Blog Archives

NEWS FLASH: I've Been Kicked Off the "REAL GIANTS" Facebook Page

1/28/2015

Giantologists complain constantly that no-one considers their claims and listens to their ideas. Apparently what they really mean by "consider" and "listen" is "unconditionally agree with." My short tenure as someone posting on the Facebook group "REAL GIANTS" is now over, as I have been booted.

The description of the group reads:

"ANYTHING Pertaining or Connected to Giants
-Scientific, Serious Research & Theories are Welcome"

I think my work on giants falls under that definition. It turns out, though, that the unspoken rule is that you have to believe in giants or you have no business being there. And it really helps if you're a creationist. You can get lots of "likes" by posting pictures of Saharan rock art depicting cows and making the claim that it is showing dinosaurs.

It was actually better than that: the question with the photo was something along the lines of "is this a young dinosaur or a full-grown dinosaur surrounded by giants?" I can't get the exact quote since I am now banned from the discussion. My answer to the question was "It is not a dinosaur, it is a cow." They responded by posting pictures of other rock art from around the world purporting to show dinosaurs. And then they looked me up online (not too difficult). And then started talking about how evolution is wrong. Meanwhile I went and looked at other rock art from the same tradition that clearly showed cows with some kind of serpentine appendage, presumably depicting some ritual or ceremony. I offered those to try to get back to the original discussion, but my efforts were not appreciated.

At any rate, there is not a great deal of appetite for any debate about the actual existence of giants. Or really about much of anything rather than maybe a little daylight between "Young Earth" and "Old Earth" creationism. Other than that they already know all the answers. So I'm not sure what "research" is being done. I didn't see any of that.

But it was a great couple of days for me on "REAL GIANTS." I hoped to learn something about why people believe in giants and what they think giants are, but instead I learned that questioning the credibility or interpretation of any piece of evidence will get you labeled a "shill," a "troll," a "fool," "blind," and other things (I forget them all and I can't go back and check, since I am now banned). If you're looking for a "giants are awesome" echo chamber, this is the site for you: someone posts the same tired BS story about the Delavan skeletons or Joe Taylor's 47" femur sculpture and then the high-fives start. I posted a link to my post on Delavan and it got several "likes," but I'm guessing those people just had a knee-jerk reaction to the mention of Delavan and didn't actually read the piece.

The "REAL GIANTS" site was also a great place for finding people blissfully unburdened by the irony of using the internet to argue for the futility and "fantasy" of science. So if you're looking for some of those people, I can point you in the right direction.

So I guess maybe I did learn something.

I doubt I affected anyone's way of thinking over there, but who knows. Maybe some of them will follow me here. This would be a much better place to actually discuss ideas, I think, because I don't have an exclusionary theological litmus test. The downside for them is that someone outside of the gaggle of giant enthusiasts COULD potentially actually listen to and disagree with one of their ideas. I've got one example now of how that sort of thing is handled over there.

Don't worry, it will be different here: I won't boot you off or delete your comment if you disagree with me.

And I'm also not sure why some of you friended me on Facebook, but I think I'll pass.

An Interesting Passage from 1842 about the Evidence for Biblical Giants

1/26/2015

Osmond de Beauvoir Priaulx: Inventor of the time machine. That's really the only logical explanation for how he managed to be a Smithsonian Darwinian shill in 1842.

I ran into some interesting passages as I was working on trying to understand the history of thinking on the identity and significance of the “Nephilim.” The book is titled Quaestiones Mosaicae, or the Book of Genesis Compared with the Remains of Ancient Religions, written by Osmond de Beauvoir Priaulx and published in 1842. The stated goal of de Beauvoir Priaulx is to examine Genesis with “no preconceived theory:”

“In this way I endeavoured to seize the life and spirit of the olden world, and that life and spirit I compared and contrasted with the life and spirit of modern society” (pg. v).

In other words, he was neither trying to derive moral meanings nor attack the scripture, but to examine it in a philosophical/historical framework.

After discussing the translation of the term “Nephilim” (which he accepts as meaning “giants”), he discusses its meaning (pp. 172-175). He points out that no matter how tall Adam was, the Nephilim were still giants in comparison. He then ponders whether giants may have really existed, and considers the physical evidence. Several passages illustrate his answer to this question:

“The question, then, which we have to settle, is, not whether man was ever twenty feet in height (in which case we might appeal to the mummies and sarcophagi of Egypt, and through them show that man, four thousand years ago, was physically very like man of the present day, and that probably, therefore, the existing races in the same countries have always averaged the same height), but whether, with and among the race of men, there has ever existed another race—now extinct—the race of giants.” (pg. 175)

In support of the existence of giants, de Beauvoir Priaulx cites the common inclusion of giants in the mythologies of several different regions of the world as well as the accounts of ancient writers that discuss the “bones of men of gigantic stature.” It is his discussion of those skeletal remains that is interesting (emphasis in original):

“On these fossil remains, we will observe,

1st. That, with the exception of those mentioned by Pausanias, they were the remains, and only the partial remains, of single individuals; and that they do not seem to have been ever examined with any attention , but to have been at once received as the skeletons of men. And,

2ndly. That as no human fossil remains have been discovered since comparative anatomy has become a science, we must receive with caution all conclusions drawn by former times from some enormous tooth or thigh-bone; and with the more caution, as all such bones have, when submitted to scientific examination, been found to be the bones, not of men, but of some of those great primitive monsters who were the earth’s first inhabitants.” (pg. 176)

After discussing some historically-known persons of large stature, de Beauvior Priaulx makes the following conclusion:

“But these historical giants are pigmies compared with the giants of mythology, or even with the Og of Moses. They are moreover few, and only prove, that we do not justly rate the maximum of human stature, and not that nature has ever produced a finer and nobler race, to be pressed from the earth by a weaker and more ignoble one. Without, therefore, altogether denying the possibility of a race of giants, we must allow that we have no evidence for, and great probabilities against, such a race having ever existed.” (pg. 177).

"No evidence for" and "great probabilities against." That was the conclusion of someone writing prior to 1842. That means he reached this conclusion prior to the publication of On the Origin of Species (1859), and before the establishment of the Smithsonian Institution (1846). So you’ll have to remove from your list of reasons for his conclusion that he was an evolutionist or a government shill. What are we left with to explain his conclusions? He was just not satisfied with the evidence with which he was presented (mythology and misinterpreted animal bones).

That was 173 years ago. Sounds familiar.

That combination didn't make a strong case then, and it doesn't now.

Evolution, "Devolution," and the Incredible Shrinking of Humanity: Why Creationists Love Giants

1/23/2015

I'm not sure what the origin of this drawing is, but I got it from biblelandstudios.com. And by making that single attribution I have exceeded the scholarship standards of most pieces of "evidence" for giants that circulate on the internet.

When I started writing blog posts examining the evidence for a so-called “race” of giants, several people asked me about the apparent connection between the giants renaissance and creationism. My answer was simple: creationists feel that evidence of giants would be proof that the Bible was true and evolution was not. As we are often reminded, some translations of Genesis 6:4 say that “there were giants in the earth in those days.” The existence of giants, therefore, would be consistent with a Bible that is literally true. And if the Bible is true, then evolution is false.

I still think that explanation holds water: creationists (at least some of them) see the existence of giants as a key component in their case for a literal Bible. If you can find one skeleton of an ancient human that is significantly larger than any person we know of today, you’ve proven your case: the Bible would account for that but evolutionary theory could not. That’s the main idea, anyway.

As I’ve explored the question more, however, I think I have come to a better understanding of why some creationists really love giants. While it seems clear to me in retrospect, it wasn’t obvious when I first started seriously thinking about this issue a few months ago. I’m guessing that it is probably also not obvious to many others out there who also were not raised with a creationist belief system. So I thought it would be worthwhile to write it out, as I think this provides some context for understanding some dimensions of the current fascination with giants.

The love affair that some creationists have with giants stems not only from the desire to demonstrate that a few isolated (possibly mistranslated) passages in the Old Testament are literally true, but from what is actually a more-or-less coherent theory of prehistory. Using a very broad brush, I will call this the “Biblical theory of prehistory” (BTOP). The BTOP is based on a creationist understanding of the meaning and implications of Genesis. It explains changes through time in the natural world (following a supernatural creation) as the result of a “devolutionary” process of degeneration. Here is my paraphrase of the tenets of the BTOP as I understand it (advocates of this view of the world should feel free to comment and tell me if I’m misstating something):

God’s original creation was perfect
As time has passed since creation, that original perfection has naturally degenerated
The world we see today, and the creatures in it, are less than perfect as a result of a long process of “devolution”

Giant enthusiasts applying the BTOP link together the existence of large extinct animals (that we can understand via the fossil record), the long human lifespans reported in the Old Testament, and the Biblical mentions of “giants” as in Genesis 6:4. In this case, bigger is better: humans and that existed closer to the time of creation were larger in size and closer to perfection than the humans of today. The running down of the clock since creation has resulted in humans and animals that are smaller, simpler, and farther from perfection.

Joe Taylor, author of the book Giants Against Evolution and sculptor of a 47” femur, spells it out in this interview (about 21:40 minutes in):

“They [scientists and museums] want to keep up this story that we evolved from some fish that turned into a monkey and then turned into Man. The giants just mess that whole story up. And whether they agree that these giants were fathered by angels – they can’t have that because angels are spirits, God is a spirit, demons are spirits . . . they can’t believe any of that stuff. Well then they have to attribute it to people growing larger back then. Well, wouldn’t that go against the theory of evolution? That people used to get bigger and better and more hands, more toes, more teeth and fingers? So evolutionists cannot account for giantism, so they just ignore it or destroy the information.”

There are several things of interest in that statement.

First, Taylor clearly says that things going from bigger to smaller would “go against the theory of evolution.” I had an “ah-ha” moment (or maybe it was an “oh duh” moment) when I heard him say that, because I remembered reading a similar statement expressed in Richard Dewhurst’s awful book (The Ancient Giants Who Ruled America, pg. 8):

“We are shown charts of man becoming bipedal and each “new” man being bigger and smarter than the last. This is in direct contradiction to the charts we use for every other animal we study. We have only to look at a bird and be told that it was once a dinosaur to know how false this paradigm of man’s growth is. Look at the evolution of most animals, and the record says they got smaller over time, not bigger. However, with all the modern edifices of education built on the theory of evolution and the growing stature of humanity, we can’t very well have the Smithsonian running around telling people that we have degenerated from an ancient race of giants who once ruled America, now can we?”

Once you start to look, it is easy to find examples of creationists stating that: (1) the big-to-small sequence of change is common (even universal) among animals in the fossil record; (2) that pattern is a result of degeneration or “devolution;” and (3) that pattern is the opposite of what the theory of evolution predicts.

Second, Taylor ties the presence of “more toes, more teeth and fingers” (I’m going to assume that he misspoke when he said “more hands”) of humans in the past to those humans being closer to perfection. This was another “ah-ha” moment for me because it is a clear expression of why giant enthusiasts are so uncritically fascinated with “double rows of teeth:” more teeth equals better human. It is only logical that these larger, longer-lived, more perfect humans had more teeth than us, right, because that would be more “complex.” The incredible shrinking of humanity also included losing features of our anatomy that were present when we were perfect.

(I have written numerous posts now about the “double rows of teeth” issue as it pertains to the accounts of skeletons unearthed in 19th century and early 20th century America: see my “Ancient Giants” page. There are more on the way).

In essence, the BTOP purports to challenge the theory of evolution by asking “if evolution predicts that things get bigger and more complicated over time, why do we have so many examples of things getting smaller and less complicated?” The BTOP is presented as a “devolutionary” theory, naturally opposed to an “evolutionary” theory.

Anyone familiar with modern evolutionary thinking will immediately recognize what is going on here: the BTOP is presented as counterpoint to a kind of evolutionary thinking that doesn’t really exist among scientists today. Creationists who love giants are attacking a windmill. Let me explain.

Use of the term “devolution” implies that evolution has a direction. That alone signals a fundamental misunderstanding of the tenets of evolutionary theory and the mechanisms and results of evolutionary change. The vast majority of scientists today who employ evolutionary theory as a framework for understanding the natural world probably define “evolution” as something along the lines of “a change in gene frequencies over time” or even simply “change over time.” Notice what is missing from those definitions: any notion of “progress” or “direction.” Evolution is not goal-seeking and does not strive to produce something “better.” Over large scales of time and space, evolution has produced a diverse array of plant and animal species and a natural world that is complex (in that it has many different but inter-related parts), but evolutionary theory does not specify that every plant and animal goes from “simple to complex” or “primitive to advanced” or "small to big." It doesn’t work that way and no evolutionist will tell you that it does. Do some things have bigger ancestors? Sure. Do some things have smaller ancestors? Sure. So what?

The “theory of evolution” that advocates of the BTOP are positioning themselves in opposition to is actually a 19th century conception of evolution as a “progressive” process. This view has largely gone extinct, and we should all be happy for its demise. Why? Because it had no scientific merit and was employed politically to inflict great misery on many peoples of the world.

Nineteenth century Euroamerican ideas about the “progressive” biological and social evolution of humans mixed Darwin’s ideas about “survival of the fittest” with the classification of humans based on their observable physical characteristics (skin color, hair texture, facial structure, etc.) and the technological “advancement” of their societies (savagery, barbarism, civilization). (For a taste, have a look at The Origin of Civilisation and the Primitive Condition of Man by Sir John Lubbock). Peoples and societies were ranked based on the notion that those that were more “advanced” were inherently superior. Guess which peoples came out on top of these rankings? The misapplication of Darwin’s ideas about biological natural selection to the physical and cultural variation that was apparent among living human groups provided a convenient justification for the subjugation of non-European peoples across the globe: fans of colonialism, imperialism, and slavery were fans of progressive evolution, Scientific Racism, and polygenism. So were the eugenicists. And the Nazis. Notions of “progressive” evolution were applied in political contexts, often with incredible negative and tragic outcomes.

It should go without saying, but the topic of this post makes it obvious that it doesn’t: these 19th century notions that human biological/social variation is the result of some kind of “progressive” evolution are not part of modern, mainstream evolutionary thought. There - I even put it in bold so that it's easy to see. Anyone who takes a moment to try to understand what modern evolutionary theory actually is will quickly understand what it's not.

Creationists, at least those who love giants, have apparently chosen to ignore what evolutionary theory actually is and instead wage a war against some Frankenstein 19th century notion of “progressive” evolution. Consider the following passage from creationwiki.org:

“Charles Darwin theorized that evolution was a process of getting to perfection, where Christian creationists understand that the original sin of the first man Adam has brought degeneration, disease, and essentially [devolution] into the world.”

Getting to perfection? Okey dokey then.

That’s like me trying to mount an argument against the usefulness of modern medical practice by refuting the Hippocratic theory of the four bodily humors.

People who understand what “evolution” actually means in the modern sense will spot an irony here: the BTOP is itself essentially an evolutionary theory. It is evolutionary because it recognizes that plants and animals have changed through time, and specifies mechanisms that explain patterns of change. In other words, the BTOP provides a general explanation of the way the world has changed that acknowledges that the plants and animals that are present today are not the same ones that were present earlier in prehistory.

To be clear, just because I call the BTOP a “theory” does not mean it is a scientific theory or that its advocates are scientists. The opposite is true. The BTOP is a belief system masquerading as science: in science we use theories about the world to generate expectations which can be falsified based on observations. That is not what advocates of the BTOP do. They are simply looking for evidence to support an answer that they think they already have. They say they are doing science, but in the absence of any attempt at testing or falsifying, they are most certainly not. You can say you are doing science all you want, and you can display your “evidence” in a building and call it a museum, but without some kind of attempt to determine if your answers about the world are correct or incorrect, you’re not doing science.

Joe Taylor’s 47” femur sculpture based on an anonymous letter? Not evidence.

Chris Lesley’s imagination-based “replica” skull with three rows of teeth? Not evidence.

The strategy seems to be to just keep throwing pieces of baloney at the wall until one of them sticks.

Good luck with selling that as a scientific approach to understanding the past.

The eagerness to accept, prop-up, and even manufacture any piece of “evidence” that seems to support the existence of ancient giants is consistent not with a desire to understand the world scientifically but with a desire to demonstrate a “known” (what the Bible says) by assembling evidence that supports it. There is a real lack of critical thinking here and a real reluctance to ask “what part of this idea could be wrong?” If I ask you the question “what evidence would you accept that your idea is wrong?” and you answer “there isn't any,” you’re not doing science. Read that sentence twice.

This is a broad brush essay. There is much more to talk about on this topic with regard to how the BTOP deals with human/primate fossil remains (especially those that are considered to be “large”) and the diversity of opinions about what these imaginary ancient giants actually were. Once you get past the commonality of “giants in those days” you will find little coherence or agreement among the spectrum of individuals that are spinning tales about the Nephilim, antediluvian giants, evolution/devolution, etc. Were these pre-Flood giant humans “perfection” or were they the product of corruption? Did they continue to exist after the Flood? If so, how and why? Were they natural or supernatural? How do you reconcile the chronology provided by archaeology with that of the Bible? These are all great things for giantologists to discuss amongst friends who take it as a given that giants existed because it is written in the Bible.

There is one other thread that unites these folks: the desire to sell books and DVDs.

The lack of agreement among giant enthusiasts about the particulars of the story doesn’t by itself mean that a BTOP is wrong, of course. But it does resonate with an approach that combines a great emphasis on collecting and interpreting “evidence” with a nearly complete lack of interest in testing any components of the BTOP by using that evidence. It explains why creationists love giants, but by itself does nothing to strengthen the argument that there actually were giants. For that you would need evidence and some will to evaluate that evidence in light of the expectations generated by the theory. So far I haven’t seen a speck of evidence that convinces me that there is any need for a theory other than that of evolution to account for the history of life on earth and the fossil record as it relates to human origins.

Joe Taylor's Sculpture of a 47" Femur: What's the Story?

1/20/2015

According to Joe Taylor, one of the biggest attractions in the Mt. Blanco Fossil Museum is his sculpture of a 47” femur and an accompanying drawing showing the immense size of the individual to whom that femur belonged. You can find pictures of Taylor and his femur sculpture all over the internet, and a photo of the two together graces the back of his book “Giants Against Evolution.”

The back cover of the book (shown in the image to the right, I think) reads:

“47 inch Human Femur

In the late 1950s, during road construction in south-east Turkey in the Euphrates Valley, many tombs containing the remains of Giants were uncovered. At two sites the leg bones were measured to be about 120 cms “47.24 inches”."

The Genesis Park website makes a similar statement:

“In the late 1950’s, during road construction in the Euphrates Valley of south-east Turkey, many tombs containing the remains of giants were uncovered. At the sites the leg bones were measured to be 120 cm (47.24 in.).”

A Google search for the phrase “In the late 1950's during road construction in south-east Turkey” returns over 400,000 results, many of which appear to be retelling the story of the femur verbatim. This is a popular story. It shows up over and over and over again on websites asserting the reality of ancient giant humans.

All told, this seems to be a pretty important piece of evidence among proponents of giants.

In this interview, Taylor says that people “see the truth” in his sculpture because it has “a believable story, and it shows them how big these people were and it explains a lot of the things we see in the earth if you account for these giant men being connected to them.”

Proof that there once existed a human with a 47” femur would, indeed, be remarkable. There is no question about that.

So one might reasonable ask what is the basis of this remarkable claim? Surely there is some compelling evidence that explains why this claim is so widely accepted and so vigorously promoted?

Prepare to be disappointed.

The entire basis for this claim appears to be an anonymous letter. Ac cording the Mt. Blanco Fossil Museum website, this is what the reported letter said:

“Dear Christian Friends, I was born and lived in the Middle East from 1938 to 1968. I was Ain-Tell and Euphrates water works Engineer and was very interested in archaeology and history and had some very interesting findings, some of which may sound unbelievable. I have brought with me a few silex arrow heads, etc., from the very battle-field where King Nebuchadnezzar and Pharo-Necho’s armies fought. And what about the giants mentioned in Genesis? In south-east Turkey in the Euphrates Valley and in Homs and at Uran-Zohra, tombs of about four meters long once existed, but now roads and other construction work has destroyed the spots. At two places, when unearthed because of construction work, the leg bones were measured about 120 cms. It sounds unbelievable. I have lived with my family at Ain-Tell for more than 14 years at the very spot where King Nebuchadnezzar had his headquarters after the battle of Charcamish, where I dug the graves of kings’ officers and found their skeletons like sponge, and when you touch them they become like white ash, with spears and silex and obsidian tools and ammunition laying by.”

As best I can tell, that’s it. That’s all of the evidence there is. That’s the story. That’s the documentation shoring up this key piece of evidence: an unsigned letter that anyone, anywhere could have written.

Is there any more to this story? In this interview it looks like there may be a longer version of the letter, but Taylor tells the same basic story: guy writes a letter to another guy about what he saw, we make a sculpture and glue it to a board. Case closed, evolution refuted.

In that same interview, Taylor asks “why isn’t it known throughout all the museums in the world . . . why don’t they talk about these giants?” His answer to his own question is that the atheists controlling museums know that proof of giants would be proof that the Bible was true.

My answer to Taylor's question is a little bit different: because your “evidence” is a sculpture based on a measurement reported in a letter that may have been a complete fabrication. I wouldn’t even try to get a refund for a gallon of sour milk with evidence as thin as what Taylor presents for this extraordinary claim, let alone try to use it to “refute the theory of evolution.”

Maybe there is something else to this story but it just hasn't been clearly presented. Please let me know if I missed something. If this is all there is you might as well just say “A guy wrote me a letter that stated evolution is wrong . . . let’s build a museum.”

In both of the interviews I watched, Taylor said the bone was discovered in Egypt rather than Turkey. One of the ads on the museum website (scroll down on the page) says the bone was “found in Egypt by road construction engineers in the 1960s." I know that details can be inconvenient, but you would think that we could keep at least two of them straight in this instance since there are really only three: (1) Turkey (or Egypt?), (2) 1950s (or 1960s?), (3) 47” leg bone. At least we've got the 47" leg bone.

But wait, the alleged letter actually says "the leg bones were measured about 120 cms." This could be interpreted to mean that both the bones of the leg (tibia and femur) together measured 120 cm. This would still be a tall person, but not a 15' giant. So I guess we're not even really clear on the 47" femur.

I spent a few minutes trying to find places called “Homs” and “Uran-Zohra” in Turkey and couldn’t. I’m not ready to claim they don’t exist since I didn't search thoroughly, but it is notable that what popped up right away searching on these words were re-posts of the same verbatim giant account. There is a Homs in western Syria, but (best I can tell) it isn't in the Euphrates drainage basin? The Euphrates definitely isn't in Egypt. Where was the bone supposedly found? Turkey? Egypt? Syria? Narnia?

I’m not exactly sure what all of this is proof of, but it’s certainly not proof of the existence of giants.

This tale is my new frontrunner in the category of “most bang for the buck” in terms of the ratio of its perceived importance among giant enthusiasts to the strength of evidence presented. At least the fascination with the Delevan skeletons is based on a newspaper account. And at least Jim Vieira actually called someone on the phone to discuss the story of Charles Huntington’s “eyewitness” account. All we have here is an opportunity to buy a $450 cast of a giant femur that was reportedly seen in Egypyt, or Turkey, or somewhere over there somewhere in the 1950s. Or maybe the 1960s. By somebody.

I wish I could afford to buy Taylor’s book to add it to my collection: I’m sure it contains many interesting statements. Its high cost ($39), though, would blow much of my ancient giants research budget for the year. (I’ve signed up for another month’s subscription to newspapers.com so I can keep working on understanding the North American accounts -- so that’s another $7.95 that I’ve committed and we're barely halfway through January). Maybe I should start asking for donations. Or maybe I could start selling casts of large femurs. How about someone sends me a letter saying they saw a large femur once in some place – doesn’t really matter where – and I’ll start making casts. The bigger the better: the going rate seems to be $9.57/inch.

Your Daily Double Row of Teeth: G. Creighton Webb (1854-1948)

1/18/2015

G. Creighton Webb: what secrets to humanity's antediluvian past were concealed behind that fabulous mustache?

G. Creighton Webb led a long and interesting life: son of a general, Yale graduate, music librarian, colonel in the Spanish-American War, and diplomat to Russia (see brief biography here; the New York Historical Society curates a collection of his papers).

Through it all, he took good care of his teeth:

“Manhattan’s reigning Grand Old Man is Col G. Creighton Webb, a gallant and handsome remnant of that fine old Knickerbocker stock that once supplied the city with its real 400. Col. Webb is 80 and wears his crisp white mustache, evening clothes and silk hat with the jauntiness of a young blood. A chevalier, whose ribbon was handed to him by Marshal Foch in person, he has the courtesy and repertory of genteel phrases of a long-lost social era. His firm double row of teeth are without a single filling and he has the springy gait of an athlete.”

That story was printed in The Waco News-Tribune, (December 26, 1933).

How do we account for Colonel Webb's "double row of teeth"? As in any such mystery, one can construct several alternative explanations. Since the giantologists have apparently chosen not to participate in my efforts to understand what "double row of teeth" might actually have meant, I will construct some explanations for them based on my understanding of their ideas about prehistory. If they would speak for themselves I wouldn't have to do this. But they have chosen to remain stubbornly silent on this important issue.

Alternative 1: The phrase "double row of teeth" is an idiom that was commonly used to describe a full mouth of teeth in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the United States. Its use in the passage about Colonel Webb fits that pattern, as do previous examples I have provided (President Teddy Roosevelt, boxer Jack Johnson, comedian Cecil Lean, Teapot Dome Scandal figure Roxie Stinson, actress Helen Lowell, and several more in this post). There was nothing unusual about Webb's teeth other than they appeared remarkably plentiful and healthy for a man of his age.

Alternative 2A: Colonel Webb had extra teeth in his mouth that link him to a lost race of giants. The phrase "double row of teeth," used to describe the dentitions of many skeletons unearthed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the United States, should be taken literally as an indication that multiple, concentric rows of teeth were present. Because this phrase was used to describe "large" skeletal remains, we can presume that it identifies a genetic condition that signals membership in a giant "race." Colonel Webb was therefore a member of that giant race.

Alternative 2B: Colonel Webb had extra teeth in his mouth because he was super old. His extra rows of teeth weren't there just there because of a genetic connection to a "lost race," but because people in the past lived longer than people in the present. Back in the day (i.e., of Adam, Noah, etc.), humans grew taller and developed extra sets of teeth as their incredibly long lives wore on. Thus Colonel Webb's teeth are evidence of a "greater ancestry" of humans.

Now, the alert reader who has been paying attention will know which alternative I think is the most likely. As I stated earlier (in this post), there are clear historical examples of the phrases "double row of teeth" and "double rows of teeth" being used to describe the presence of multiple rows of teeth (or "extra" teeth) in the same jaw (e.g., two rows of maxillary teeth). I will be discussing those in future posts. The point that I would like to bring home (and that I would like the giantologists to acknowledge), is that the phrase "double row of teeth" was commonly used to describe perfectly normal dentitions in living individuals. Why, then, would we automatically assume that it was describing something bizarre or even supernatural when used to describe the dentitions of skeletal remains? In short, we shouldn't: it's a silly assumption and I believe that I have shown it to be unwarranted.

If someone would like to make the case that the phrase "double row of teeth" in the historic examples I have provided was intended to mean anything other than a normal, full set of teeth, I would love to hear it. Was Colonel Webb a member of a lost race of giants? Was he one of our antediluvian ancestors? If you can't or won't make the case for Alternatives 2A or 2B, I would be interested to know how you plan to interpret phrases like "double row of teeth" in your future discussions of giants.

Thank you for your time.

Your Daily Double Row of Teeth: Roxie Stinson

1/17/2015

Roxie Stinson (left) has her palm read by a fortune teller.

In my ongoing effort to understand the meanings of the phrases "double rows of teeth" and "double row of teeth" as they were used to describe the features of so-called "giant" skeletons, I have found another example that the giantologists can put in their files and re-post numerous times on the internet: Roxie Stinson.

Roxie Stinson was at one time married to Jesse Smith, a member of President Warren G. Harding's "Ohio Gang." Smith committed suicide as pressure mounted on the Harding administration in what became known as the Teapot Dome Scandal. Stinson's testimony in front of the U. S. Senate was scandalous and of great interest to the public. An article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (April 6, 1924) described Stinson's appearance and demeanor:

“There is nothing in Roxie Stinson’s face to give a clew to her remarkable performances. The features are sharply defined, and there is a certain rigor noticeable when she is impassive, but her nostrils are extremely sensitive and rather winning smiles come readily. The mouth is attractive, firm, and closely set when she is serious, but the slightest smile reveals a beautiful double row of teeth, fit for a dental paste advertisement.”

There you have it.

I couldn't find much additional information about Stinson. Maybe she also had six fingers and six toes. After all, nowhere in the story about her Senate testimony does it say she DIDN'T have six fingers and six toes. So it's certainly possible. Confronted with a lack of direct evidence about a lack of polydactyly, however, we COULD make the simpler presumption that her anatomy was normal. Just a thought.

Your Daily Double Row of Teeth: Jack Johnson (1878-1946)

1/16/2015

Heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson (aka "The Galveston Giant") displaying his double row of teeth.

If you believe, as many prominent giantologists do, that having a “double row of teeth” is strongly associated with membership in a lost race of giants in ancient North America, you will be interested to hear about the case of heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson. Johnson’s story is a remarkable one that speaks volumes about the nature of race, society, and culture in turn-of-the-century America. I recommend the Ken Burns film “Unforgivable Blackness” (watch a short teaser).

For the purposes of understanding the nature of the evidence for a lost race of giants, however, it is the description of his teeth that is important. The following newspaper story was written after Johnson was charged with a violation of the Mann Act (Oakland Tribune, June 29, 1913):

“Jack Johnson, champion pugilist heavyweight of the world, and his white wife, who was Lucille Cameron, went aboard the steamer Corinthian tonight preparatory to sailing for France early tomorrow. The big fighter wore his famous broad smile, showing his double row of teeth for the first time in many weeks as he walked up the gangplank of the steamer.”

See - a double row of teeth. It's written right there.

The Mann Act (1910) was a Federal law that was originally intended to address the problem of human trafficking for purposes of prostitution. The vague wording of the act made it possible to treat various “unapproved” consensual sexual acts between adults as a crime, allowing the law to be used as a tool to prosecute and harass. The targeting of Jack Johnson in 1912 followed his stunning win over James Jefferies in the “Fight of the Century” (1910) and his marriage to a white woman (the second of three). Johnson kept on smiling.

One of Johnson’s nicknames was “The Galveston Giant” (he stood just over 6’ tall). So there you have it: another giant with a double row of teeth. You’re welcome.

Your Daily Double Row of Teeth: Cecil Lean (1878-1935)

1/15/2015

Stage performer Cecil Lean's smile is described in the Chicago Daily Tribune (November 29, 1908):

“For instance, Cecil Lean smiles. He smiles before he sings, while he sings, and after he sings. When he smiles he displays a double row of teeth that will make the fortune of any molder and driller of bicuspids whose “ad” can be written to fit them.”

Cecil Lean and his double row of teeth take a stroll with his wife. If you're having a hard time picking out the ancient giant in the photo, he's the one on the right.

Take a Wild Guess What You Could Purchase in 1907?

1/14/2015

In 1907 you could buy a double row of teeth. You could get two dentures (an upper row and a lower row) for the price of one if you visited Dr. C. C. Smith in San Bernardino, California.

Look at the ad on page 9 of the San Bernardino County Sun, January 20, 1907. You can find it on Newspapers.com, which I'm guessing is the newspaper archive website that many of you giantologists use. If you don't have a subscription and you don't believe me, you can pay the same $7.95 I did. Luckily I still have 6 more days left of my first month. Maybe I can put this "double rows of teeth" thing to bed with some time left over to solve one of the other "mysteries" upon which you are basing your television programs and books.

Is it sinking in yet how silly this is?

An Ancient Giant Speaks: Nephilim Actress Helen Lowell's Voice Captured on Film

1/14/2015

Helen Lowell: you know she was an ancient giant because her films are all in black and white.

In my continuing effort to evaluate the often-repeated claim of giantologists that there is a strong connection between large skeletons and “double rows of teeth,” I am finding more and more examples of individuals that I think the giantologists should be made aware of. If they take seriously their contention that the phrases “double rows of teeth” and “double row of teeth” were always used to describe an anomalous dental condition that can serve as a marker of an ancient race of giants, they will be interested in the case of film and stage actress Helen Lowell (1866-1937), a turn-of the century individual described as having a double row of teeth. You want to hear the voice of an ancient giant? Here’s your chance!

You can learn about Helen’s film and stage career from her IMDB entry. The important thing for our purposes is a 1905 article titled “How An Actress Feels When Her Teeth Begin To Go” describing and promoting a dental practice in Chicago (The Inter Ocean, April 2, 1905). In this story, Helen Lowell offered a testimonial about the dental care she received from Dr. G. Gordon Martin while she was performing in a production of “Mrs. Wiggs in the Cabbage Patch.”

“ . . . Excepting for the discomfort of sitting in a chair with a rubber in my mouth—a coffer dam, I think they call it, and I’m ready to believe the last half of its name is true—I had not one single twinge of pain. Look here—“
And Miss Lowell parted her plump lips and showed as brilliant a double row of teeth as ever shone in any face.
“Dr. Martin brought them up to that,” said she, “and dentally speaking, I’m fixed for life.”

And there you have it. A double row of teeth fixed for life. With that kind of endorsement, perhaps Dr. Martin should have promoted himself as a dentist for ancient giants rather than a dentist for actresses.

A screen capture from "The Merry Frinks," where Nephilim giant Helen Lowell, in the role of Amelia "Grandma" Frink, can be heard scolding an impudent young man. I can only imagine how intimidating it would have been for that actor to be in the presence of a such a towering, powerful figure baring her double row of teeth in anger.

Fortunately for us, Helen's film career presents an opportunity to actually hear what one of these double-toothed giants of old actually sounded like -- finally we can move beyond speculation on this important topic. Some of her films, like “Isn’t Life Wonderful” (1924) were silent, leaving the viewer to only wonder about the voice of the antediluvian titan. Luckily, however, Helen Lowell also appeared in some talkies. If you go about 55 seconds into this clip from “The Merry Frinks” (1934), you can hear an ancient giant with a double row of teeth say “You give that back you disrespectful little brat!”

You’re welcome.

Giantologists have been repeating the claim of a connection between large skeletons and “double rows of teeth” at least since I was in high school in the mid-1980s. They’ve had many decades now to figure out this “mystery.” It turns out that even the most cursory search of newspaper archives (the same archives they use to collect all of their examples) shows these phrases to be ones that were commonly used to describe the teeth of living individuals who most certainly were not ancient giants. That begs the question of how hard they've actually been trying. Either the giantologists haven’t really been putting a whole lot effort into trying to figure it out or they’d rather actually NOT figure it out. I guess those aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. (The third possibility, that they've tried really hard but just couldn't do it, I find to be unlikely given how easy it has been to collect this information). Either way, the information is out there in plain sight and has been for a long time.

Severing the link between “giant skeletons” and “double rows of teeth” undercuts one of the foundational claims/assumptions of many of the giantologists: that there was a “race” of giants that can be identified based on physical characteristics of the skeleton. I’m still waiting for a response from any of them that want to defend this idea and tell me how Abigail Fillmore, Teddy Roosevelt, and Helen Lowell fit into their conceptions of giants, Nephilim, and what it means to have a "double row of teeth."

<<Previous

Archives

Categories