In Which I Identify With Creationists

This weekend, I went home to see my family and assist with some early Christmas preparations. During my visit, I had a chance to examine my 14-year-old sister's world history homework, which was genuinely appalling.

Her teacher has adopted Gavin Menzies' 1421: The Year China Discovered America as a key text for their class and is, apparently, teaching it as factual information. Menzies' central argument is that a Chinese fleet commanded by Zheng He sailed from China in 1421, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and sailed on to North America, eventually establishing a colonial settlement in modern-day Rhode Island. Menzies (who neither reads nor speaks any Chinese language either ancient or modern) bases his argument on a handful of maps, speculative interpretation of DNA evidence, and the existence of structures such as the Newport Tower and the Bimini Road. He claims that records of the voyage were intentionally destroyed by Chinese officials, but provides a wealth of very specific and uncited information about the expedition. In short, it is a crackpot theory.