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Amelia Earhart: Island bones 'likely' belonged to famed pilot
Bones discovered on a Pacific island in 1940 are "likely" to be those of famed pilot Amelia Earhart, according to a US peer reviewed science journal. Earhart, her plane, and her navigator vanished without a trace in 1937 over the Pacific Ocean. Many theories have sought to explain her disappearance.
But a new study published in Forensic Anthropology claims these bones prove she died as an island castaway. The report claims they are a 99% match, despite an earlier conclusion.
The study, titled Amelia Earhart and the Nikumaroro Bones, was first published by the University of Florida and conducted by Professor Richard Jantz from the University of Tennessee. It disputes that the remains found on the eastern Pacific island of Nikumaroro - about 1,800 miles (2,900km) southwest of Hawaii - belonged to a man, as a researcher had determined in 1941.
Amelia Earhart and the Nikumaroro Bones (open, DOI: 10.5744/fa.2018.0009) (DX)
(Score: 2, Troll) by JoeMerchant on Sunday March 11 2018, @01:56PM (10 children)
I really like how a "team of experts" can draw a conclusion that will stand unchallenged for decades, then get reversed by another "team of experts" working on evidence that's now decades older.
I've only been around for 5 decades, but "leading scientific opinion" seems more like fashion as time wears on: the cholesterol in eggs and fat in butter will kill you with heart disease, or maybe not... Hand sanitizer is a good thing, oh - wait... Saccharine is a healthy substitute for sugar, no but aspartame is, well... Lead is a perfectly safe performance enhancer in gasoline...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 11 2018, @02:12PM (3 children)
My thoughts are similar. Not only did the previous team dismiss the possibility that they were her bones - but this team is less than 100% certain.
The statement is only useful for keeping possibilities open. There is nothing conclusive in the study. To paraphrase them, "We think the bones are nearly the correct measurement to have been Amelia."
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday March 11 2018, @02:40PM
Well, can we bring in some anthropological-demographic expertise that can throw another layer on the analysis - I mean, if this group says that "from the pile of all old bones in the world, these are a 99% match for the Earhart expedition" how hard would it then be to say: the chances of a 99% match for Earhart showing up on this island at this time are.... left for the reader to draw their own conclusions? I would think they could do better than that: number of human travelers in the region, their demographic makeup, odds for confusing sets of bones being found, etc.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Sunday March 11 2018, @04:08PM
If I said that you should host your online services with me because my servers look very similar to servers with 99.999 uptime, you should back slowly away until it's safe to turn and run.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Sunday March 11 2018, @06:32PM
Science is *never* conclusive. Scientific theories must be falsifiable, but they are never conclusively verified. Rather, as more observations/evidence are gathered, a theory is either falsified (and must be thrown out or modified) or we discover that the theory more closely *approximates* the universe.
Which is why (presumably based on actual data) scientists *always* use percentages to describe accuracy. Which is why I'm disappointed that the journal article is unavailable, as I'd like to better understand the methods of analysis to better understand how these folks arrived at their findings.
E.g., the *fact* of gravity should not be confused with the *theory* of gravity. The latter predicts the effects of the former with great precision, but they are not the same thing.
All of science works this way, including forensic anthropology.
Why is it that so many adults seem unfamiliar with the scientific method? It's a little disheartening.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday March 11 2018, @06:50PM (1 child)
Read more carefully. Exactly ONE guy with medical training examined these bones, and guessed they were male.
The Doctor: https://tighar.org/wiki/David_Winn_Hoodless,_MD [tighar.org] A not too well thought of director of a Fiji medical school.
(Above link suggests bones were lost upon this doctor turning over his retirement).
More about the actual bones: https://tighar.org/wiki/Bones_found_on_Nikumaroro [tighar.org]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday March 12 2018, @02:38AM
And all speculation until someone manages a DNA match that's sufficiently convincing. So far that's apparently been a Fail.
https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/59_DNAResearch/59_DNAResearch.htm [tighar.org]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday March 11 2018, @07:35PM
Another has said the the reports that the bones were those of a man was made by a doctor with no forensic experience. That's not a team. Was he part of a team? (I haven't even seen someone claiming that it was a complete skeleton...so maybe he just had some arm bones.)
To me it sounds as if this whole thing is conjecture on everybody's part, both the original claimants and the recent revisionists.
So. From all that's been revealed, they *could* have been her bones. Or not. And the evidence is lost. And no conclusion is supportable.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @08:29PM
You do realize that instruments improve over time, and not all experts are equal to the task.
Additionally there are other pitfalls to be weary of that distort actual science - you even cite one of those examples. The use of lead being safe wasn't scientific at all but the distortion of it by industry that wanted to keep using their cheap resources rather than try to develop a real safe alternative that could end up being costly. They had an "expert" paid off to keep saying, with a straight face, that there was no evidence to suggest lead was harmful while subverting any evidence that did exist. They would pay for studies to be done to prove it was safe, and when those studies came back proving it was dangerous, they tried to bury it by paying off the researchers. The only way the truth eventually got out is because they failed to shut up one of those studies, and the research in charge of it that they were trying to bankrupt finally managed to get the results before the necessary regulatory bodies of the US government.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @08:30PM
The field of forensics in general has advanced a lot since then. Also, the doctor wasn't specifically an expert in this area, so even by the standards of the day it was probably not the best work.
But, keep in mind that the bones were lost shortly thereafter and as a result, there isn't any way of conducting further research other than by using the previous doctors' notes about the lengths and relative size of various bones. Even with modern methods it can be a challenge to tell the difference between a male and female skeleton with certainty.
If we still had access to the bones, there'd be the possibility of a DNA test to prove it once and for all. But, her sister was alive until the late '90s, so getting a suitable sample wouldn't have been much of an issue.
I remember back in the '80s that the bones and the shoes were considered to be more or less proof that she had died there, but for various reasons, couldn't be completely conclusive. At this point, I doubt that anything more reliable is likely to show up. At least not until they find the remains of the plane.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 12 2018, @09:34AM
Lead has been known to be poisonous ever since the Romans used it to build water pipes. I'm pretty sure thay didn't need a performance enhancer in their gasoline...
More likely someone went "we have all this poisonous lead lying around. Can't we find some use for it so that we can sell it rather than pay to get rid of it.