Sick Hobbits, Quarrelsome Scientists - The Fossil Chronicles - page 131

seven
Sick Hobbits,
Quarrelsome Scientists
It is disconcerting to realize that as their intellects were
shaped and limited by the dogmas—often scientific —of
their day, so may the intellect of the modern investigator
be shaped by the a priori judgments of his time.
Jacob W. Gruber
Are we having fun yet?
Zippy the Pinhead
Discoveries of new hominin species that challenge scientific and reli-
gious dogma have traditionally been greeted with skepticism by both sci-
entists and laymen. 1 This trend began in 1856 when fossilized bones from
a Neanderthal skeleton were unearthed by workers quarrying for lime
in a cave near Düsseldorf, Germany . 2 The remains were highly unusual
and included a thick, oddly shaped skullcap with massive brow ridges.
When the discovery was first announced, the skeleton was described
as representing a hitherto unknown human race of great antiquity . 3 It
would be three years before Charles Darwin published On the Origin of
Species, however, so many scientists still had “imaginations and intellects
[that were] chained by too-literal interpretations of Scriptural record,
which maintained a recency of 6,000 years for the creation of man.” 4
After the appearance of Origin, some scientists embraced Neanderthal
135