Eugène Dubois
Eugène Dubois was a Dutch Darwinist born in 1858 in south Holland and famous for his controversial discovery of fossils in Indonesia that he labeled as Pithecanthropus erectus (later known also as Java Man) and ascertained to be the direct ancestor of modern humans.
As a young student he rebelled against traditional conservative life style of his catholic home region and passionately read books by Darwin, Lyell and Huxley. He was exceptionally inspired by book Natürliche Schöpfungs-geschichte, published in German in 1868 (and in English in 1876 with the title The History of Creation) written by German scientist Ernst Haeckel,[1] nowadays known for perpetrating fraud to promote the theory of evolution.[2] The book made call to "scientifically" establish, as a direct outcome of recent introduction of theories on origin and transmutations, a new basis of history of human race development without the inclusion of any "miracles". The strongest imperative should have been according to this call to trace human race back to the ape mammals. Dubois, who already as young freethinker in traditional catholic village fantasized that one day he will prove human evolution to everybody by discovering fossil link between man and other primates, adopted this call as his own mission.[1]
In 1887 Dubois left his position at the University of Amsterdam and signed up as a physician in Dutch colonial army. Four years later he discovered human-resembling bones at site near the village called Trinil on the Indonesian island Java. He named discovered fossils as Pithecanthropus erectus ("ape-human that stands upright"). After his return to university in 1895 he never gave up his dictatorial control over "his" fossils. He withdrew them from public and did not allow others to scientifically examine them while at the same time he was becoming more and more paranoid. Yet even without evidence available his elementary assertion that Pithecanthropus erectus was a direct ancestor of modern humans gradually won crowds of adherents.[1]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Edward J.Larson (2004). Evolution -The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory. USA: Random House Publishing Group, 368. ISBN 0812968492.
- ↑ Russell Grigg. Ernst Haeckel, Evangelist for evolution and apostle of deceit. “Known as ‘Darwin’s Bulldog on the Continent’ and ‘the Huxley of Germany’, Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel is notorious as the scientist who perpetrated fraud upon fraud to promote the theory of evolution. ... In his book Natürliche Schöpfungs-geschichte (The Natural History of Creation), published in German in 1868 (and in English in 1876 with the title The History of Creation), Haeckel used the drawing of a 25-day-old dog embryo which had been published by T.L.W. Bischoff in 1845, and that of a 4-week-old human embryo published by A. Ecker in 1851–59.14 Wilhelm His, Sr (1831–1904), a famous comparative embryologist of the day and professor of anatomy at the University of Leipzig, uncovered the fraud.”