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History Deniers

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I'm currently reading Richard Dawkins' latest book The Greatest Show on Earth.  It's been described as a book that really shouldn't need to be written.  The evidence for evolution is everywhere we look, and having to point it out to people like this seems like overkill.  People should already know this stuff! However, since a very large percentage of the educated world (and an even larger percentage of the uneducated one) seem to think we were all poofed into existence "around the time of the domestication of the dog" it seems that this book is not only important, but vital.

I've been engrossed since the first page.  OK : there might be a certain amount of preaching to the converted here (I love that phrase when applied to atheism!) but it's excellent reading well written prose by someone who knows their subject well.  It's obvioulsy not my first Dawkins book, and I'm 100% sure it'll not be my last.

One of the terms the book introduced to me was the concept of a History Deniers  - someone who denies that certain aspects of history have taken place.  In fact, not only that, but also that certain events have taken place (unblemished by anything so banal as actual evidence). 

I love this new term!  It instantly describes these kinds of people to a tee - and it also means we have an excellent word for lumping all kinds of people together - holocaust deniers are a particular type of history denier.  As are creationists, moon-landing deniers and various conspiracy theorists.  Thanks Richard ;)
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