On the Continued Popularity of "America Unearthed"

7/13/2013

Yesterday the History channel ran a marathon of America Unearthed. I did not know this at first, but soon my email inbox filled up with messages, blog comments, and other communiqués expressing the typical range of opinion—everything from exasperation at History’s falling standards to anger at my alleged obsession with the program. This happens every time the parent network reruns the H2 channel’s highest-rated show and thus exposes it to a new and larger audience that it receives on the niche digital-tier channel.

Let me put this in context: Yesterday, during the America Unearthed marathon, my blog hits quadrupled over the previous seven days’ average. During just the few hours the show ran on History, I received more new, first-time visitors than I do in an average week. For the first time ever, nine out of the top ten search terms people use to reach my site were variations on Scott Wolter and the America Unearthed topics. The tenth? My name. A whopping sixteen out of the top twenty search terms were related to America Unearthed, with three for Ancient Aliens and one for me. And that’s for the whole month, not just yesterday. Ancient Aliens needs to start getting new episodes on the air stat, before the public completely abandons it.

Drilling down, it’s especially interesting that most of these visitors arrive on my website from Google in one of its many permutations worldwide. (Hello to new visitors from Canada, India, Britain, and Australia!) This strongly implies that viewers of America Unearthed are going online to try to learn more about the program and Scott Wolter (and indeed the blog comments and emails anecdotally support this conclusion) and then are disappointed by H2’s paltry offerings and Wolter’s inexplicable decision not to have a personal website. Depending on your Google personalization settings, my website is one of the top matches for Scott Wolter’s name, just as it is for Giorgio Tsoukalos’s. I presume this is not the ideal outcome for either.

(Incidentally: Wolter’s new book, Akhenaten to the Founding Fathers, is still not shipping, more than six weeks after its alleged publication date. I had hoped to review it this summer.)

I’ve gotten tired of trying to dig up the links to my various America Unearthed reviews, so yesterday I put up a new index page, which is linked here and in the Articles section of my site, as well as on the right hand blog information column. And now to forestall any more angry emails for people claiming I am obsessed with the show, I’ve also put up an index page to my Ancient Aliens reviews. At three times the number of my America Unearthed reviews, I think you can see that despite the wild popularity of my America Unearthed coverage, it’s hardly the overwhelming obsession so many readers—who see nothing but those reviews—think it is.

35 Comments

Brandon C

7/13/2013 08:25:32 am

"This strongly implies that viewers of America Unearthed are going online to try to learn more about the program and Scott Wolter"

Guilty of this.

Titus pullo

7/13/2013 09:37:33 am

I was pulled into the show with the episode on cooper mining in lake superior but thought it left much to be desired in logic and facts. Watched the rest ever Friday night past winter just to see if the show improved. Instead it just got worse and worse in lack of critical thinking and incomplete hypothosis. The last few episodes went really off the rails with Templar holy grail Jesus was a father mush. It was too bad as a serious show would have been more interesting...debunking the junk and showing how myth builds on itself.

Tubby

7/13/2013 09:41:24 am

I noticed it yesterday but figured you already knew.

It was the first time I saw the show and noticed it seems to have some pretty low production value (I think I remember those old Templar documentaries from a while back being higher in quality). Between that, the post commercial idiot cards, the really weird things that Wolter was saying (one was something along the lines of, "This is old. And if it's old it's important"), and several really weird claims they made which conflicted with one another I decided it wasn't worth watching even for curiosity. It was just bad.

That was the America's Stonehenge episode too. The Google Earth part felt like it was out of a Syfy original movie. As if I was watching some kind of bizarre, low budget set up for a mummy tomb full of curses and Great Old Ones under some decrepit rural town in Massachusetts.

The Travel Channel also has some show that covers a few of the same topics. There was one that made the same claim about Henry Sinclair discovering America.

Tara Jordan

7/13/2013 11:27:08 am

Steve St Clair is on vacations?.I was expecting one of his usual & notorious drivels. I`ll do it for him.Jason,you`re a hater, Scott Wolter is the smartest & the sexiest man alive.You`re just jealous of his success...."

Tom

7/13/2013 12:03:17 pm

I would love to hear your take on the use of "Long Range Locators" in this "reality show".

Jason Colavito link

7/13/2013 12:04:53 pm

Go to the America Unearthed episode reviews linked above and then click on the Hunt for the Holy Grail episode. I discuss them therein.

Christopher Randolph

7/13/2013 04:58:05 pm

"Wolter’s inexplicable decision not to have a personal website..."

I find it explicable. What's he going to do, list the degrees and experience he doesn't have? Is he going to link to the site of the American Society of Forensic Geologists? Try and link to reputable sources for his blather? Is he going not to have any forum for discussion, or get crushed on his own site by critics who clearly know more about him on these issues, or censor every critic and get a reputation as someone who can't and won't have a discussion about his accusations that mainstream academia can't and won't have discussion..?

He has everything to gain and nothing to lose by letting the TV show make indefensible statements and leave it at that.

Gunn

7/13/2013 05:26:19 pm

Jason, it may be that you have more hits on Scott Wolter and America Unearthed because the show proposes "realistic history speculation" rather than "goofy alien stuff."

By realistic speculation, I mean, the speculations seem to be more believable initially, on the surface--not that the shows' final impressions are that believable. The initial offerings seem more realistic than alien crap.

America Unearthed is somewhat interesting to people because objects and history issues are "unearthed" in a way that makes history and speculation fun. Some of it is plausible, though not provable. Certainly, more of it is believable then the alien crap. With America Unearthed, there is the hope of something being correct...of something new being discovered.

With the alien crap, the audience may be made up of mostly Star-trek nerdy folks (a smaller, selective group?), while America Unearthed seems to offer its programming to a larger viewership in the first place...hence, more hits. In other words, there is an "upfront broader base" to begin with, because of the nature of the show, compared to the comparative unpopularity of alien crap.

We all want something better in America Unearthed for next season...something better put together. There needs to be more bite to the show...better results once in a while. And Tara is right, Scott should keep wearing shorts to promote a sexy overall image of the show. The backpack looks good too. More smiles, Scott! Don't look so perplexed all the time.

Above all, we need a greater degree of persnickety, in regard to potential treasures.

There is also this question to ponder: Could the "holy bloodline" nonsense be a purposeful lightening rod?

Coat-tail back to Dan Brown. Coat-tail to America Unearthed, with cross-references to this blog.

But this is coat-tailing and cross-referencing to popularity that is never in vogue: Christ bashing, the skeptic's delight, until the End.

The numbers don't lie. Jason, you're future may be more in American History than in Alien Crap. Good move. Don't forget to thank Mr. Wolter.

I like the way you zero in on original source documents, as a myth-buster. There may be some grains of truth to some myths, though...like that corn portrayed in Roslyn Chapel, indicating that Steve St. Clair may, indeed, be a very honorable fellow, based on his bloodline alone.

Christopher Randolph

7/13/2013 06:19:08 pm

"Christ bashing, the skeptic's delight..."

I certainly don't Christ-bash any more than I unicorn-bash.

Tara Jordan

7/13/2013 09:23:26 pm

Gunn.Please give me an opportunity to express my feeling towards some of my fellow atheists,like crypto racist slobs Samm Harris,Christopher Hitchens or bigoted old coot Richard Dawkins (separated at birth with Robert Spencer) ;)

Tom

7/14/2013 02:04:56 am

Harris and Hitchens Racist? O.o; Ok then...

Gunn

7/14/2013 04:10:49 am

It is too late for some, even if you believed in prayer as an opportunity, which you don't.

A fool said in his heart (and to the World), "There is no God."

Other than abortion, this may be the ultimate presumption.

Tara Jordan

7/14/2013 08:10:25 am

"A fool said in his heart (and to the World), "There is no God.".
Interesting statement. We are not calling you an idiot for believing in a supernatural entity. but you obviously believe you have the right to insult us for not believing.Religious individuals may pretend they are changing with time,but this is not nothing but lipstick on a pig.At any given opportunity,you never fail to demonstrate how intolerant you really are.

Gunn

7/15/2013 03:37:35 am

Tara, you would prefer this blog remained one-sided in God-bashing? There is nothing wrong with presenting a prevailing point of view to counter some of the God-bashing. I admit to being intolerant in some respects, as we all are.

When a person knows to do good, and doesn't do it, it is sin. Tara, would you stick up for your best Friend if he/she were being attacked? You are young and impressionable; good; intolerance sometimes isn't as it seems.

Varika

7/15/2013 07:22:55 am

Gunn, I don't think there's been nearly as much God-bashing as you think there has been. Isn't it just as presumptuous to say "I am equal to God" as it is to say "There is no God?" In insisting that arguing with Christians is God-bashing, that is the statement being made--that the Christian in question is equal to their God. I can't claim to have memorized every conversation on this blog, but I can say that my overall impression has been that there has been a lot more questioning--bashing, if you will--of Christians than there has been questioning or bashing of God.

Tara Jordan

7/15/2013 12:49:36 pm

Gunn,I have a challenge for you.You wont find a quotation from which I am "bashing god".I sometime refer to Christ as a mythical character,that`s it.I am an old school atheist,I am not into sacrilegious or blasphemous,I`ll leave that to the new school of activist atheists.
Varika is right,"there's not been nearly as much God-bashing as you think" on this blog.Most of the skeptical commentators who interact on this blog,are atheists (at least I have the feeling they are) but they are not intentionally disrespectful.
I have no problem taking responsibility for what I do,but you have to be fair & intellectually honest.Can you?

Christopher Randolph

7/15/2013 04:48:42 pm

Well, there's a heck of a lot to comment upon!

From the point of view of the believer simply stating outright that one doesn't believe in the historicity of holy figures is generally considered blasphemy and an affront, somehow rude even one is simply responding to claims of historicity that the believer began. If you're going to spin tales about secret societies keeping artifacts from a historical Jesus, and claim this is history, the 'polite' thing to do I suppose is question the secret societies. The effective and accurate thing to do however, and the non-self-censorship, is to begin at the beginning and determine whether or not there was a Jesus for the Templars to have anything to do with to begin with.

In debating whether or not Queen Elizabeth II made a secret flight last week to collect Bigfoot's gold stash, I would not begin addressing the question by attempting to track QE II's whereabouts.

One of the positive sides of the 'New Atheists' is that they've made some strides in opening up rhetorical space in the US for people to question religious assumptions and institutions which do real harm ('real harm' not a strong enough term - series of high crimes and felonies and assaults on decency.)

My problem with the NAs is not much with the rhetoric or the tone (which I largely find factual, necessary and even relieving) but in the emphasis on attacking Islam out of proportion to other traditions, very consciously so, and in effect knowingly providing rhetorical cover for illegal and unconstitutional war crimes, mostly by our gentle Christians, meek and mild.

I'm an atheist who has lived in a couple Muslim societies and visited several. My attitude has been that however accurate (sometimes 'not very accurate!', sometimes spot-on) many of the American commentators who are lions against Islam are, they would do better to concentrate on our own religious lunatics and war criminals, some of whom overlap, and not coincidentally. I say let the mostly Christian world take care of the lunatics for whom we have responsibility, and let the Muslim world reel in their own. It's too easy to critique people outside of your own realm, and completely ineffective.

Hitchens very evidently needed to keep the money rolling in from his writing after his right turn in politics lost him most of his book-buying public, and skewering organized religion fit the bill. As a person who is one to two degrees of separation from multiple rape and sexual assault victims of the American Catholic church (my wife went to school with a number of kids who were sodomized and this led her on a journey of questioning and agnosticism), Hitchens impolite trashing of the church in front of and to its officials were joyous moments to behold. His trashing of Falwell upon his death was necessary and delightful.

Unfortunately where Hitchens became a toad was in advocating for political policies which ultimately led not only to wars of choice but ironically to the defeat of multiple secular states in the Islamic world, replacing them with armed religious Muslim wingnuts, bizarrely under the banner of promoting democracy and fighting "Islamofascism." (Sam Harris is guilty of all of the same - at the same time when debating Chris Hedges it was immediately evident that Hedges - who I agree with politically - was not up to the task of defending religion nor God, and engaged in a series of dishonest and evasive rhetorical devices. Harris has miserable politics and yet made Hedges out to be a blithering idiot on the God topic, in spite if not because of CH's Harvard Divinity School years.)

All of this Islamofascist twaddle made possible by the fact that most Americans really don't follow details particularly well, and don't care to... thems people ain't saved, so what diff'rence does it make who's who..?

Should Wolter begin making claims for the djinn having led Muslims to settle Nebraska, and uses the Quran as a textual reference, I will happily engage in "Mohammed-bashing." Somehow I don't think Gunn will be offended...

Gunn

7/16/2013 04:04:34 am

Varika, the only Christian equal to God is the Originator of Christianity. You seem confused.

Opher, this isn't about the Catholic Church and its history. It's about how you will "deal" God in the End. Jesus came several hundred years before the founder of Islam, if you will. His coming was very adequately foretold. Truth is not that difficult to see, but you must at least have faith the size of a mustard seed. Hell will be brimming over with God-bashers and Jesus-bashers. Holding up a sign saying "LORD, I was just kidding" won't work for you, because it will burn up as thoroughly as your invisible soul.

For a moment, I will be the frothy evangelist, trying to lead Opher into peace and enlightenment. Repent, Opher!

You still have time to repent.

Tara, young Tara, I have hopes for you. I was just thinking how lovely the pen-name "Tara Ste. Clair" would be for a future novel. There's a definite, aristocratic ring to it. "Tare, Clair." Yes, Tara Ste. Clair, Lady of the Blogs.

Christopher Randolph

7/16/2013 05:57:38 am

Nobody's talking about the Catholic (or any other) church's "history." These people are harboring child predators NOW, this is an ongoing series of crimes; this is current events. Falwell's poisonous demagoguery is still harming people in Israel and the Territories; the evangelical churches are still launching their psychodrama to steal from their parishioners and fight scientific progress and elevate fascist politicians; the Anabaptists are still educating their kids to the age of 16 to hobble their ability to leave the church and do anything other than farm. The less said about the interdenominational Christian assault on women the better. Just this year, even here in Philadelphia, a couple had their SECOND child die from treatable infection because 'Jesus told them' not to take either kid to a doctor.

The US is the most religious country in the industrialized world, overwhelmingly Christian. We're the world's biggest arms dealer and responsible for most war deaths, we spend more money on war than any other country on Earth and have projected military power to every corner of the Earth. We're at the bottom of every measurable indicator of human development in the industrial world; people here work longer for less money, they get less access to healthcare, they live shorter and more miserable and less educated lives.

At every turn most American Christians oppose any reforms which would change that; people are told to believe in fairy tales and not to prepare for any terrestrial future (the world is ending Any Day Now as it has been for 2000 years) and to place faith in reward only after you're dead... providing you keep your mouth and your mind shut.

If anything Christians should be asking for forgiveness from the rest of us. There's still time for YOU to repent.

Tara Jordan

7/16/2013 09:29:12 am

Christopher Randolph. I agree with you on many points.I have no problem with Hitchens,Harris & Dawkins critical approaches to religions but they are crossing the line when it comes to Islam.This is the reason I labeled them as "crypto racists".These "courageous men" wouldn't touch Judaism with a 10 foot pole.In these days and ages, you simply cannot criticize the nature of Judaism,& question the policies of the state of Israel.
Since 9/11,Muslims have become the Jews of the 21th century.Islamophobia is not only state supported,it is also encouraged. I find it very interesting that we share similar life experiences.I lived for many years in Dubai & Qatar as a kid (my father used to work for a major oil consortium).Some of my best friends happen to be Muslims.In the West,the negative image of Islam is vehiculed by total ignorance, prejudices and sheer racism.Like any other religion, Islam has a fair share of extremists and zealots but the majority of Muslims are decent human beings.

Hitchen was a political prostitute,let`s remind his fanboys that the "hammer of religion" didnt hesitate to give a lecture to the Family Research Council's Witherspoon Fellows.Money has no smell....

Tara Jordan

7/16/2013 09:46:18 am

Gunn,,I dont need to be a St Clair.I am related to Baron Roman Nikolai Maximilian Von Ungern-Sternberg.

Varika

7/17/2013 04:12:01 pm

No, Gunn, I am absolutely not confused. It's called "making a point." In equating Christians or Christianity with God, said person is indulging in the hubris of equating him or herself with God. You, yourself, have just stated that this cannot be true. Therefore, "bashing" or criticizing Christians or Christianity is in no way God-bashing. Furthermore, I would ask that you please keep your unwelcome prayers and exhortations to "repent" to yourself. Repentance is for those who feel they have done wrong, and I feel that any God who would condemn me, who seeks to do as much good as possible and as little harm as possible in her day to day life, for failing to slavishly pay homage to a name, is not truly God. I will neither repent nor convert, and when I die, if there is a Judgment, I will stand proudly and expect to be judged on my OWN actions, and ALL of them, not just whether or not "Jesus is my FRIEND!"

Christopher Randolph, I can't particularly speak to most of what you've had to say, since I'm pagan, not atheist, and I find most atheist writings not to my tastes to read. However, I can say that I ABSOLUTELY would start with tracking Queen Elizabeth II's whereabouts, since much like the US President or various Prime Ministers, every second of every day and every breath she takes is accounted for and reported on. That would be by far the easiest way to prove she wasn't collecting any gold, much less from cryptids.

Now if you wanted to try and prove that Bigfoot's gold didn't exist, tracking the Queen wouldn't be very useful, no...

Gunn

7/18/2013 04:29:40 am

Varika: "In equating Christians or Christianity with God, said person is indulging in the hubris of equating him or herself with God."

You still seem confused. Christians do not equate themselves to God. That's what the devil did, right? Before he was cast out, away from God. Pride and arrogance, as depicted in your final stance before God.

Becoming a Christian requires humility, not arrogance. One repents of his or her sin and turns to God, through Jesus. There is one way of salvation. Ignore God, your Maker, to your eternal peril.

In the end, every knee will either bow or be burned up. Hardness of heart is a terrible thing to overcome, Varika. I wish you well in discovering God. Going back to your own ancestors' pagan days, sacrifices were made. We no longer sacrifice because Jesus was the final sacrifice. Now it's spiritual. It's about spiritual redemption from a lost condition. Life is this circle, back to our Creator...if we individually choose that course. God is fair and will make a way for you, if you choose.

Varika, don't follow the devil, as did pagan Vikings.

Finally, Christianity out-influenced that evil pagan Viking mindset of terrorizing neighbors. I'm just glad the KRS was discovered by Christians, not Vikings!

Is there a "Amen Corner" here?

Christopher Randolph

7/18/2013 07:35:08 am

Varika -

I should think that any UK government or mainstream press account of QE II's whereabouts would be considered all part of The Conspiracy!

Gunn -

"Christianity out-influenced that evil pagan Viking mindset of terrorizing neighbors."

Oh dear. You might like to review the history of the Reconquista or the Inquisition or the Dutch Reformed Church in apartheid South Africa (along with terrorizing literally all of South Africa's neighbors) or the history of the Belgians in the Congo or the various concordats between the church and European fascists or with just about every repressive Latin American government. You might review the history of the English Civil War and Cromwell's 'visit' to Ireland, or note the milk of Christian kindness spilling out of Belfast, or on a Saturday in Glasgow when Rangers played Celtic. We might note the eager pogroms of gentle Christians in the Cossak era or indeed the Holocaust. We might note the Church of England's official seal on the repression of the Indian subcontinent; we might review the record of the Christian militias in southern Lebanon, or of the Christian sweep across the American continent in the 19th century, wiping out man and beast alike. This all a partial account.

Would the Vikings have done worse?

Tara -

I lived in Qatar for a while myself, over a decade ago. That's becoming more common these days of course.

Paul Cargile

7/15/2013 05:48:59 am

This Star Trek nerdy folk finds Ancient Aliens deplorable.

Gunn

7/16/2013 04:07:49 am

Sorry.

Paul Cargile

7/16/2013 02:50:00 am

So in other words Christopher, you have had negative experiences with Christianity and possitive experiences with Islam which has lended toward your opinions of both religions and practitioners. I would say there are those that have had the opposite experiences, clergy that didn't rape them, but helped them, and Muslims that tried to kill them. Experiences certainly flavor our biases. I think we would agree that while the behaivor of a small percentage of a group mars the perception of the whole group, we should be smart enough to know the majority of the group is made up of decent people, Christians and Muslims alike.

Christopher Randolph

7/16/2013 03:16:21 am

No, Paul, that's not remotely accurate. Try reading for meaning.

I'm in a society that is dominated by Christians and Christianity. Those are the people doing the harm in my own society, and to others. Those are the people for whom we have responsibility.

Muslims haven't been borrowing trillions of dollars to fund warlords and dictators in the US for the past 40 years. Muslims don't have military bases all over the United States. Muslims have killed not 1% of the people here that we've killed there, fact and not opinion.

I doubt most Americans are 'decent people'; judging from our wars of choice and our unique abandonment of responsibility in the industrialized world for the weakest members of our own society, denying minimal standards of care and support even to children. Spend five minutes reading the comments on any Yahoo (a pretty mainstream cross-section of America) on the Zimmerman-Martin case this week and you tell me how these majority self-identified Christian people are 'decent.'

I'm don't run on the assumption that I'm in a position to rate the 'decency' of the actions or beliefs of people in a society like Iraq or Afghanistan, where people who are even 30-40 years old have never known life that didn't involve sanctions and bombings and terror from America's gentle Christians, meek and mild.

Having had a good deal of experience in the Islamic world, you might notice that I identified some of the New Atheist critiques of Islam to be accurate. What's ridiculous is emphasizing that, in isolation, from inside a society where Muslims are less than 5% of the population, a society dominated by Christians, a society that has projected its power in murderous ways across two oceans.

Paul Cargile

7/17/2013 10:07:48 am

Perhaps instead of "decent people", I should have said "everyday people", the people across the globe that want to be let alone and go about their business of working, providing for their families, pursuing their happiness and their dreams. I don't think the average US citizen has a problem--a real problem--which a citizen of Iran. I don't. I'd like to think that I could sit down with an average Iranian and engage in a friendly conversation. I see both of us lamenting about the actions of our governments. I break the global population down into two groups, the citizens, and the alpha-groups--the governments, the corporations, the banks, the ones that exchange the large sums of money and make things happen. For that is what all governments have ever been and will ever be, plutocracies. Doesn’t matter whether it’s called a monarchy or a republic, wealth rules. It takes money to put ideas into action; people are motivated most by trading value. Even in the People’s Revolutions, it was only an exchange of the purse. Who holds the purse makes the rules. Usually to their benefit.

War. I can’t disagree with history. Western powers have been meddling in Southwest Asia for some time. But Suleiman got stopped at Vienna, and the Umayyad at Poitiers. We could go back and forth about who’s to blame for what and who is most right about seeking vengeance over who, but what would be the point? Would the world be better off without the religions of Christianity and Islam?

No. Even in a total atheism, factions would grow and conflict would break out. Religious beliefs are a part of war, but war is a natural reaction to prevent others from having what we need in a world of limited resources. With a population over seven billion people, war is to be expected.

We war over food—for the “Freedom” to acquire and control resources we need.

We are still animals, with deep animal instincts. One instinct is to dominate niches. And what were we millions of years ago? Small, weak, aps, without claw or fang, or thick hides, or great senses of hearing and smell, preyed upon by the great cats. So we made our own claws and fang, and thick hides, and developed reasoning, and became the predators that hunted the cats, and the other mega-fauna, and we became the most deadly predator to walk this earth. We are carnivores, hunters, killers. We learned that if we could kill other animals for our food, we could do something not often seen among other animals: kill members of our species to protect what our group has acquired. What religion was there that motivated the first human to wield a club to smash the first human head in the first homicide of the first act of war? Our religions, and philosophies, ideologies, and enlightenments have not diluted or removed the primal animal within us as much as we would like to think. The killer lurks deep in all of us; most of us are lucky to not find ourselves in situations where we need that primal instinct to protect ourselves from perceived threats.

Christianity spread across the globe, and now wanes in Europe. Islam follows, growing well beyond Poitiers and Vienna, extending as far north as Great Britain. The Muslims do not assimilate into the cultures they immigrate into, they form enclaves, demanding tolerance of their customs and Sharia for their people. And they get what they ask for. Islam grows by converts, and Europeans will start to convert because it will be easier to do that than to oppose them. Especially when Muslims gain positions of power. And they will. More likely by the ballot. I’m not outraged by what will happen over the course of decades and centuries. Unless the Chinese stop them, Islam will dominate the globe. The nearest Mosque in their beachhead.

Christopher Randolph

7/18/2013 08:04:06 am

Paul -

Based on the actions and attitudes of most everyday people, I would say most are not 'decent', and if anything use a mouthed piety to mask - if not literally bless - an ugly interior.

Read the comments on ANY mainstream news story about the Martin shooting or ANY article on Iran or the Middle East in general and you will see Orwell's Two Minutes' Hate repeated over and over again, massive amounts of hatred and racism and bile. Look at the up or down voting on ANY article on Yahoo and you will see the most vile and overtly racist and violent comments voted 'up' by a ratio of 10 or more to 1. Go ahead, do it - visit Yahoo or CNN or a major newspaper (mine is Philly.com) and look at the comments and voting. We are a nation of vile, racist, violent pig-people.

It'll take you about 30 seconds to find a comment suggesting that all of the Middle East should be 'nuked', with 1700 'like' votes and a handful of dissenters.

Combine this with overwhelming claims of Christianity and the industrialized world's highest church attendance... combine this is turn with an absolute refusal alone in the OECD to consider healthcare and education etc a right, while borrowing trillions to keep blowing up brown people ... and I can only correlate Christianity with a indecent racism if not full-blown misanthropy.

I find it curious that you state that humanity would have these problems with or without religion and then go on - as Hitchens did and Harris does - to single out Islam as a particular source of troubles.

Religion, as I have to give credit to Hitchens for pointing out, brings unique problems into the world nothing else could. For example the couple in Philadelphia who recently let two of their own children die of treatable infections would not have done so for a political reason or because of financial gain; only a belief in reward beyond the grave could compel people to behave this way.

I have problems with the notion that some people need to 'assimilate,' a notion that applies interesting only to dark people not from Europe, but nothing that apparently needed to concern the Pilgrims or the Boers. That aside, I find it odd that you attach assimilation difficulties to religion and not ethnicity. Beyond that I find it odd that there's an Islamopanic over a number of Muslims moving - from the former British Empire/Commonwealth no less! - into England at about the same rate Catholic Irish moved into England (cf. The Beatles' ancestry) through previous century without the America press getting its knickers in a twist. This is an excellent example of what Tara complained of with the New Atheists' writing, and I will point out as she did that no one would dare think of writing the same sentences with 'Muslims' swapped out with 'Jews', despite the similar patterns of behavior of each in both the US and UK.

In the US, Muslims are less than 5% of the population. Evangelical Christians who have sought to segregate their children in schools (or 'homeschooling'), entertainment, intensive church life, etc are never said to have an assimilation problem, despite being clearly more than 5% of the population, despite having far more influence in American life and despite claiming resistance to mainstream American life as a GOAL. And yet we point the finger at 'the Muzzies', as people like to say in Yahoo comments.

Brandon C

7/14/2013 04:37:03 am

I like the premise of the show but I don't think it's carried out too well. For instance, in the first episode where he is trying to prove the Mayan connection in Georgia. He has the airplane fly by and do the laser imaging to get the topography of the ground below the trees. This would have been a great way to see if the terracing matched the map that the random guy in the cabin gave him, IF he hadn't shown the map to the imaging people and said "this is what we are looking for". That's confirmation bias folks. He gave the map to the people compiling the laser image, and told them that's what he wanted to see. He should have never shown them that map, let them compile their findings and then compared the two afterwards.

Kinda ruined it for me.

charlie

7/14/2013 10:32:16 am

Wait, Mr. Wolter has stated on the show that; "this is old, that makes it important"? Really?
If so, then I am important as I am old. Oh boy, who knew? Thanks loads Mr. Wolter. Now, to try and convince the wife that I am important because I am old.............LOL. Any good luck wishes from this blog? Wow, even the cat is rolling on the floor laughing at that one.

Christine

7/14/2013 03:34:44 pm

I watched the marathon on History Channel. I had seen the show once or twice and thought it had potential. So I set my DVR to record the series. After watching 3 episodes in a row, I deleted the rest and unrecorded the show.

As a previous poster stated, it had potential, a good premise. However, the execution was leaving a lot to be desired. While each topic had potential, there was no real science or investigation to back it up. Being from Minnesota myself I was interested in the Rune stone episode/Giant man episode. Why didn't he ask to see the report of the first investigation by archeologist? Why didn't he talk to the local tribe or Indian Affairs? What were their reports on it? Due to sensitivity to native cultures these would have been well documented.

I enjoy watching these shows that look @ Myths, legends etc and ask "What if?" But either they should present themselves as total jokes or as real scientific/journalistic show.

I also looked up Wolter's credentials or rather tried. Even on his company's webpage they are not listed. I have no idea if Mr. Wolter is good at his job, I am not hiring him for anything. I have no idea if Mr. Wolter is well respected by his peers or in academic circles. To me that would not matter. What would matter is how he investigates and how he applies basic common sense to a situation. I am not seeing that in this show.

Granted Mr. Wolter is not solely responsible for this show. A great deal also is laid at the foot of the producers, writers, and researchers of this show. Maybe if they had more money if would be better? Who knows. I just wish the History Channel would live up to it's name and provide real history or real productive speculation. Not just jumping on the conspiracy theory bandwagon or the pop culture crazy one either.

I wish Mr. Wolter the best. I think he would be an interesting guy to have at a dinner party for a good debate. Perhaps he or the producers etc can take some of these criticisms to heart and apply them to help improve the show for the better. But I just can't watch again in it's current state. The history we were taught in school is not inaccurate. It is evolving.....

Christine

Thomas

7/14/2013 10:33:55 pm

I watched only one episode of this "show", the Roanoke episode, before i found this site, within 5 minutes, I was searching Scott and fraud, it took more searching to find this site, but the reviews made it worth it.

Carl

8/22/2013 09:20:56 pm

America Unearthed is a fascinating study in wildly speculative historical fiction. The host is a BS factory of uncritical thought. The holes in his logic are striking, and frequently jaw dropping. 5 minutes into the first episode I viewed and I was Google searching Wolters academic credentials...

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