The Beringer Hoax [Archaeology's Hoaxes, Fakes, and Strange Sites]

Archaeological Institute of America ^ | December 2009 | editors

[SunkenCiv]

Single-minded and with a high opinion of his scholarly abilities, Beringer was wide open for a simple, but devastating hoax... Beringer "wholly, publicly committed himself to the belief that fossils were merely the capricious fabrications of God, hidden in the earth by Him for some inscrutable purpose; possibly, thought Beringer, merely for His own pleasure; possibly as a test for human faith" and proceeded to write a book on them... historians Melvin E. Jahn and Daniel J. Woolf, who in 1963 produced the first English translation of Beringer's book, showed the truth behind the tale lies not in farcical student antics but in a slanderous plot by Beringer's jealous colleagues... J. Ignatz Roderick, professor of geography, algebra, and analysis at the university, and Georg von Eckhart, privy councillor and librarian to the bishop's court and university. Eckhart and Roderick were disgraced, but Beringer kept his job, lived another 14 years, and published several more books... When Beringer announced his intention to publish, Roderick and Eckhart spread rumors about the fossils' authenticity. But Beringer thought they were trying to rob him of his great discovery... Beringer... refused to accept the implications of this incident, asking "Does this mean that every iconolith I have uncovered during the past six months smacks of imposture?" He answered himself with a firm "no."

[SunkenCiv]

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[freedumb2003]

Yikes — think we can get a PPH or 2?

;)

[freedumb2003]

Now that I read it, it is really interesting.

The first one is more of a “joke” than a “hoax” — and credit the perpetrators for trying to right things (if I understand what happened correctly).

[afraidfortherepublic]

I find these “hoaxes” to be amusing and they prove that our ancestors (my great grandfather worked the gold fields in Idaho in the 1860s) had great senses of humor. It’s hard to discern that humor merely by reading a dry genealogy of birth, marriage, and death dates.

But, I am at a loss as to why a 1000 year old skull would be dismissed so easily. I should think that a 1000 year old skull would be a remarkable find in itself, unless the finders were trying to pass it off as a 10,000 year old skull. And why did they think that it was evidence of a gigantic race? That was unclear to me.

[grey_whiskers]

Your assignment is in two parts.

1) Relate the hoax in the article to the Hadley CRU. Concentrate on the inducements to the hoaxters as related to professional standing and to grant money. Extra credit for pulling in Marxist / Globalist machinations, or the Gaia hypothesis.

2) Discuss the odds that Beringer White Zinfandel begins as water.

Cheers!

[pallis]

God is a real God, and anything less than a real creation would be beneath him.

[colorado tanker]

Single-minded and with a high opinion of his scholarly abilities

Sounds like the "scientists" at CRUd.