[bpsdb] The news that the human beings who first arrived in Europe 40,000 years ago were most likely Black (with some Asian and African features) has been met with alarm and panic among Daily Mail readers, who believe that archeology and anthropology have been caught up in some sort of dark, EU-funded "Ministry of Truth" project to force people to accept liberal values, and ban wholesome pursuits like gay-hunts and suchlike.
The outrage was triggered by an article that appeared yesterday ahead of Dr. Alice Roberts' brilliant-looking new program ("The Incredible Human Journey", BBC2) about the evolution of the human race, starting this weekend. The Daily Mail article featured a reconstruction of the face of one of our first European ancestors, triggering an outpouring of grief and anguish among the more xenophobic readers of the downmarket, formerly-Nazi-supporting, BBC-Hating, ITN-shares-owning, misogynist, factually-inaccurate tabloid rag.
So in the spirit of intelligent, analytical journalism, let's point and laugh at the stupid people.
"Snouck", from Amsterdam draws on his vast experience of anthropology and forensic science to highlight the Orwellian plot that must surely lie behind this shocking piece of propaganda:
"It seems to me that this result was not modelled on actual human remains. But rather on the image the Ministry of Truth has on what a modern European OUGHT to look like."
Kay from London disagrees, believing the plot to originate within the BBC itself. Apparently unaware that the skin colour is the most likely match for people in the area who have recently left African, she wails:
"Typical of the BBC's obsession with political correctness. Archaeology would NOT indicate skin colour anyway."
Ian from Exeter isn't having any of it, because Europeans couldn't possibly come from Africans. I mean, if that was true, then Aryans couldn't ever be really pure, and that's just not acceptable:
"Rubbish. Europeans did not come from Africans and never could. This is just more anti-European propaganda, of as much real scientific merit as Piltdown Man."
I'm curious to know more about this "anti-European propaganda." Who exactly are responsible for this? Is this some sort of secret African plot? The Asians perhaps?
David from North Wales feels that the colour is probably accurate, but has some scientific disagreements with the dating:
"We are all descended from Adam and Eve, who were most probably had brown skin and were from the middle east no more than 10,000 years ago."
Meanwhile, Paul from Gloucester is annoyed that his fringe theories aren't given credit:
"Darwinism does NOT work and yet everyone peddles this rubbish as fact! 'Intelligent design' comes FAR closer to explaining the mystery of life!"
Leaving aside the fact that Paul is perhaps the best example of evolution not - sorry, NOT - working, it's worth pointing out that Intelligent Design explains precisely nothing about the mystery of life. Where did the designer come from?
Such philosophical problems don't deter Maureen from Fleetwood:
"There is no such thing as evolution. Finches might develop different beaks depending on the type of food they eat in their particular area but they will NEVER, in a million years, evolve into anything other than finches. And interbreeding pigeons might produce a vast array of different birds BUT they remain pigeons. No amount of interbreeding will evolve them into anything other than pigeons. Why do people believe such nonsense?"
Maureen evidently hasn't heard of the Dodo (and see David Quammen's awesome book "Song of the Dodo" for more on Dodos and island biogeography), nor apparently the concept of scientific evidence, which is the two word answer to her closing question.
But the prize for the most ignorant and blatantly racist quote so far goes to Paul from Exeter:
"Modern european man did not come from something like that."
Which frankly left me speechless. Firstly that anyone so bigoted still exists in this country, and secondly that the Daily Mail were happy to let a comment like this through moderation. Still, god-forbid the Mail should censor their own target audience.
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Those were _moderated_ comments?
Poor work experience people filtering the Mail's website comments. They'd burn out in an afternoon.
Sometimes, when I am panning the Daily Mail for being the nasty, racist, hate-bag that it is, I sometimes get a pang of guilt, a little feeling that I might be exaggerating about the paper's content (I never read it) and its readers (I don't know any). However, stories like this just go to show that it is an absolute monstrous aberration of a newspaper. I simply cannot believe some of these comments, and yet I'm not surprised.
Hmm. I think that some of these people are trolls or descended from trolls.
I’m far from alone in rejecting censorship because I believe in freedom of expression of ideas; yes, even those I hold to be wrong and mean-spirited. This being a well-established (though not universally-fallowed) principle, it certainly doesn’t follow that because a comment wasn’t censored,, the Daily Mail is obviously pandering to its “downmarket” audience. So what other evidence do you persent? Well,, none, actually. This “failure” to censor a single comment constitutes the sole premise for your contention that the Daily Mail is a “BBC-Hating, ITN-shares-owning, misogynist, factually-inaccurate tabloid rag” feeding the basest impulses of its target audience.
Your contention is all the more incomprehensible when we consider that the article itself previews an upcoming BBC programme presented by Dr. Alice Roberts, who, I presume, is female. It even helpfully provides the date and time the BBC will be showing the programme.
I think that the Daily Mail, whatever its other shortcomings, should be commended, not excoriated, for drawing this upcoming BBC programme on the common ancestry of mankind to the attention of its largely racist target audience, its ITN-shares-owning hatred of the BBC notwithstanding.
My parents recently drove 400 miles to see me for a few hours, and I was horrified to discover a copy of the Daily Mail in their car.
"Oh, we buy it for the Sudokus."
Why not just buy a book of Sudokus? :-/
"What's wrong with the Daily Mail, like?"
Er... other than it being a sensationalist xenophobic hate-rag filled with badly-researched non-stories on which root vegetables give you cancer this month?
The day went from bad to worse as my mum stared at me in astonishment for daring to suggest that Adam and Eve didn't exist, that our ancestors were apes, rodents, lizards, fish, worms and bacteria, and that the Gospels weren't written by disciples... or even by anyone that had actually met Jesus at all.
You know those days when you just want to smash your own head into a table a few thousand times to see if it helps?
...and these people have the vote!!
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Have you ever read the Daily Mail, Carl? This particular article might not be fomenting the kind of bigotry seen in the comments, but most others do.
Anon., please read my last paragraph.
It's a pity that your blog, which typically is a good read on matters of science, occasionally descends into foaming-at-the-mouth politics of this sort. I don't in any way support the views you have quoted from some DM readers, but your own comments (e.g. "xenophobic readers of the downmarket, formerly-Nazi-supporting, BBC-Hating, ITN-shares-owning, misogynist, factually-inaccurate tabloid rag") hardly show scientific detatchment. This is sad, because the good points you generally make - such as the posts on Simon Singh's law suit - risk getting obscured by such emotion.
I dont like the Daily Mail and never have but I think some of the comments on this site about the African Ancestors story in that paper are wide of the mark. Yes some daily mail readers have made stupid comments but the site allows other readers to vote for or against these comments. Most of the racist comments and those that say Darwinism is ridiculous have many "red thumbs" denoting that the readers disagree with whats said. The comment from David Thomas from Wales:
"We are all descended from Adam and Eve, who were most probably had brown skin and were from the middle east no more than 10,000 years ago."
Has received a negative rating of 227. meaning of those who vote 227 more people thought he was talking rubbish than those who agreed with him.
similarly the comment
"Darwinism does NOT work and yet everyone peddles this rubbish as fact!
'Intelligent design' comes FAR closer to explaining the mystery of life!"
receives a negative of 219
Maureen of fleetwood's comment:
There is no such thing as evolution. Finches might develop different beaks depending on the type of food they eat in their particular area but they will NEVER, in a million years, evolve into anything other than finches. And interbreeding pigeons might produce a vast array of different birds BUT they remain pigeons. No amount of interbreeding will evolve them into anything other than pigeons. Why do people believe such nonsense?
Received a negative of 209.
May I suggest that whoever wrote the article on this site decided that they did not like the Daily Mail, that its readers are racist idiots who deny science before actually what the readers of that paper actually said. Hardly a scientific approach.
It's worth pointing out a few things in response to this:
a) The ratings obviously weren't like that when I wrote the article, or I'd have commented on it.
b) Around 4,000 people have read this blog post, and the article has been reposted all over social networking sites - easily enough to have skewed the votes.
c) If you haven't already realised that this site hates the Daily Mail, you never will. Although to be fair, most other tabloids are pretty hate-worthy to.
d) If I had my way, anybody caught buying a tabloid newspaper would have their voting rights rescinded, but to be fair I am a bit of a fascist.
e) Just because this could loosely be classified as a science blog, does not mean that every opinion on it has to be scientific. See e.g. Pharyngula, Greg Laden, ad infinitum...
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Alice Roberts is quite tasty.
Sorry, that's all I have to say.
Fantastic. The Daily Mail is a hateful publication and it shames me that it has a readership in this country.