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Re: Professor James McCanney and Planet X 
Message-ID: <3D665A11.2000006@wwt.net> 
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 10:51:45 -0500
Doomer wrote:
> Thomas McDonald <tsmac@wwt.net> wrote in news:3D657F8A.7030503@wwt.net:
> 
>>     We've been discussing McCanney's CV on another 
>> thread on this NG.  So far, it seems as though he 
>> has an MS, and has only taught undergrads in basic 
>> physics and math.  If this is true, the chances of 
>> him being a Professor at any major university 
>> are...well, less than good.
>>
>>     If you have evidence that he actually has the 
>> credentials that seem to be bruited about WRT him, 
>> I'd be grateful if you could produce them.  Until 
>> then, his credentials and his credibility must be 
>> considered questionable at best.  This is 
>> especially the case if he is over-claiming his own 
>> education and academic responsibilities.
>>
> 
> 
> Scroll down and read the section called "About the author":
> 
> http://www.worldparanormalforum.com/memberhosts/mccanney.html 

Doomer,

	Thanks.  It does seem that Mr. McCanney was never a 
'professor.'  The only statement about his 
positions in university teaching is that he was an 
introductory lecturer.  (Academic types are pretty 
punctilious about titles, and for a lecturer to be 
called 'professor' would only be acceptable where 
there was little concern for facts.)

	I was struck by the business of his 'study' of 
archaeology leading him to the conclusion that 
some major civilizations could only have been 
destroyed by some celestial event; and that some 
were so severe as to have left no traces of the 
inhabitants.  This is just wrong.  While it is not 
impossible that a comet or meteor strike might 
have disrupted a culture, there is no evidence 
that the people of any of the candidate cultures 
vanished without a trace.  He does not seem to 
have a good grasp of real archaeology.

	OTOH, he seems to have formed his ideas about 
archaeology in the early 1970's.  IIRC, there were 
a number of questions about the fate of some 
Native American cultures at that time that were 
still open.  For instance, at that time the 
collapse of the Maya and the depopulation of the 
Maya cities was a bit mysterious.  Ditto the 
Anasazi, and the builders and inhabitants of 
Tehuanaco on Lake Titicaca.

	If he formed his opinions about archaeology at that 
time, and didn't keep up with the real 
archaeology, I can understand how he could hold 
the opinions he appears to hold.  It looks as 
though he may have looked to folks of the 
Sitchin-Velikovsky stripe for answers, and built 
some of his concepts on their work.  (This was 
fairly common then; in fact, I read some stuff of 
that stripe in the early '70's as well.)

	The web page you linked to stated that McCanney was 
not into giving dates for things like PX.  I 
wonder if that has changed?

Tom McDonald