age
of the oldest rocks by geologists
and astronomers starting from differ–
ent standpoints
hm1e varíed between
1,600,000,000, and 25,000,000." Chap–
ter
JI.)
I give you these quotes to show that
so much of this "knowledge" is not
fact at all, but suppositions, specula–
tioos, guesses, theories.
A few brief quotes, now, from
An
Encyclopedia of
JIV
or/d History,
3rd ed.:
"Prehistory ...
probably
amounts to
more than a million years." Under
"Man's Animal Ancntors": "No remains
have yet been fotmd
of Man's immedi–
ate precursor, the primitive and more
ape-like animal
from tuhich he is sup–
posed to be descended."
There follow
numerous such expcessions as "This
has
not yet been definitely established,"
"probably," "believed lo date," "entirely
a matter of spemlatíon," "is /ikely to
47
have laken place,"
and
"there is no real
evidence at presenl."
(The Prehistocic
Period,
T
ntroduction
§
1, 2.)
I
do not apologize for saying that
such guesses, theories, and postulates
have
1101
prod11ced
the R!GHT ANSWER!
Why No Peace
The fruits of the speculative asser–
tions of science have not been peace,
happiness, universal prosperity and
abundant well-being. The world, in–
stead, is
su
FFERJNG!
It
is very sick!
To cometo a koowledge of the RIGHT
ANSWER, we need to understand what
is wrong with the scientific method.
WHY have the findings of modero
science NOT produced peace and univer–
sal happiness? What has been wrong
with the scientific method?
The world has had science, of a kind,
for a very long time. But what we know
as MOOERN SCIENC.E began its dramatic
rise, roughly, 170 years ago. Even then,
the new knowledge in the fields of
science and technology developed very
slowly, at first.
Up unti l this advent of modern
science, the world had gone along for
thousands of years virtually on an even
keel - with no material progcess to
speak of. lt was primarily an agricul–
tura! world, using primitive farming
methods. The cast iron plow was not
invented until 1797. The disc plow, not
until 1896, when
1
myself was alive
and a growing boy! The first hacvester
carne in 1836.
Abraham Lincoln once explained how
mechanical and industrial progress could
not develop until the invention of print–
ing, about 1440. Even so, there was
not much development until the begin–
ning of the 19th century.
Think of it! Through those long
millenniums the world was virtually
without means of transportation or com–
munication! Transportation was by foot,
mule-back, horse-drawn, camel, ele–
phaot. By sea, it was by slow-moving
sailboat. Fulton didn't invent the steam–
boat until 1803. And the telephone, to
provide communication, did not arrive
until 1876. The telephone was in its
infancy when 1 was a boy.
In my own lifetime, we have whipped
past the machine age, the jet age, the
nuclear age, and the space age. Much