Les Jones

Science > Anthropologist Forced to Retire When False Data Exposed

Reiner Protsch von Zieten has been accused of scientific fraud. He allegedly falsified carbon dating records, including his research that showed Neanderthals in northern Europe.

Another apparent misdating involved an allegedly prehistoric skull discovered near Paderborn in 1976 and considered the oldest human remain ever found in the region. Prof von Zieten dated the skull at 27,400 years old. The latest research, however, indicates that it belonged to an elderly man who died around 1750.

Germany's Herne anthropological museum, which owns the Paderborn skull, was so disturbed by the findings that it did its own tests. "We had the skull cut open and it still smelt," the museum's director, Barbara Ruschoff-Thale, said last week. "We are naturally very disappointed". . .

Clayton Cramer is loving it, noting that it's both scientific and evolutionary fraud. True, but as I think Cramer would acknowledge, the apparent fraud was discovered by another scientist, archeologist Thomas Terberger. Despite a dishonest actor, good data is pushing out the bad, and that seems to be the best we can hope for in any human endeavor.