and another renowned Egyptologist Dr. Mark Lehner, who is considered the world foremost
authority on the Sphinx were quick to launch scathing personal attacks on the pair and publicly
discredited the theory as much as possible. Dr. Lehner even went so far as to accuse West and
Schoch of being “ignorant and insensitive”.
Now just think about that for a moment – science, insensitive? It is a somewhat unusual remark
to come from a scientist don’t you think? His sole intent was to remove the issue from the
scientific arena and place it on a more personal playing field. As usual in many such cases it was
a public display of a most unscientific attitude that completely failed to address any of the
evidence that was being presented. The whole affair was similar to a school boy who had a
drawing criticized by one of his peers rather than a scientist debating evidence, for heavens
sake... “insensitive’? Get some sort of a scientific grip!
These personal attacks we are now seeing so frequently are actually a highly political strategy
that has recently been adopted by Academia and are fast becoming the standard final move. The
method is often employed by cunning Politicians when losing an argument. If an issue becomes
too obvious to argue against, the best tactic is to discredit anyone who dares to call ‘that which is
accepted’ into question thereby shifting attention away from the actual issue and turning it into a
more personalized attack against the presenter. It’s the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes Syndrome’
In the case of the Giza complex, rather than having to argue a case they are aware they could
not possibly win, Hawass and Lehner again simply invoked the demeanor of ‘untouchable
authority’ that is presumed by their positions in the academic hierarchy. It should be mentioned
here that Anthony West himself actually holds no credentials, being a self-taught archeologist and
so is not part of the “club” so to speak. Though even with this being the case, his research on the
Sphinx was nothing short of excellent and his finding were backed up by a considerable amount
of scientific, geological and astronomical data. (It probably should also be pointed out that Albert
Einstein was just a patent clerk when he destroyed many of Newton’s theories – back then,
intelligence was intelligence. Things are not quite that simple now.)
Shortly after the theory was put forth, the American Association for the Advancement of
Science invited a debate on the issue, but only Lehner and Schoch were allowed to participate
while West, who held most of the evidence, was not, due to his lack of credentials. As was
discussed in chapter one, this is another method the Academic community constantly employs to
keep credible new information and theories out of the public information loop:
Academia decrees that only people with Degrees and Doctorates are permitted to practice
science and they have two very important and quite simple filters in place to ensure that
independent research is suppressed: One; Credentials; and Two; Peer Review; because no matter
what your evidence or theories are, nothing gets past peer review, but you cannot receive peer
review without first having credentials but of course in order to get credentials you need to tow
the party line and embrace the accepted theories or you simply won’t get your degree in the first
place. So what do you do? Remember Catch 22? It’s actually quite brilliant in its simplicity – in
some scary way.
Again this is a ridiculous and extraordinarily unscientific approach to science because science
is something that anyone can study and learn. All that is needed is for one to possess a keen and
analytical mind. A person does not need a degree to educate oneself or record facts, or to conduct
experiments, observe their outcomes and think about them in a critical way. In a truly free and
open society where the pursuit of true knowledge is nurtured, science, by its very basic fabric,
needs to be part of the free democratic process and all theories examined. Science was never
designed to be an ‘elitist club’ presided over by closed minds. Such behavior is truly irresponsible
and can only ever serve as a hindrance to legitimate research and the genuine pursuit of real
truths. Science cannot properly function as an Authoritarian Regime.
The thing is that the entire debate over the real age of the pyramids and the Sphinx could very
easily be put to rest once and for all if the Egyptologists really wanted to settle the dispute. They