Statement Concerning Recent Comments Made by Graham Hancock about Genesis Unveiled

Graham Hancock has recently made some preliminary comments about Genesis Unveiled on his message board, and I am of course most grateful to him for providing me with such fine publicity for the book. However he has made a number of assertions that it seems I have a duty to clarify, if not for my own sake then at least for that of other people that I have consulted in one form or another during its preparation. In particular he pinpoints the assistance I have received from a number of members of the Ma'at web site as indicated in my acknowledgements, so I will set the record straight about the involvement of each.

Michael Brass has already made it clear himself that he agreed to read through my chapters on evolution and human archaeology (chapters 9 and 10)  at my request (and also to provide detailed input to another chapter on anomalous human remains that in the end I had to remove due to space constraints imposed by my publishers, but which is instead presented as a separate paper on my web site). Colin Reader did the same thing with my chapter on geology/catastrophes (chapter 12). The purpose of these interactions was that, where I was discussing material on which I remain broadly in agreement with the orthodox position - especially with respect to the timescales for the physical evolution of humankind, and to catastrophism particularly as an accelerator of the end of the last ice age - I wanted to make sure that I had properly understood the main arguments and presented them correctly. I think it would be fair to say that neither Mike nor Colin suggested changes to these chapters at anything other than the detailed level.

Meanwhile, Paul Heinrich and I had a very brief correspondence concerning the potential arguments that have so far been developed against the suggestion that a major catastrophe was responsible for ending the last ice age - for example some papers that have been written in critique of the evidence for mass extinctions and other debris presented by authors such as Hapgood and Velikovsky. Although I conclude that these counter arguments do not in my opinion completely negate all the evidence, I did feel that it was important to point out that there are some flaws in it that have been elucidated in recent decades.

Finally, Garrett Fagan and I had again a relatively brief correspondence in which in particular he provided an argument against using the various king lists from around the world as any sort of reliable evidence of an antediluvian civilisation, an argument which I found convincing and which resulted in my original chapter on these lists being again removed from the book and instead placed on my web site.

It is absolutely vital for me to point out that none of these people even saw the remainder of the manuscript, let alone would support the more alternative aspects of the work. I would hope that the fact that I had the professional and indeed moral courtesy to briefly acknowledge their assistance to varying degrees hardly suggests that I am attempting to pretend that they in any way endorse it in its entirety.

I also have a duty to point out that in no way do I have a particular affiliation with the Ma'at team. It is merely the case that they are the main researchers with orthodox training in a variety of disciplines that I have some access to as an outsider, given that they have historically had a degree of involvement with the alternative scene as well. But on occasions when asked to comment I have made it clear that I absolutely do not support any approach to discussion of alternative theories that might be interpreted as a witch hunt against individual researchers. On the other hand there is some first-rate material on their web site, and the feedback mentioned above was invaluable to me as someone who often finds himself straddling the alternative-orthodox fence, and is proud to so do. It is boring for me to keep repeating it, but personal vendettas and undue defensiveness about one's arguments merely hamper our progress in moving our understanding forwards, whereas a willingness to debate constructively can only be positive. I certainly have no qualms about having approached these people for a second opinion, any more than I would in approaching colleagues from the more alternative side of the spectrum.

As for Graham's other comments about my work, I notice that he says he will take the trouble to provide a fuller review of it in due course. Indeed it was most refreshing to see that some of the contributors to his notice board have had the eminently good sense to argue that people should actually read Genesis Unveiled before commenting on it. I also see that - in a recent paper on his web site - Graham has himself taken the plunge into the rationalism versus spirituality debate that I am championing in my own work, even if his timing may be more than just coincidence, and even if as usual he attacks the orthodoxy en masse instead of recognising that it is theoretical physicists that have in recent decades done more that any alternative authors could ever do to bring a spiritual worldview right into the mainstream by accepting the multi-dimensional and essentially non-physical nature of the universe.

Rest assured that, given my disagreements with some (although not all) aspects of Graham's work in the past, if he does decide to take his rightful revenge on me by arguing against my own new theories I will be more than happy to engage in constructive debate. Indeed, given that we both believe in an antediluvian "lost" civilisation (even if my interpretation of their level of culture is somewhat less technologically-oriented), and if - given his recent paper - he is happy to support a broad spiritual worldview, it will be interesting to see what issues he concentrates on. What I can also say from his initial comments is that if he is going to accuse me of some sort of an about-turn he is going to have to work hard to back it up, given that my previous work on Giza argued against advanced technology, as does my new work, and also given that I did indicate my support for a few more esoteric and unconventional areas of research in the first work that I have followed up in the second. He also seems to be hinting that some of the theories I am claiming as new are merely rehashes of other work; again, I would expect him to work hard to justify such a generalised assertion...

Ian Lawton