Ten Peking Man skeletons were suppressed (Talk.Origins)

Claim CC004:


 * Initial newspaper reports of the Peking Man discovery reported that ten skeletons were found, but only a partial skull was ever exhibited. These skeletons have been suppressed, probably destroyed by scientists because they were too human and thus did not provide evidence for evolution. No scientists ever questioned what happened to the ten skeletons.

Source:


 * Bowden, Malcom, 1981. Ape-men: Fact or Fallacy? 2nd ed., Bromley, Kent: Sovereign, pp. 95-96.

CreationWiki response:

This seems to be a single error by a single author who's book is now out of date.

CreationWiki agrees that the skeletons never existed, but would add that Bowden also refers to a report in the Daily Telegraph which says that the ten individuals were found huddled together, indicating a community life.

If they had been discovered by then. Why did the letter not even mention the "traces of at least 10 individuals"? It could be because they were not significant, or it could (hypothetically) have been because the skeletons had not yet been discovered.

Bowden was not suggesting outright fraud so much as simply ignoring the ten skeletons. Furthermore, he makes no suggestion of destroying the skeletons, by scientists or otherwise. Foley claims that Bowden's suggestion would require the destruction of the skeletons, but it is not clear why this is so, and it is certainly not Bowden's claim.

The two scientists were Boule and Black. But Black was the scientist who reported the discovery and Boule was simply quoting Black. Clearly Bowden was alluding to the lack of questioning by other scientists who read the initial reports but were unaware of the true situation. He mentions, for instance, the editor of Nature who published the initial report and didn't question why there was no further mention.

Conclusion

There never were ten other skeletons, but there was some basis for thinking that there were. In the process of debunking Bowden, Talk.Origins has made a mountain out of a molehill. First, it has turned his conclusion as to what likely happened into a claim. Second Foley has concluded that Bowden's suggestion of scientists ignoring the evidence must mean that they destroyed the evidence, and Mark Isaak has turned this into Bowden claiming that the scientists destroyed the evidence.

Bowden, although cautious (he didn't publish this in the first edition of his book because he didn't have the evidence to back it up) was not cautious enough of the original claims of ten skeletons. By the same token, Talk.Origins has been too willing to find as much fault as it could with Bowden's suggestion.