Archaeopteryx - SciCre-ists wish it were a hoax

Created on: 950313 Last updated: 960509

Why hasn't the Natural History Museum in London allowed researchers to see it if it isn't a hoax?

by Wesley R. Elsberry

Last year (1994), Jim Pattison made two claims concerning the Natural History Museum's Archaeopteryx specimen. The first was that no researchers had been allowed access since Sir Fred Hoyle's public charges of "fraud" concerning the specimen. The second claim was that a specific geologist named John McKay was denied access to the specimen sometime in the early 1990's.

Jim made his claims in the Controv Echo on FidoNet, and I disputed them at the time, and promised to contact the NHM to verify the real situation.

Well, it took a bit longer than I thought, but I finally figured out how to send email to the NHM, and I contacted Angela Milner, one of the "et alia" of Charig et alia 1986. I presented Jim's claims to Milner, and asked for her response to the claims. The following is her responding email to me on the topic.

Date: Tue, 18 Apr 95 16:56:27 GMT
From: (Angela Milner)
Message-Id: <60988.acm@nhm.ac.uk>
To: welsberr@orca.tamu.edu
Subject: Archaeopteryx

In answer to your two questions:

1. No bona-fide scientific researcher has ever been denied access to the London specimen of Archaeopteryx either before or since Hoyle. We do not, however, provide access on demand to casual enquirers without an advance appointment.

2. I have no record of any communication from the person you cite, perhaps you should follow up that claim with him directly in the first instance.

Yours sincerely

Angela Milner
(Head of Vertebrates Division)

==========================================================
Angela Milner
Department of Palaeontology
The Natural History Museum
Cromwell Road
London SW7 5BD, England

Telephone: +44 (0)171 938 8727
Fax: +44 (0)171 938 9277
INTERNET: acm@nhm.ac.uk

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