Gavin Menzies is a pseudo scientist !
By Manuel Luciano da Silva, Medical Doctor
July 22, 2004

On July 21st, 2004, was shown, for the first time in the American Public Television (PBS = Public Broadcasting System) and also in Canada , a two hour documentary entitled: “1421 – The year China discovered America ”, based on a book with the same name and written by the  Englishman,  Gavin Menzies. This book continues to be a best seller all over, including the United States of America and also in Portugal , where its translation was introduced  two months ago.

With a tremendous public relations team, Menzies has been able to  deceive, to cheat,   with his  historical fantasies  many millions of readers and now  this documentary will increase by many more millions the number  of  people  that saw his foolish ideas.   

I said it and wrote about it,   as soon as I saw a video of Menzies’  first presentation in  Royal Geographic Society in London, two years ago,   (see the articles on my  website)  “that Menzies’ ideas that America was discovered by the Chinese in 1421 had to be a big lie!”   My prognosis was correct.  I could confirm it today when I saw this documentary. 

Let us note that Menzies rented the space at the Royal Geographic Society for his first lecture. He paid 1200 pounds.  He was not invited, nor sponsored by the Royal Geographic Society.

Fortunately, the specialists that participated in this same documentary are all in general agreement  that Menzies does not present  one single  true document,  neither any archeological evidence that could defend his fictitious and  false theory.

Menzies insults everybody

But Menzies goes further.  He insults nations and people, left and right.

(1) He offends Portugal and the Portuguese  people when he says, in disdain, that the Chinese were the first to pass the Cape of Good Hope, that they discovered the South and North America before the Portuguese, and that the Chinese even discovered the Azores, because  in the island of  Corvo,  Chinese DNA has been found!   Wow!  

(2) He offends Portugal and the Portuguese  when he belittles the Prince Henry and his School of Navigation at Sagres, and all other navigators and sailors,  who courageously , during several decades, worked and many of them gave even their  lives so that the discovery of the maritime route  to India  was accomplished by  Vasco da Gama.

(3) He offends Portugal and the Portuguese  when he belittles the voyages  of  the Corte Reais: John Vaz Corte Real (the father), who,  in 1472,  discovered Newfoundland  and the two brothers,  Gaspar and Miguel Corte Real,  who built the Newport Tower and made the inscriptions on Dighton Rock.

(4) He offends Spain – that paid for both fleets – and the Spanish people when he belittles the voyages of Cristovão Colon (Columbus) to Central America and that of the first circumnavigation accomplished by Fernão de Magalhães (Magellan).

(5) He offends all the native American Indians when he declares, without  any hesitancy, that Cristovão Colon (Columbus)  when he arrived in  the Antilles in 1492, in the Caribbean Sea,  ”he thought he had arrived in Cathay (China)  and Columbus was right because the natives that greeted  him had Chinese blood!”  Wow!

(6) He offends England and the British people when he affirms with conviction  that the Chinese  were the first in the world to discover the method of measuring correctly the longitude, forgetting completely  the invention of the Maritime Chronometer by John Harrison in 1735, which won a special prize of many thousand of pounds paid by the British Parliament.

(7) He offends Italy and all the Italians when he says,  loud and clear,  that the map called the “Nautical Chart of 1424”   done by the cartographer Zuane Pizzigano of Venice , is a Chinese map!  This map  does not possess  a single Chinese character!

(8) He offends all the engineers and maritime architects when he states that the ships or junks used by the Chinese fleet in 1421, with 500 feet in length and  100 feet in width, could navigate very well for  several months in the Atlantic Ocean ! With these dimensions it is impossible for a ship made of wood to survive the waves of the Atlantic .  A ship made of wood,  with 500 by 100 feet,  needs to possess  thick beans of iron  otherwise it will shipwreck easily in the high seas.  In 1421 the Chinese did not have the capacity of making   such strong iron beans. 

(9) In this documentary, despite Mr. Gavin Menzies being a retired captain of a British submarine, he reveals much maritime ignorance: he  was   not able to read  the lines of latitude  on a  portulano  chart, because he failed shamefully   to  calculate the latitudes on the Nautical Chart of 1424, and because of  this  he made the stupid comparison of the island called Antilia drawn on  the same chart, with the island of Puerto Rico and the island of Satanazes with the island of Guadalupe. This reveals a discrepancy, a huge mistake, of more than one thousand and  seven hundred miles!

(10) In the documentary shown last, Mr. Menzies was very careful in  giving  only one minute to each contester of his so called theory.  This was an obvious false technique  because he did not want anyone to weaken his theory, but I am sure the general public is smarter than him.

The contesters of Menzies theory

The last twenty minutes of the two hour program were dedicated to the refutations of the various international specialists.  For this, the producer of the documentary  had  Menzies sit in front of a large table  and asked  him pertinent questions.  Menzies revealed himself very weak, and even uncomfortable  and not at all convincing  with his answers. He showed himself before millions of viewers that he is a real idiot! He behaved like someone guilty of a crime!  Menzies is indeed his worst enemy!

(1) In the one minute that I was allowed to appear on this documentary, I demonstrated, very clearly, that Menzies is a falsifier of maps.  He changed the Nautical Chart of 1424 to fit his preconceived theory that the island of Antilia , shown on the same chart of 1424, represented  the island of Puerto Rico and the island of Satanazes stood for the island of Guadalupe in the Caribbean Sea. Menzies failed completely to realize that those islands on the Nautical Chart of 1424  are Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, in Canada .

(2) Professor Carl Urness, Director of the Museum of James Ford Bell of the University of Minnesota, which possesses the original of the Nautical Chart of 1424, emphatically denied that this map has any Chinese  characters!

(3) Professor John Clifford, Archaeologist from the University of Miami, testified, categorically, on this documentary,  that  he did not find any Chinese archeological objects  in the island of Bimini, where Menzies says  that the Chinese shipwrecked.  And concluded that Menzies’ book is pseudo-science!

(4) Professor Xi Longlei,  of the University of Wuban in China , stated  that there are no archives in China revealing that the Chinese ever arrived in America in 1421. He further explained that in the XV and XVI centuries the Chinese people did not even believe that the earth was spherical!

(5) Professor Zhu Jianqiu,  of the Hydrographic Naval Institute of China, reaffirmed that in XV and XVI centuries, did  not exist any  information stating  that  the Chinese knew how to measure the longitudes or the latitudes. He   explained that the Chinese learned these techniques  two centuries later from the Jesuits that came from Europe .

(6) Professor Wang Tianyon of  Beijing University was much more objective. He said “anyone who presents a new theory has to show archives and documents  and archaeological evidence to prove his theory, and  if he does  not have them, like Mr. Menzies,  he has no theory at all. Because of this,  Menzies’  theory is totally false and has no value  at all”.

Conclusion:

Menzies’ book is a  historical tragedy, a  “junk”  full of thrash.

The TV documentary is of  excellent quality in  its color, its  action and variety of locals.  The TV team of  the Television- Envision from London, England,  did a magnificent production!  Congratulations!

They  just were very unlucky with the protagonist they got:  one who is a falsifier, and jackass and a liar!  His name will go down  in history as  the first case of “Menziesism”:  there is, ‘an individual who collects lies and  then sells them for truths!’

Menzies has exploited and abused humanity with his lies and pseudo scientific affirmations. In a short time the world  will see him as an arrogant, vainglorious and  boast full naïve!

Finally

And finally: because Menzies does not have ONE single scientist to defend his so called “theory”, all the contesters should get together in  a symposium and discuss and refute  all Menzies’  ideas,  so all branches of the  media,  (radio, TV and newspapers and magazines),  that were  so hypnotized by his false statements,  should  inform the world community of the true facts of the History of Maritime Discoveries.

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