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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) 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