by Hans-Joachim Zillmer
Langen Müller, Munich 2001.
288 pages with approx. 71 drawings and approx. 79 photos. DM 39.90, ÖS 291, - sFr 37, - ISBN 3-7844-2819-3
(Published in Grail World 21/2001)
If errors or gaps in our scientific worldview are discussed, it is good to imagine that we are living in the “Middle Ages of tomorrow”; that today's beliefs may be just as obsolete in a few centuries or even decades as medieval cosmology is today. Then you are also ready to be open to alternative thinkers with unfamiliar approaches, such as Immanuel Velikovsky, Rupert Sheldrake, Heribert Illig, Gunnar Heinsohn or Edith and Alexander Tollmann.
One such lateral thinker is Hans-Joachim Zillmer, whose first book “Darwin's Mistake” in connection with creationism has already been mentioned here (cf. "Bible versus Darwin in America" under "Science").
In his second book, mentioned above, Zillmer has compiled many peculiarities of the earth's history with which he wants to prove that the known geological timescale cannot be correct. As a convinced “Young Earth Creationist” *) he assumes an age of only about 10,000 years and believes that humans and dinosaurs lived together on this planet in the not too distant past. He sees the beginning of human history in a similar way to Zecharia Sitchin (“The Twelfth Planet”, Droemer Knaur, Munich 1989) after a tremendous cosmic catastrophe, which is perhaps identical to the Flood.
Personally, it is difficult for me to simply throw overboard the geological time scale, the development history with the rise of life from the simple to the complex, as well as many millennia of prehistory and early history; even if I like to admit that our knowledge of the past is sketchy and fraught with errors.
But whatever you think about it, Zillmer's book contains a lot of food for thought, and it will be interesting to see whether and how the professional world will react to it. Hopefully she will react soon and will not be satisfied with the excuse that everything is "so wrong that it is not worth going into it". **)
Endnotes:
*) The different varieties of creationism describes "Bible versus Darwin in America" under "Science".
**) Zillmer is not the only one who questions our geological history with well-founded arguments. The well-researched book “Von Feuer, Flut und Finsternis” by Frank Zimmermann (ISBN 978-3-7357-9030-9) even questions the Ice Ages.
