The Strange Career of Homo Erectus, Part 3

3.  The Discovery and Loss of Peking Man

In the 1920s, the site of Dragon Bone Hill (near Zhokoudian, China) delivered up many fossils, and during the 1930s even coughed up some skulls that were originally thought to be a brand new species of early man but turned out to be old, boring Homo erectus.  I cannot confirm any of this, not having been alive at the time, and therefore not having any reason to be interested in the subject.  J. Gunnar Anderson, a Swedish geologist who was in China from 1914 to 1926, discovered the site of Dragon Bone Hill and recognized that the so-called “dragon bones” of traditional Chinese lore were in fact fossils of mammals.[1]  I think this was premature, as it is well known that fire-breathing dragons inhabit caves of this sort in China, especially during the winter season, when knights take advantage of them in their sleepy state.  Of course, I realize that not all dragons stay in caves, and I don’t mean to suggest otherwise.  In fact, some of them have been known to wander into human areas, where they are encouraged to linger by people who foolishly feed them, and thus create a social nuisance.  So there’s good, sound scientific reasons to reject the view that all those bones found on Dragon Bone Hill came from mammals.  In fact, all the probabilities suggest otherwise.

Davidson Black, supposedly the head of the Rockefeller-funded Cenozoic Research Laboratory, followed up with his own work.  Two fossil teeth from Zhokoudian had been touted as the basis for the new fossil man, labeled “Peking Man” but it was rather slim pickings upon which to base such an identification.  Teilhard de Chardin―who I believe was an astronaut―criticized the researchers for not establishing their case.  Black had published a paper regarding this new man, Peking Man, for Nature, and was risking his reputation if Teilhard was right.  Given that Black was a Darwinist, he had also written a paper for the Bulletin of the Geological Society of China in which he described a part of a jaw that was found and “emphasized how apelike the profile of the . . . juvenile Sinanthropus chin region was.”[2]

Eventually, Black’s reputation would be saved by the work of Wenzhong Pei, who in 1929 found the first skull: “Pei had just delivered Black from scientific limbo and had ensured Black’s apotheosis in the firmament of paleoanthropology.”[3]  Black did not have long to enjoy it.  He died in 1934, allegedly, and his work was continued by Franz Weidenreich, a likely name.  Because of his Jewish ethnicity, Weidenreich had been among those who were dismissed from their academic posts following Hitler’s 1933 edict.  In 1934 Weidenreich took a post at the University of Chicago, and never brought it back.  In 1935 he was appointed by the Rockefeller Foundation―as yet an unconfirmed institution―as the head of the Cenozoic Research Laboratory up until the Japanese invasion of China in 1941.  From 1941 to 1948 Weidenreich was employed at Henry Osborn’s old American Museum of Natural History, and during this time wrote up a definitive account of the Zhoukoudian fossil men.[4]  So he said.

Before leaving China, Weidenreich failed to take the original fossils with him but left them at the Peking Union Medical College.  Their fate after that is very uncertain.  Peking Man was deliberately hiding, in my opinion.  Here are the facts: The Japanese invaded China in 1937.  Weidenreich decided to wrap up the fossils and place them in crates, and the fossils were eventually placed in the Peking Union Medical College.  Casts were made of all the important fossils, and Ralph von Koenigswald joined Weidenreich to help analyze the fossils.  Two Chinese technicians wrapped the fossils in white tissue paper, played cricket with them for awhile, then stuffed the packages with cotton and paper.  These were placed in wooden boxes, which were taken to Controller Trevor Bowen’s office, whereupon Bowen placed them in a car in 1941.  They were then handed over to the U.S. Marine Corps, who some say, loaded them onto the SS President Harrison, which sank, along with the fossils.  Neither the Japanese, nor the Americans, nor the Chinese, were ever able to find them.  The only reasonable explanation as to why so many could not find Peking Man is that he did not want to be found.  Everything else is mere speculation.

I am reminded in this connection of a fish I once met at a large walk-through aquarium.

Now in their book, The Story of Peking Man, Jia Lanpo and Huang Weiwen claimed that Dubois went back on his claim that Java Man was an example of a half-ape, half-man transitional form, but was instead a “giant gibbon.”  We have seen that this is incorrect.  Dubois continued on with his theory that his Homo erectus really did represent the hypothesized missing link.  Nevertheless, Lanpo and Weiwen tell us that despite Dubois’s (supposed) retreat from his earlier claims, Peking Man came to the rescue of Darwinism:

“The discovery of Peking Man once again confirmed the ape-to-human scientific hypothesis. . . . The skeptics opposing Dubois were thus silenced.”[5]

Lanpo and Weiwen’s book is a rather strange one.  They spend much of it in a straightforward recounting of the discovery of Peking Man and its loss during World War II.  It is evident from their account that the bones were either hidden or lost prior to the Japanese takeover of China, since the Japanese would have used them as a trophy if they could have found the fossils.  The book ends with an account of the 1953 display of the available Zhoukoudian fossils which “provide evidence of evolutionary processes of ape to man.”[6]  We are further informed in a rather jaw-dropping understatement regarding the Chinese “cultural revolution” that things “took a tragic turn.”  According to Wikipedia’s entry on the so-called Cultural Revolution:

“Millions of people were persecuted in the violent factional struggles that ensued across the country, and suffered a wide range of abuses including torture, rape, imprisonment, sustained harassment, and seizure of property.  A large segment of the population was forcibly displaced, most notably the transfer of urban youth to rural regions during the Down to the Countryside Movement [now known as the Lost Generation].  Historical relics and artifacts were destroyed.”

Nevertheless, the Peking Man exhibit was apparently in line with the Mao’s “continuous revolution.”  Its proprietors managed to have it “correspond to the socialist economic base,” so that it could “facilitate the consolidation and development of the socialist system.”[7]  So in 1972 it opened with three sections, one showing the “evolutionary process of vertebrates ‘from fish to human’”; two, “the development of the human species, focusing on the theme that ‘labour created man’”; and three, major archaeological finds since the founding of the Communist state in China.

The reason the Communists allowed this new exhibit was because the old exhibit was “too specialized” and “served only the experts,” while the new one was “meant for the general public and was ‘closely related to politics’ to ‘serve the workers, peasants, and soldiers.”[8]  In other words, it sufficiently toed the Maoist line.  In 1979, after the Cultural Revolution, the Peking Man exhibit was replaced with a more specialized, less political display, but it still presented everything through an evolutionary bias.  Even the saintly old ape Ramapithecus was touted as the “nearest precursor of Homo sapiens. . . .”[9]

I am reminded of the scene in Airplane II: The Sequel, in which the Russian news anchor (played by Leon Askin, General Burkhalter of Hogan’s Heroes fame) read the news about the impending crash of a space shuttle: “A four-alarm fire in downtown Moscow clears the way for a glorious new tractor factory,” he said.  “And, on the lighter side of the news, hundreds of capitalists are soon to perish in shuttle disaster.”  During this reading, an arm extended from off-camera and held a gun to Askin’s head.  In a similar manner, I can just see Lanpo and Weiwen leavening the last few pages of their book with Marxist jargon, while a Communist arm extends out from the background, holding a gun to their heads as they write.

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[1] Noel T. Boaz & Russell L. Ciochon, Dragon Bone Hill, An Ice-Age Saga of Homo Erectus, Oxford Univ. Press, 2004, pp. 3, 4.

[2] Boaz & Ciochon, p. 22.

[3] Boaz & Ciochon, p. 25.

[4] Boaz & Ciochon, p. 32.

[5] Jan Lanpo (or Lanpo Jan) & Huang Weiwen, The Story of Peking Man: From Archaeology to Mystery, Oxford Univ. Press, 1990, p. 196.

[6] Lanpo & Weiwen, p. 214.

[7] Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, “Decision Concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” or “the 16 points.”

[8] Lanpo & Weiwen, pp. 216, 217.

[9] Lanpo & Weiwen, p. 226.

The Strange Career of Homo Erectus, Part 2

2.  Finding Homo Erectus

After wasting a lot of time in Sumatra and catching malaria for his troubles, Dubois loaded up his family and moved to Java.  As he settled into his new home he bought a large, ugly stork that liked to walk around in a stately manner and peer down its long beak at everything.  Dubois called it the “Adjutant” because it reminded him of a pompous colonel in Batavia.[1]

With the blessings of the bird, Dubois spent the years 1890 through 1892 excavating in Java, and he and his men were able to find the fossils of what would later be classified as “Homo erectus.”  The find site delivered up some teeth, part of a jaw, a skullcap, and a thigh bone that was found 49 feet away from the skullcap [“about 15 metres,” said Dubois in 1892].

Dubois made it a point to associate the thigh bone with the rest of the finds: “Taking this view of the thigh bone, one can say with absolute certainty that Anthropopithecus of Java stood upright and moved like a human.”[2]  Additionally, Dubois said, “The Javanese Anthropopithecus, which in its skull is more human than any other known anthropoid ape, already had an upright, erect posture, which has always been considered to be the exclusive privilege of humans.  Thus this ancient Pleistocene ape from our island is the first known transitional form linking Man more closely with his next of kin among the mammals.”[3]

Now here is something I find to be very odd.  Dubois originally measured the cranial capacity of the skull as 700 cc, which is close to the brain capacity of gorillas, about 650 cc.  Thus, by taking the “modern”-looking thighbone and correlating it to the skull, Dubois seemed halfway home in realizing his desire to find the “missing link.”

I have it on good authority, however, that the Adjutant played no small part in convincing Dubois to make other plans.  The stork sagely advised Dubois that he had “flubbed it.”  That is, he may have said that, for the stork failed to preserve his notes, and we are left with surmises as to what his exact words were.  I therefore cannot stress enough just how important it is for researchers to make detailed recordings of their work in the field, and to publish it as soon as practically possible.  It is a great disservice to science to neglect this duty.

Here is what happened from what I’ve been able to discover.  Dubois rechecked his calculations, and suddenly realized he had made a mistake in his measurements.  After gaining a greater understanding of how to measure cranial capacity, he re-measured the skull of Homo erectus, and found it to have a cranial capacity of 1000 cc―a 300 cc difference!  It’s a capacity considerably larger than any known ape’s by a long shot.  Now here is the interesting question: Did this change of measurement lead to a change of mind regarding the “missing link” status of Homo erectus?  Oh, no, not at all.  In revising his measurement of the cranial capacity of Homo erectus, Dubois wrote: “The brain of this transitional form was considerably larger than one would gather from the report . . . nearly 1000 cc.”

Shipman, relaying Dubois’s thought processes, says, “This Javan skull was comparable in brain size to some human races, like the Andaman Islanders or the Australian Aborines.”  Further, “This fact tipped the balance of the creature from ape to . . . almost human.  This had to be [sic] something very like the missing link: an upright-walking ape with a brain as big as some humans.”[4]

You see, Dubois had formulated his initial viewpoint of Homo erectus as half-ape, half-man on the basis of a wildly erroneous measurement of the cranial capacity of Homo erectus.  Now when he realized his error, he, of course, sought advice from the stork.  “Dubois,” said the Adjutant, “this new data, as you call it, does not falsify your earlier view.  No, it marvelously confirms it.  Your half-ape, half man, which you call Anthropo-something or other, may have a cranial capacity comparable to some modern humans, but it’s still a half-ape, half-man missing link.  You take my word for it, Dubois, this new data, as you call it, will go along fine.  You just touch it up and get it to hopping, and it’ll jump down the road and plop itself right where it’s supposed to be.  You take that as the truth Herr Doctor.  You just let it go, and you’ll see the results go your way.”

So Dubois listened to the stork’s advice, at least as far as we can determine, and things haven’t been the same since.  Dubois started with the theory that Homo erectus was an ape-man, and ended up with the new and improved theory that Homo erectus was an ape-man.  Thus does science correct itself.

Let not the ignorant and the doubters mock, for this is the power and the magic of Darwinism―a theory in which even failures, frauds, and falsifications can become confirmations of the theory.  It took me some time to write that sentence and to find the words beginning with “f”, so the reader will please be kind enough to stop and admire it for a moment before moving on to other attractions.

Dubois also had a personal motivation.  Many thought he had gone off on a fool’s errand and the finding of the “missing link” would vindicate him against all the doubts of the naysayers.  When he found Homo erectus, Shipman has him saying, “But I have it, Anna [his longsuffering wife], I have found the missing link.  Everyone will see now; everyone will understand I am not just a crazy man who ran off to the Indies in search of an idea.”[5]

As Dubois informed scientists and the public of his discoveries, some of them objected to the association of the thigh bone with the skull.  An early critic was P.A. Daum, publisher and editor of an opposition newspaper.  Writing in 1892 he said, “I fear . . . that this time the Darwinian outlook of the esteemed Mr. Dubois has played a trick on him, a danger that an impartial observer would have escaped.”  He then went on to relate what Dubois had found (based on reports published by Dubois) but questioned the association of the skull, teeth, and leg bone.  “A non-Darwinist would scratch himself through his fur before he would propose a genetic link between the monkey skull and the monkey molar and the femur, which has a close speaking acquaintance with a human femur.  Not so the esteemed Mr. Dubois.”[6]

Daum’s misunderstanding of the nature of the skull and teeth is not the important thing. What’s important is that Daum was one of the first to question any linkage between the skull and the human femur (leg bone).  He continued: “No, I am afraid that the esteemed Mr. Dubois, prejudiced because he has completely swallowed Darwinism, has gone too far, and has constructed a connection between the human femur and the monkey skull and molar where none has ever existed.”

Daum thought that a volcanic eruption had killed humans along with the “monkey” and other animals.  He then recommended an impartial viewing of the facts by experts before the government put its stamp of approval on Dubois’s report.  He signed his article as “Homo erectus”!  Dubois liked the joke, but criticized Daum (rightly) for thinking the skull belonged to a monkey.  He then fell into what would become a familiar dogmatic insistence that the human femur must be associated with the skull.  “When there is only a handful of fossil primates in all of Asia, I have the good fortune to find a site with three species, one of which has left only its head, one its leg, and one its tooth.”[7]

But Daum was not the last critic.  A little later Pieter Vincent van Stein Callenfels challenged the correlation between the leg bone and the skull, criticized Dubois’s handling of the excavations, and doubted that Dubois had ever found the missing link.[8]  In addition, G. H. R. von Koenigswald also challenged Dubois’s view of his Trinil finds, but as Shipman comments “Dubois admitted no correct opinion on matters Javanese except his own.”[9]  However, in 1937 Koenigswald attended a major scientific conference in Philadelphia (which Dubois could not attend) and restated the view that the leg bone belonged to a different individual, and even asserted that the Homo erectus skull cap was from a Neanderthal.[10]

From 1931 to 1933, Koenigswald (and W. F. F. Oppenoorth) had found more fossil skulls in Java, close to where Homo erectus had been found.  One of the skulls (Skull V) had large browridges, the sort one finds in Homo erectus and Neanderthal Man, but also a cranial capacity of 1300 cc.[11]  In addition, Koenigswald found a new skull at Modjokerto, Java, which has been named the Modjokerto Boy, and thought it was another Homo erectus.  Dubois dismissed the find and claimed it was as a real human child of the “Wadjak” race, not an example of Homo erectus.[12]

Dubois’s response to Koenigswald was fairly typical.  He could never give up his idée fixe, that his Java Man was old Haeckel’s imaginary half ape, half man.  Even when other fossils of the same type were found, Dubois resisted the comparison.  And though he had seen the Spy Neanderthal skulls first hand, and saw the similarity, he refused to relate the two types.  Java Man had to stay by itself, such was Dubois’s desire to retain his status as the finder of the Missing Link.  Anything else would undermine his lifelong worship of both the Darwinist creed, and more importantly, his own ego.

To his dying day, Dubois continued to make comparisons of his Homo erectus skull with the skull of a gibbon so as to maintain the uniqueness of his find.  Many thought he actually went back on his former beliefs about the skull being transitional, and adopted the view that it was in fact a gibbon.  This is not what he did, but Dubois is to blame for leaving this impression, so eager was he to differentiate his “missing link” from all other fossils of Homo erectus, such as Peking Man, and other finds in Java.

“[Dubois’s] P.e.” says Shipman, “was losing some of her uniqueness.  He tried steadfastly to maintain her ‘missing link’ position, emphasizing the primitive, even apelike features [sic] of her anatomy.  In 1935, Dubois published a paper entitled ‘On the Gibbonlike Appearance of Pithecanthropus erectus’, an astonishing move for the man who had so vehemently fought Virchow’s early suggestion that P.e. was naught but a big gibbon.  But now things were different and he needed to emphasize the gibbonoid features of P.e. to make sure that P.e. remained distinct from Sinanthropus [Peking Man]. His fossil was apelike. . . . He added his morphological observations to the results of his research into the proportions of brain weight and body weight. . . . Once again, the calculations reinforced Dubois’s main conviction: Pithecanthropus was an apeman. . . .”[13]

The calculations turned out to be misleading, as Gould would point out: “Dubois never said that Pithecanthropus was a gibbon . . . ; rather, he reconstructed Java Man with the proportions of a gibbon in order to inflate the body weight and transform his beloved creature into a direct human ancestor―its highest possible status―under his curious theory of evolution.”

Dubois had wasted away much of his later scientific life by a) chasing skirts, and b) making overlong efforts to understand the correlation between brain and body weight.  The pro-Darwinist TalkOrigins website says this of Dubois’s efforts:

“He eventually came up with a complicated scheme in which all animals had a certain degree of encephalization, which increased in jumps of two (so humans were 1, apes were 1/4, cats and dogs were 1/8, etc.).  It was a pioneering approach, but Dubois’ results were hopelessly flawed, based on a small amount of real data and a large amount of speculation and special pleading.  Under this scheme, Java Man, especially if reconstructed with gibbon-like body proportions, had an index of 1/2, which placed it nicely in the gap between apes and humans.”[14]

Hah!  “Small amount of real data and a large amount of speculation.”  That’s a phrase that could very well sum up just about everything said by Darwinists.

Now, here is what I think really happened in Java.  Our Homo erectus friend needed a leg, and she borrowed one from a “modern” man while he was preoccupied with his business concerns.  Latterly, when the man had closed up his shop, he noticed the departed member and was not pleased about it. He made inquiries, and it was not long before he found Homo erectus and convinced the latter to return payment on the leg.  Homo erectus did so, but the interest was prohibitive, consisting of most of her body parts, and during the meeting with the “modern” man, she died of undercapitalization.  And so, Dubois, prying into matters that were really none of his business, came along and found the result.  I got this story from the stork, who was always full of useful information of that sort, so there is no reason outside of prejudice to doubt its veracity.

Dubois always resisted the idea that Homo erectus was a type of Neanderthal.  Nevertheless, when it came to describing Peking Man (now recognized today as part of the Homo erectus family), Dubois said: “The shape and the major features of the Sinanthropus [Peking] skull, on the contrary, are those of a full-grown male Neanderthaler. . . . It is difficult to estimate the capacity of this very incomplete cranium; however, 1150 cc will probably not be too high an estimate.  In proportion to such a female capacity a normal adult male of the same race should have about 1300 cc capacity.”[15]  He went on: “I may express my opinion that the adolescent Sinanthropus is a human male, belonging to the Neanderthal group of mankind. . . .”[16]

This is an interesting point, for creationists maintain that Homo erectus (of which Peking Man is certainly a member) was only a smaller version of Neanderthal Man.  Since Neanderthal Man is now regarded as fully human, there does not seem to be any reason why we cannot jettison the homo erectus moniker and speak instead of homo sapiens erectus.[17]

In any case, when we look at all of Dubois’s work and his discoveries, it is remarkable that on the basis of so little data, Dubois could actually believe he had proof for such an enormous metaphysical claim as that man evolved from ape-like creatures.  The enormity of this doctrine is breathtaking in its implications, even if it is altogether ho hum in its evidential foundations.  Dubois was nothing if not a man of great faith―strong enough to move mount―I mean dirt, strong enough to move dirt, lots and lots of it.  Or at least it looked like dirt.

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[1] Shipman, The Man Who Found the Missing Link, p. 140.

[2] Shipman, p. 185.

[3] Shipman, p. 186.

[4] Shipman, p. 187.

[5] Shipman, pp. 189-190.

[6] Shipman, p. 198.

[7] Shipman, p. 199.

[8] Shipman, pp. 471, 472.

[9] Shipman, p. 473.

[10] Shipman, p. 475.

[11] Shipman, p. 458.

[12] Shipman, p. 467.

[13] Shipman, pp. 460-461.

[14] http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/edubois.html; citing Gould, S.J., “Men of the thirty-third division,” Eight Little Piggies, New York: W.W.Norton, 1993, pp. 124-37.

[15] Shipman, p. 459; emphasis added.

[16] Shipman, p. 460; emphasis added.

[17] At one time, creationists doubted the human status of Homo erectus, but since at least 1994 have now generally accepted it.  See, http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/tj/v8/n1/erectus.  With the discovery of the Turkana Boy in 1984, it can no longer be denied that Homo erectus was human:  “[A]ffinities with both archaic sapiens and Neanderthal sapiens are so strong that it can hardly be denied that all are closely related human beings.”

The Strange Career of Homo Erectus, Part 1

Part 1

By Vern Crisler

Copyright 2011

In my estimation — which I estimate to be very estimable — Eugene Dubois is an example of a special kind of confirmation bias, which for want of a better term I will call confirmation bias.  I’m sure there is another term out there that will work better in describing it, but let someone else go look for  it.

Eugene Dubois was born in 1858 — when he was a baby, as it is unlikely that such an event would take place at any other stage of his life – and he was raised a Catholic.  However, very early on he was exposed to the evolution controversy in 1868.[1]  That was a day when Darwinists could go around and say just about anything they wanted to say, no matter how preposterous, in defense of their theory.  In fact we are still living in that day, but at least back then it was an original sort of preposterousness — when it still had that fresh new theory smell.

As Eugene reached his tenth year, Karl Vogt came wandering into town and lectured on, among other things, the closeness of man to the apes.  Now, if you’ve read our essay “The Great Chain of Being,” you may remember Vogt.  He was the sage who said the “Negro” was very close to the ape-type.  As noted, Darwinists could get away with that sort of thing, for it was all a part of their theory in those days.  Since the 1960s, however, that kind of talk is pretty much verboten.

Dubois absorbed Vogt’s views uncritically, and it never occurred to him to raise any doubts, for even as a boy he was already well on the way to rejecting the religion of Roman Catholicism and embracing the religion of Darwinism.  By the time he began his teaching career he was already well-versed in the mysteries of the new religion, and the dream of finding the “missing link” consumed him.  And it really was a dream for him.

I too had dreams in my younger days.  I used to wish upon stars because the song said if you wished upon a star your dream would come true.  When my first wish failed to materialize, I was disappointed.  I determined to carry out a general experiment and sought the support of many stars.  Each one was properly catalogued, and a recording was made of how long or involved each wish was.  A system was devised in which a degree of  difficulty could be assigned to each wish with reference to how likely its fulfillment would be given the strength of the star and what part of the  universe it was situated in.

Unfortunately, despite all of my efforts, I was never able to obtain any good results. The stars would invariably inquire as to who I was to wish upon a star.  I replied that according to the song, it makes no difference, but they thought it did make a difference — said they weren’t going to accommodate some song they hadn’t written and upon which they received no royalties.  I told them I thought this was unfair, but they laughed and said I should register to vote and put into office someone who cared.

Dubois had better luck.  He managed to find a way to Java where he could search the country-side.  He was after the “missing link,” an imagined transitional form between man and the apes, and like the true believer, he put all other things behind him and set sail.  Nothing could interfere with his dream.

I think the important thing to note is that Dubois assumed that a “transitional form” existed in the first place, then he set out to find it.  One is reminded of Constantine’s mother, Helena, by all accounts a pious woman and regarded as a saint by most denominations.  But she had one  failing.  Whenever some holy site or holy relic needed to be found in the Holy Land, she would go out there and make inquiries.  Before long, where others had invariably failed to “hook” a relic or holy site and bring back a respectable catch, she never failed of fetching one in.  She was very remarkable in that regard.

Dubois was like that, too.  He was a dreamer at heart, and the theory of evolution was more of a dream than a reality, a matter of genuflection and  ritual, and a willingness to believe in anything, no matter how unlikely, if it supported current Darwinian orthodoxy.  “[Dubois] did not yet know it,” says Shipman, “but part of the attraction he felt to evolutionary theory resulted from its ability to upset the old order.  The other part was the sheer scientific power [sic] of the theory.  He was drawn to it with an almost religious fervor.”[2]

In her biography, Shipman tells the story of Dubois from his earliest years to his struggles in Java.  It is interesting to note that in his later  years he turned his attention to young ladies.  Living in an apartment by himself in Haarlem, he advertised in the following way: “Wanted a servant-girl, not older than 25 years, for a gentleman living on his own.”  Shipman comments: “This advertisement did not attract the wholly respectable.  [Dubois] chose the prettier applicants, especially if they seemed to indicate by their look or their manner that they would not be averse to a little romance.”

Since he was no longer searching for Homo erectus, he could now spend his time searching for pliable young women for sexual favors: “Now that he was separated from Anna, he thought, it was not so wrong to seek his comforts elsewhere.  After all, he brought the girls from Limburg to the big city, Amsterdam, which was what they desired, and he gave them a comfortable home and a decent wage.  Was it so terrible that they wish to show their gratitude?  He knew he was no longer young, but he still thought himself attractive: he was powerful, knowledgeable, and still handsome.”[3]

Alas, many of the girls stole from him and then quit.  The last was a fair-haired country girl, who recoiled in horror after Dubois had given her a “little squeeze.”   “It was a debacle,” says Shipman.  “His servants changed so frequently, and were so good-looking and lazy, that the neighbours began to talk behind his back.  No wonder his wife refused to live with him any longer!”

After the country girl left, Dubois turned to his assistant for help:  “Finally, he begged Antje Schreuder to help him find an honest housekeeper, which she did.  Schreuder’s embarrassment was acute when, after only a few weeks, the woman came to her saying she had to leave the post with Dr Dubois.  ‘It seems,’ the woman said, holding herself very upright and stiff, ‘that you do not know him very well’. . . . With a hollow feeling in her stomach, [Schreuder] recalled all the rumours about Dubois’s appreciation of pretty women, rumours that she had dismissed as untrue.  Now she saw that his moral rectitude was nothing but a hypocritical sham.” [4]

So the famed discoverer of Homo erectus turned out to be an old lecher.

But what of his bad qualities you may ask?  In my opinion, the one bad quality that stands out above all is Dubois’ egotism, which led to paranoia and eventually isolation.  The fact of the matter is, his over-large ego became a hindrance to science.  It first manifested itself in his relationship  to his teacher Max Fürbringer, a widely known anatomist and former student of Ernst Haeckel.[5]  In 1881 Dubois accepted the position of  assistant to Fürbringer, who would eventually want Dubois to succeed him as professor of anatomy at Amsterdam.  In 1885, Dubois prepared his first  paper for publication in a scientific journal.   It was the usual sort of Darwinian tripe attempting to show that the human voice box evolved from the gill cartilage of fishes.  Before publishing the article, however, Dubois had a meeting with Fürbringer in which the latter offered suggestions,  including the idea that Dubois should reference Fürbringer’s own work on the subject.  “‘You know, Dubois,’” said Fürbringer, “‘this work is very important.  It completely confirms what I have been saying since about 1880: that the thyroid cartilage of the human larynx is derived from the fourth branchial arch.  Of course, you have heard me mention this idea in lectures.  I think that you ought to add a few sentences acknowledging my work on that matter, as it is so closely related to your topic.  It will strengthen your claim about the derivation of the mammalian larynx in general.’”[6]

Of course, the idea that any of this has something to do with fish gills is completely false.  Even evolutionary biologist PZ Myers admits  that the notion of embryological recapitulation was fraudulent:

“Haeckel’s theory was rotten at the  core.  It was wrong both in principle and  in the set of biased and manipulated observations used to prop it up.   This was a tragedy for science, because it set  evolutionary biologists and developmental biologists down a dead-end, leading  to an unfortunate divorce between the fields of development and evolution that  has only recently been corrected [sic].[7]

Aside from the silliness of the  recapitulation idea, Fürbringer’s request was perfectly reasonable.  Dubois had learned what he knew about anatomy  under Fürbringer’s guidance, and even if he had come up with some new  anatomical discovery on his own, it was bad form not to give some credit to his  teacher.  In addition, being associated  with a well-known scientist such as Fürbringer would certainly have enhanced  his own reputation.  Dubois acquiesced  and revised his paper in order to mention Fürbringer, but his egotism blinded  him to the benefits of this, and fueled resentment instead.  Even his promotion to Lecturer the next year  failed to quell the hostility he now felt toward Fürbringer.

When Dubois was asked to contribute  a paper to a scientific volume prepared by a fellow scientist, he did everything he could to block Fürbringer’s access to his work: “The more  Fürbringer tried to help, the more furtive Dubois grew.  Soon he was reluctant to discuss his ideas or  work with any of his colleagues.  He  became withdrawn, touchy, almost feverish, as if he were being literally  poisoned with suspicion.”[8]

Shipman refers to Dubois’ problem as  an “obsession with priority.”[9]  With the discovery of more Neanderthal  remains in 1887, and their (false) interpretation as a primitive race that  confirmed human evolution, Dubois was suddenly taken with the idea of finding Haeckel’s  imaginary missing link.  That combined  with his (false) belief that fish gills developed into larynxes, led him to  break completely with Fürbringer in order to “go in search of greater  scientific glory.”[10]

This penchant for combining false  ideas with an egotistical obsession with priority would lead Dubois not only to  reject scientific criticism of his Homo erectus finds, but also later to  isolate such finds from scientific scrutiny.  In the former case, Dubois was so wedded to his missing link idea, he  could not accept its denial by other scientists such as English paleontologist  Richard Lydekker, or zoologist Paul Matschie, or dean of German science Rudolf Virchow,  who used his research to undermine racism, and was both an opponent of  Darwinian dogma and a defender of the freedom of scientific inquiry.[11]  The criticisms of other scientists such as  Herman ten Kate, Rufolf Martin, and Daniel Cunningham were also rejected.  In Dubois’ view, their criticism only  reflected their resentment of his being the Man Who Found the Missing Link.  It was Fürbringer all over again.[12]

During his later years, Dubois’s  increasing paranoia led him to make the Homo erectus fossils unavailable for  scientific inspection.  Virchow had complained about this early on, but Dubois dismissed such criticism: “Does he  want me to hand my baby over to him, lifting her out of her very cradle?  Shall I entrust her to him, the man who above all others has doubted my word and impugned  my scholarship?  Virchow is too used to  having his own way in everything in Germany, that is what is wrong with  him.  He can be rude and insulting to German scholars and they still kowtow to him and defer to his opinion.  Well, I am under no such obligation to him,  and I shall not do it.”[13]

This is ironic because a month later Dubois would go to Liege and study the Neanderthal fossils, which were  available for scientists to study.  He  discovered to his chagrin that his Homo erectus skull was similar to the  Neanderthal skulls from Spy.  He had  previously rejected the view that Homo erectus was just another  Neanderthal.  Shipman says, “It was a  revelation.  He was surprised by their  appearance, for all that he had read the descriptions and studied the published  photographs closely.  There was indeed a  similarity in overall skull shape to his P.e.,  a compelling one.”[14]

Incidentally, this is why fossils  should be readily accessible to scientists.  Written descriptions and photographs sometimes leave out crucial information.  Dubois’s priority obsession, however, would not let him see that his Homo erectus material should  be equally available to scientists.[15]

It got worse.  By the turn of the century, Dubois was so  afraid some other scientist would “steal his glory” that he refused to allow anyone access to the Homo erectus fossils.  He had resented the fact that the anatomist Gustav Schwalbe, one of his  own supporters, had filled up his new Darwinist rag, Journal of Morphology and Anthropology, with a long description and  analysis of the Home erectus skull.  Dubois’s  egotism reared up again.  He could not  stand anyone else sharing the spotlight with him regarding Homo erectus, so he  was filled with the usual resentment:  “It was his, and Schwalbe had stolen it.  Dubois would never forgive him, nor ever trust another so naively.”[16]

So Dubois turned his back on  science and refused to allow anyone to see the fossils: “There was no more to do with those few, wonderful fossils, and he knew from bitter experience that  if he allowed someone else to study them, that man would attempt to steal his  glory.  That would not happen again, he vowed: never.  He put the bones away in  their special cases and locked them away in their own special cabinet at the  Teyler Museum.  He rarely took them out,  only sometimes in the afternoons if he was feeling melancholy.”[17]

Dubois took a supercilious attitude  to the Selenka expedition, a two-year attempt to find more Homo erectus material at Trinil, the original find site of the fossils.[18]  In addition, Aleš Hrdlička, the skeptic of  the Piltdown finds, attempted to reach Dubois in person and ask about studying the Homo erectus fossils, but was rebuffed.  This led Hrdlička to write the following about Homo erectus, a virtual  echo of Virchow’s previous complaints:

“On account of the peculiar  circumstances an attempt to describe first hand the important pieces under  consideration met with serious difficulties.  It would surely seem proper and desirable that specimens of such value  to science should be freely accessible to well qualified investigators and that  accurate casts be made available to scientific institutions. . . .”[19]

By 1915, paleontologists were  attacking Dubois’s restrictions on access to the fossils.  American Henry F. Osborn led the way, with Frenchman Marcellin Boule adding his voice as well.  A letter from Osborn to Louis Bolk, of the  Royal Academy of Science of the Netherlands, brought the latter to scold  Dubois, that he was tarnishing the reputation of Dutch science.  The Academy instructed Dubois to make the  fossils of Homo erectus accessible to fellow scientists.[20]

To fulfill this obligation Dubois  eventually invited Hrdlička and his students to study the original fossils.  Osborn’s student J. H. McGregor was next, then Dubois made casts for Osborn’s exhibit the “Hall of the Age of  Man.”

We started out by saying Dubois  provides a good example of confirmation bias, and now I think you can see  why.  He began with preconceived ideas,  was obsessed with the glory of priority, suspected that his colleagues were  trying to steal his ideas, refused to take criticism seriously, and finally  horded scientific information until forced to release it.  In short, Dubois exhibited all that a  scientist shouldn’t be.

Now, I’m not saying that scientists  shouldn’t have large egos.  I wouldn’t  say that I shouldn’t have a large ego.  In fact, in my case, I’ve recently  discovered that I may be descended from French royalty on my mother’s  side.  For that reason, I’ve determined it is not proper for me to associate with common folk as if there were no distance between us.  It is a general maxim that  royalty cannot associate with the common folk or there is a loss of that  essential respect for a hallowed institution which has always restrained the masses, and has given them a light to lighten their path.  It has not yet been established with  certainty that I’m descended from royalty — and my mother is somewhat doubtful  — but I don’t see the need to take chances.

---

[1] Pat Shipman, The Man Who Found the Missing Link,  London: Orion Books, 2001, p. 13.

[2] Shipman, pp. 19-20.

[3] Shipman, p. 421.

[4] Shipman, pp. 421-22.

[5] Shipman, p. 28.

[6] Shipman, p. 49.

[7] PZ Myers, at: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/02/wells_and_haeckels_embryos.php.  See also a creationist assessment: http://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j18_1/j18_1_71-75.pdf.

[8] Shipman, p. 54.

[9] Shipman, p. 60.

[10] Shipman, p. 64.

[11] Rudolf Virchow, The Freedom of Science in the Modern States,  1878.

[12] Shipman, p. 300.

[13] Shipman, p. 319.

[14] Shipman, p. 320.

[15] Marvin L. Lubenow cites this  lack of access to fossils as a major problem in paleontology.  See his Bones  of Contention, 2004, pp. 21ff.

[16] Shipman, pp. 354, 355.

[17] Shipman, p. 366.

[18] Shipman, p. 372.

[19] Quoted in Shipman, p. 386.

[20] Shipman, p. 405.

Republicans Debate

I have to say, after watching the Republican debate the other night, I’ve begun to lose interest in Rick Perry, and I’ve gained more interest in Michelle Bachmann and Herman Cain.  Perry came across as too arrogant, and couldn’t reassure us that his absurd policies on inoculations and illegal immigration were mere exceptions to his conservative outlook.  Instead, it seemed like for Perry, he’s really a statist at heart, and it comes bubbling up to the surface at odd moments.  His conservatism is just the odd overlay that he chucks when it suits him.  Better than Romney I suppose, but that isn’t saying much.

Ron Paul always makes sense on economics, but his foreign policy was written by the Hate America First Committee and has the stamp of approval of al Qaeda.  Rick Santorum was in good form in taking on Paul’s lunatic foreign policy.  Newt was also in good form, but the scandals in his personal life make his run for the presidency quixotic at best.

Quite frankly, however, I’d like to see Sarah Palin in the mix.  Her charisma makes all the other Republican candidates wilt in proportion, but she also needs debate experience.  As long as she delays entering the race, she’s not getting that necessary toughening up which is essential for a presidential candidate.

I do think it’s time for Newt, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul to drop out of the race.  They are only distracting attention away from the more viable candidates.

A New Birth of Freedom

Excellent article on America’s founding document.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/270914/lincoln-s-declaration-rich-lowry

 

Prostitutes of the South

During the Civil War, Union general Benjamin Butler managed to defeat an army of trashy Southern women without firing a single shot.  See how he did it:

http://www.civilwarhome.com/butlerwomanorder.htm

Morning in America

The other day I was walking outside to my car when I disturbed a dog that was doing its business in my yard. The dog appeared annoyed with me and barked at me, and looked like he was trying to get up his courage to run over and bite me.

I am sorry for aggravating the dog in that way, and I understand why he would be upset. When we are going through our toilet in the morning, we think rightly that it is our little world, and we are likely to become angry with anyone who unashamedly disturbs the peaceful calm of our privacy.

If I had not disturbed the dog so, I’m sure we could have become friends, and we might even have talked politics and delivered ourselves of theological opinions. But it was not to be. The dog finally decided that it was better if he forgot this shameful moment and moved on. So he took off down the street, and barked occasionally, which is what one would expect of a dog that had been so put out of countenance.

The lesson here is that we ought to be very careful when we walk outside in the morning, lest we disturb individuals that are not disposed to conversation at so early an hour.

The Lies of Murray Rothbard

Purist libertarian Murray Rothbard said a lot of good things when it came to basic economics and Randianism, but on just about everything else, he was a conspiracy nut and a soulless git.  Here he is attacking our sainted conservative President Ronald Reagan (Rush’s Ronaldus Magnus) in language that makes it hard to distinguish purist libertarians from run-of-the mill America-hating liberals and Marxists, or Ron Reagan, Jr.:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard60.html

And there are some in the tea parties who want to put Rothbard protoge Ron Paul in charge of things!  I think tea partiers and Republicans will rue the day if they give Ron & Rand Paul, and other extremists, a platform to belch forth their insanities.  Just because they might be good on some economic matters doesn’t mean they won’t poison the whole reform effort.  Purist libertarians do not, and never have, understood America.   This is why they hate Ronald Reagan, and it’s pretty much the same reason they hate Lincoln.  Their loyalty is to Austria, not to America; to anarchism, not to the Constitution.

Darwinists Say the Darndest Things

Here is a comment I received from a fan.  I don’t really feel a response is necessary inasmuch as I don’t care about responding to anonymous posters, and more importantly, there’s no money in it.  However, it does provide a specimen of the sort of rants W. J. Bryan had to endure at the hands of Mencken and other spawn of Satan during the 1920s.  Nothing much has changed since then.

________________________

The Scopes trial?  Way to be current.  Have you heard of the Dover trial?

“What creationists object to is not change but a certain type of change. Change is a necessary condition for Darwinian evolution, but not a sufficient condition. Creationists insist that the change from an organism with less information content to an organism with greater information content is what is needed, and that has never been shown to happen, except maybe in fairy tales.”

That has never been shown to happen?  What are you, a molecular biologist?

Google “gene duplication”.  You have a lot to learn before you can competently write about evolutionary biology.

You call evolution “Darwinian evolution”.  Evolution is called “evolution”.   Evolution does not need any adjectives.

“If you assume in advance that similarity of structure is due to common ancestry, and you assume in advance that modifications in structure over time are by random, naturalistic processes, you’d have to say cars came about by random, naturalistic processes.”

This shows you don’t even understand natural selection which is a very simple concept.  If you knew anything about biology you would at least know natural selection is NOT random.

And what do cars have to do with the diversity of life?

Your total ignorance of science is not evidence for anything.  If you want to defend your childish magical creationism, you got to provide evidence for it.  Your imaginary evidence AGAINST evolution (as if there was evidence against reality), is not evidence FOR your idiotic religious belief in supernatural magic.

So describe the magic wand your fairy uses, and provide evidence for this magical wand.  Until you can do that, you need to shut up about science.

Here’s another comment for you to censor.

I noticed your blog invokes the anti-science Christian organization “Answers in Genesis” so probably you’re a Christian and probably you’re ashamed to admit it.

Since you don’t have a shred of evidence for your insane magical creationism, how about some powerful scientific evidence for the Resurrection of your dead Jeebus into a zombie.  I mean besides the dead gullible witnesses.  Of course you don’t have a shred of real evidence for that disgusting belief or any other Christian belief.  You live in the Christian fantasy world only because you’re a coward, not because you have any evidence for it.

To defend your ridiculous Christian death cult you write long articles full of lies about science.  You know science is the greatest possible threat to your fantasies, and that’s why you attack it.

Why don’t you try growing up and educating yourself.  You’re not going to learn anything if you depend on the idiots who work for Answers in Stupidity.  Try reading a book written by a real scientist.  Or are you afraid that would make your dead Jeebus cry?

I’m not surprised you love censorship.  Fuck off Christian retard.

________________________

Cure for Sorrows

When people are troubled, and sorrowful, and do not know what the future may bring, and spend each day enduring a dark night of the soul, and worrying what new sadness the world will bring, I tell them the answer to their problem is booze.

When I tell this to people, it is as though the heavens have opened for them, and they saw a great light — of some kind.  From that day on they live lives of holiness, albeit not unmixed with a certain level of good cheer.  I won’t say what level, but it is noticeable.

This reminds me of a circumstance — a couple of months ago I sat next to a guy on a plane to LA.  He smelled like a beer factory, and was so pickled, you could’ve put him in a jar and preserved him for the holidays.  From time to time, he displayed the odd trait of “commenting” to no one in particular, as if he had an imaginary companion he talked to.

What a very sad life, I thought to myself. . . . I mean, sad for me, inasmuch as I can never get that sloshed and meet imaginary companions — never get to discuss philosophy or literature with them — no matter how much I try.

In this life, some people get all the breaks.  It’s enough to drive one to drink (some more).