PILTDOWN BIRD

Brian Inglis on science's

great cover-up of the fake fossil, Archaeopteryx

THERE is one fossil which all Spectator readers would recognise, I imagine, even if the name escaped them: Archaeopteryx, the fabled flying reptile whose remains were first discovered in Bavaria in 1861.

Its importance was immediately appa- rent. There were two uncomfortable gaps in the fossil record which needed to be filled for the peace of mind of Darwin's Artist's impression of an Archaeopteryx skeleton, showing clawed fingers and abs- ence of keeled breast bone.

disciples: the transition from reptiles to birds, and from apes to humans. Archaeop- teryx, with its reptile outline but feathered wings, closed the first gap; the Piltdown skull, the second.

`Piltdown Man' was shown to be a hoax in 1953. Now, in Archaeopteryx, the Pri- mordial Bird (Christopher Davies, £10.95), Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickra- masinghe reveal with a wealth of photo- graphic detail how Archaeopteryx was manufactured from a genuine (160-million- year old) dinosaur and 19th-century feath- ers — a chisel-and-paste job — and sold for a juicy sum to the British Museum, there to become the most impressive single piece of evidence for the way in which natural selection works.

The evaluation of the authors' photo- graphic and palaeontological evidence — and, by extension, of the merits of their book — will have to await an expert's opinion; though it has to be said that if their allegations are justified, the term `expert' will need to be treated with ex- treme caution, even scepticism, in this branch of science.

My concern here is with the implica- tions; because even if a genuine Archaeop- teryx were found tomorrow — suggesting that its predecessors' remains were incom- petently, rather than fraudulently, dealt with — the way in which the fossil has been exploited has been deliberately misleading.

As a number of commentators have pointed out, most recently Michael Denton in his Evolution: a Theory in Crisis, the feathers on the fossil are fully developed. The problem is, why should that develop- ment have occurred when the stages lead- ing up to it, bit by bit, could have offered the reptile no advantage — nothing that would improve its prospects of survival?

Reviewing Denton's book in the Specta- tor 15 months ago, I recalled that at school, where the Darwinian theory of evolution was taught as fact — as it still is — this was an aspect of the subject that was never mentioned. Nor was the fact that there were two rival schools of thought about the way in which the reptiles had learned to fly — the 'gliders' and the 'jumpers'.

What was embarrassing to Darwinians was that feathers could help neither gliders nor jumpers to fly, unless in design and quantity they were as near to being aerody- namically perfect as they are in birds. Intermediate-stage feathers would be use- less. So the issue was debated in private, in academic journals. Schoolchildren were given to understand — as they still are — that there were no problems.

The point which Denton was making — and other critics of the Darwinian theory, notably Francis Hitching in The Neck of the Giraffe, had made — was that Archaeop- teryx's reputation was based on false pre- tences; not that the fossil was a fake. That theory surfaced later, prompting the Brit- ish Museum to provide facilities for four `experts' to examine it. Their report, pub- lished four months ago in Science, gave it a clean bill of health. `It is the engaging quality of decent persons,' Hoyle and Wickramasinghe observe, 'that, despite an immense volume of contrary evidence in the history books, they still believe that authority can do no wrong.' Naïvely, I thought I had indecently become immune to authority's blandish- ments, particularly in the field of palaeon- tology, where faking has been endemic. But I took for granted, given the experts' verdict in an article on Archaeopteryx in the Guardian, that their findings were factual and conclusive.

According to Hoyle and Wickramasing- he, with the backing of photographs, the report actually claims 'the opposite of what is easily visible', which suggests that 'with the Museum's authority behind them, the authors of the Science article take the view that anything goes' — the danger inherent in their attitude being that 'all too easily, the Museum may find from now on that nothing goes'.

In my Guardian article I remarked that if Archaeopteryx had been unmasked as a fake, the shock waves would have made those which followed the exposure of Piltdown Man seem like ripples. But if Hoyle and Wickramasinghe are correct in their speculations about the course events have taken, this will be the worst scandal to hit science in science's history. They be- lieve that Richard Owen, the Superinten- dent of the British Museum's natural his- tory section, bought the fossil sight unseen, aware that it might be a fake (as had been suggested at the time), hoping to use it to discredit Darwin. So closely did it meet T. H. Huxley's specifications, Owen thought, that he would be deceived, at which point the faking would be disclosed.

Huxley, who comes very well out of the episode, declined to play his expected role. He mistrusted Owen. So the Museum found itself with an expensive fake on its hands. But as its authenticity was not challenged by the Darwinians, there was no need to confess guilt. So for over a century,• we have all been conned into accepting not merely that Archaeopteryx existed, and flew, but that it helps to confirm the theory of natural selection.

This has not been a conspiracy. Most of those involved must have believed, or hoped, the fossil was genuine. But there must have been others who kept their mouths shut because they believed in what it has come to stand for: the Darwinian theory. It has been becoming painfully obvious that when a theory obtains a grip on the scientific community, scientists are tempted to cease the pursuit of the truth in favour of the pursuit of back-up — of evidence which fits the theory; and this drives them to condone error, and even deception, when they are in defence of the theory.

The fact that the fabled bird is indeed a fable is of no great significance. It can be shrugged off, as Piltdown Man was shrug- ged off. What should not be shrugged off is the protracted cover-up, showing the ex- tent to which neo-Darwinism, as it has become, is a faith.

Scientists in the United States are busy resisting demands that creationism, the belief that God created the world in the way described in Genesis, should be taught in schools. They would be in a stronger position if they were not, in effect, making the same demand for the theory of evolu- tion that has been taught as gospel here for a hundred years.