Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Because Morwood and his colleagues had not yet completed their
descriptions of
Homo floresiensis,
turning the remains over to someone
who was not part of the discovery team violated the norms for conduct-
ing scientific research in much of the world, including Australia and the
United States. The science writer and paleoanthropologist Pat Shipman
has recently pointed out to me, however, that the cultural values for
doing science are markedly different in Indonesia, where there is a per-
vasive feeling that one must pay respect to elders. This helps explain
why analyzing the remains without taking them to Jacob was perceived
as culturally insulting and offensive (discussed below), and it sheds light
on Soejono's insistence on arranging for Jacob to study the specimens
over the objections of Morwood and others. In any event, the transfer
of the hobbit specimens to Jacob's laboratory marked the beginning of
a battle between old guards and relatively young turks, eerily echoing
Dart's experience with the Piltdown gang.
Clearly, Soejono and Jacob accepted the traditional idea that the elders
of Indonesian paleoanthropology were entitled to take over, or even
seniority is underscored by a report in the
Guardian:
“He [ Jacob] claims
that behind the intense media attention last October were ill-equipped,
In what some have interpreted as misguided nationalism, Jacob was
especially hard on the Australian coauthors of the
Nature
papers. Thus,
according to the
Guardian,
Jacob claimed that “the Australian team were
'scientific terrorists' forcing ideas on people, that it was unethical for
them to have made the announcement without the Indonesians being
invited, and that they were not experienced enough. 'I don't think the
Australians have the expertise. They were very narrow. They have a
tunnel vision and were not equipped in this area.'”
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Most of the extremely fragile hobbit remains that Jacob had bor-
rowed were returned to the Indonesian National Research Centre on
