Another epic failure by Ben Carson as he gets slammed by Forbes for his deliberate ignorance and decades-long practice of telling lies.
Noted conservative website, Forbes, blasted Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson for lying for decades about the creation of the ancient Egyptian pyramids after he affirmed his 1998 statement that he believes the Egyptian pyramids were built to serve as grain silos and not tombs.
Forbes contributor Kristina Killgrove, who holds a PhD in anthropology and MA in classical archaeology, had a few choice words for Carson in an article published on Thursday.
Killgrove begins by pointing out that “November 4, marked 93 years to the day that the tomb of King Tutankhamen was opened in Egypt, revealing spectacular artifacts and a magnificent mummy of the boy king,” adding that “The celebration was somewhat marred, at least here in the U.S., by a leading Republican candidate for president, former neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who confirmed a statement he’d made in 1998 — that he believes the Egyptian pyramids were grain silos, not tombs.”
In a 1998 talk at Andrews University, a Seventh-Day Adventist-affiliated university, Carson stated: “And when you look at the way that the pyramids were made, with many chambers that are hermetically sealed, they’d have to be that way for various reasons. And various of scientists [sic] have said, ‘Well, you know there were alien beings that came down and they have special knowledge and that’s how, you know, it doesn’t require an alien being when God is with you.’”
As Killgrove explains:
Just to be clear, no scientists think that aliens built the pyramids. There is a small but vocal contingent of people who believe in pseudoarchaeological explanations, but archaeologists have dismantled those harebrained theories at every possible turn. So while it may look good for Carson to deny alien involvement in pyramid building, he also attributes them to some dude who may or may not have existed rather than, well, the ancient Egyptians.
She continues, her criticism of Carson, providing some insight into his thoughts:
As a Seventh-Day Adventist, Carson appears to subscribe to the idea that the book of Genesis is literal history. And therefore that the Joseph of the Old Testament, who was sold into slavery in Egypt, built the pyramids to store grain during the seven years of abundance mentioned in Genesis. As Carson specifically said in the 1998 talk, “My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids in order to store grain.”
However, the fatal flaw with Carson’s theory is that the Egyptians knew how to write, and the origins of the pyramids were well-documented at the time of their construction. As Killgrove writes: “We know what the pyramids were built for because the ancient Egyptians tell us what they were built for (see, for example, the Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts). Denying ancient people the capability of building monumental structures is not new, though.”
Killgrove blasted Carson next for what she describes as his “willful ignorance,” writing:
It might be nice to think that Carson has learned since his talk, nearly two decades ago, more about the ancient Egyptian civilization. But no; Carson affirmed this belief in Joseph and his amazing technicolor grain silo to CBS News last night, doubling down on a profound, willful ignorance of science.
And why is this claim by Carson so important? As Killgrove concludes:
In the end, does it really matter what Carson thinks about the Egyptian pyramids? There will always be science deniers, there will always be people swayed by pseudoarchaeology, and there will always be people who believe what they want no matter the facts. It does matter, though, because Carson is vying for the job of representing the United States. So it matters that Carson casually rejects hundreds of years’ worth of research because in denying science, he throws the U.S. back into the past. It matters that he brazenly denies the Egyptian people their rightful history because this marginalizes an entire culture and makes the U.S. look like an ignorant bully.
FEATURED IMAGE BACKGROUND: “Dr. Ben Carson in New Hampshire on August 13th, 2015 1” by Michael Vadon, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
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