Just a Bunch of Bull and Bias

In my religious studies course Prof. Smith argued that religion and beliefs help to create a story that may sometimes be advantageous for one society and culture. I agree with this notion a hundred percent. Keeping this reasoning in mind while I read “Indian Mounds of Wisconsin” , I noticed that some scholars may propose certain theories that are advantageous for his own society and culture rather than that of the actual society one is studying. The theory by James Scherz, a professor of civil engineering, was the one that stood out to me as the most bias and repulsive.

                James Scherz, as noted in Indian Mounds of Wisconsin, brought together his interest in ancient engineering principles and his belief in pre-Columbian contacts between peoples of the Old and New World. This theory and house of thought is meant to shed more light on “sacred” geometric patterns and help to preserve mounds. Using his theory he has come to the conclusion that Old World societies must have come into contact with New world societies because the geometric patterns used in effigy mounds were to challenging for Ancient Native civilizations to even fathom. Schertz hypothesizes that either Hindu scholars or free masons made contact with these Ancient Natives about two thousand years before the actual arrival of Old World society. I believe that Schertz is arguing that Natives were not capable of building these effigy mounds. He then says that Old World societies are responsible for the engineering of the time. His bias seems to be against the Natives who must have been toooo unintelligent to conceive such mounds. I believe that Schertz used this theory to help his society of choice seem more advantageous than that of the Native societies that once roamed this land. Am I wrong in questioning this theory?