Page 158 - The Evolution Impasse 2

156 Peking Man Fraud, The

u a tion of this ma te ri al is . . . that all of fash ioned by Weidenreich. How re li a -
this ma te ri al ex cept two teeth dis ap - ble are these mod els? Are they ac cu rate
peared some time dur ing the pe ri od casts of the orig i nals, or do they re flect
1941-1945, and none of it has ev er what Weidenreich thought they should
been re cov ered. Many sto ries con cern - look like? 180
ing the dis ap pear ance of this ma te ri al
Increasing dis cov er ies in the
have cir cu lat ed, the most pop u lar be -
years that fol lowed, and par tic u lar ly
ing that it was ei ther lost or seized by
aft er the 1990s, made it clear that no
the Japanese dur ing an at -
such ev o lu tion a ry proc ess
tempt to move it from
as the tree of de scent,
Peking to a U.S.
pro posed by ev o lu -
Marine de tach -
tion ists, ev er took
ment that was
evac u at ing place. In terms of
China. None of their age, ge o graph i -
these sto ries has been cal re gions and an a -
ver i fied. No liv ing per son tom i cal fea tures, the
ap par ent ly knows what hap - fos sils dis cov ered
pened to the ma te ri al. could not be placed in

As a re sult, we are to tal ly Peking Man fos sil any ev o lu tion a ry se -
de pend ent on mod els and quence. Increasingly, there -
de scrip tions of this ma te ri al left by a fore, the idea that Peking Man was
few in ves ti ga tors, all of whom were to - to the miss ing link lost sup port, and
tal ly com mit ted to the idea that man ev o lu tion ists aban doned hope of
had evolved from an i mal an ces tors. hav ing found any miss ing link.
Even is a sci en tist is a com plete ly ob - In the present day, there are no
jec tive as hu man ly pos si ble, the mod el
longer fre quent claims of in ter me di -
of de scrip tion he fash ions on the ba sis
ate forms im put ed to Homo erec tus,
of scanty and in com plete ma te ri al with
un der which Peking Man had been
re flect to a crit i cal de gree what he
clas si fied. Many an thro pol o gists em -
thinks the ev i dence ought to show.
pha sise that H. erec tus (and there fore
Furthermore, there is am ple ev i dence
Peking Man) was no dif fer ent from
that ob jec tiv i ty was se ri ous ly lack ing
mod ern hu mans. H. erec tus is not an
in the treat ment and eval u a tion of the
ma te ri al re cov ered at Choukoutien. in ter me di ate form, but an ex tinct hu -
man race.
All we have avail a ble are the mod els
This view was gen er al ly ac cept ed

The Evolution Impasse II