MORE DEVIANT SCIENCE

Professor John Heslop Harrison was an English botanist with a theory to prove.

He found the Hebridean islands of Scotland’s North West a rich field area for his science. Each year he took his Newcastle University students to botanize those isolated windswept islands; usually to the Isle of Rhum (or Rum, nowadays). It was generally believed that all plant life there would have been totally obliterated during the last ice age that only ended about 10 000 years ago. Lands at high elevations such as ‘ nunataks ’ that poked above the grinding, scouring ice fields would still have been too harsh a climate to sustain plant life. It would take a few thousand years for lichens and low mosses to create a soil that would then be receptive to plants returning from their refuge in the south.

But, as I said, the professor had a theory. He had convinced himself that a number of plants had survived in this locale throughout the ice age. Sure enough, he began to find specimens whose most northern limit today is in the mountain of the Alps. His contention was that since the plants had not returned gradually to the Hebrides in the 10 000 years available, their presence today meant that they had been there all along.

His finds were mostly Sedges which differ from the two ranked leaves of grasses on round stems by having whorls of three and more triangular stems. Whatever turns you on!

It seemed odd to his students and to fellow scientists that he alone was making these discoveries and always solitary specimens. Even if a plant was rare you might ordinarily expect a small community.

It soon became a bit of a joke and Heslop-Harrison (the hyphen was a late addition to the style of his name.) was suspected of growing the plants in his home garden, introducing them to the study site where he could then make his remarkable ‘ discoveries ‘.

 The goings on became so notorious that one wag suggested that when dug up on the island, the plants were found to be growing in John Innes mix. That would be PRO-MIX to North Americans. This was meant as a joke but you can see what was happening to the botanist’s reputation.

FURTHER READING     A RUM AFFAIR    A True Story of Botanical Fraud    by Karl Sabbagh

An update: Science Magazine March 2, 2012 reports similar claims of boreal forest trees in northern Scandinavia persisting through the ice age.
Despite his apparent falsifying of the evidence could Heslop-Harrison's theory of plant survival have some merit? WATCH THIS SPACE.

obliterated during the last ice age that only ended about 10 000 years ago. Lands at high elevations such as ‘ nunataks ’ that poked above the grinding, scouring ice fields would still have been too harsh a climate to sustain plant life. It would take a few thousand years for lichens and low mosses to create a soil that would then be receptive to plants returning from their refuge in the south.

But, as I said, the professor had a theory. He had convinced himself that a number of plants had survived in this locale throughout the ice age. Sure enough, he began to find specimens whose most northern limit today is in the mountain of the Alps. His contention was that since the plants had not returned gradually to the Hebrides in the 10 000 years available, their presence today meant that they had been there all along.

His finds were mostly Sedges which differ from the two ranked leaves of grasses on round stems by having whorls of three and more triangular stems. Whatever turns you on!

It seemed odd to his students and to fellow scientists that he alone was making these discoveries and always solitary specimens. Even if a plant was rare you might ordinarily expect a small community.

It soon became a bit of a joke and Heslop-Harrison (the hyphen was a late addition to the style of his name.) was suspected of growing the plants in his home garden, introducing them to the study site where he could then make his remarkable ‘ discoveries ‘.

 It became so notorious that one wag suggested that when dug up on the island, the plants were found to be growing in John Innes mix. That would be PRO-MIX to North Americans. This was meant as a joke but you can see what was happening to the botanist’s reputation.

FURTHER READING     A RUM AFFAIR    A True Story of Botanical Fraud    by Karl Sabbagh

FROM THE SKEPTIC TANK

ARCTIC LUPINE

BE ALERT as you read; in fact go to High Alert and retain that posture. Check that your ‘bull-shit’ meter is state of the art. Keep your eye out for the latest model.
ASK QUESTIONS.
Who wrote this? What are their credentials? Could the writer have a self interest beyond seeking the truth? Who paid the writer and does the publisher have an agenda, hidden or otherwise?

When was this written? Have you checked the subsequent literature? It could very well be that some or all of the writers’ claims and statements have been refuted and debunked or at least have been questioned but that part of the story just never came to your attention.Could it be that their knowledge and yours is seriously out-dated although the books are still in your library?

In 1964 scientists announced the discovery in Yukon of 20 or so seeds of Arctic Lupine in a lemming burrow that we are told had been buried in frozen silt for over 10 000 years. The contents of the burrow, including a lemming skull, faecal pellets and the seeds, were brought to Ottawa in 1966. In 1967 the seeds were germinated in a greenhouse and produced perfectly normal Lupinus arcticus.
The rewarding work was described and published in Science, the holiest of such journals. By the time that I heard the story it was the mid-seventies, and then I found myself bumping into it repeatedly as by now the amazing story was being told and retold around the world. Not all scientists were convinced.

I am not a scientist merely an interested reader but I did not like the story; it did not pass the smell test. It made my nose wrinkle. Palaeontologist Dick Harington (with one r, I checked.) who discovered the seeds had impressive credentials; and who was I to quarrel with the most esteemed of science journals?

But I could wonder; and ask questions. I wondered what the weather had been like in that part of Yukon 10 000 years ago. Apparently the site had never been glaciated and no doubt there would have been warm periods, and locations near hot-springs, but still; could this flowering plant have ever flourished there?

Harington was fortunate enough to continue his work in Yukon for another forty years and was able to co-author a new paper with Grant Zazula in which the true age of the Lupine seeds was proven and his original error corrected. Seeds remained from the 1964 find, some of which were sent to an expert in radiocarbon- dating at Oxford University. Using greatly improved equipment it was shown that the seeds were modern and in fact only a few years older than the date of their discovery.

GO TO-  BBC Earth News 10 000 year old seeds debunked.

Zazula says that he has collected over 65 species of seeds from ancient rodent nests in the permafrost, some as old as 25 000 years. He has never found ‘ancient’ Arctic Lupine seeds. “Also, Arctic lupine is a  boreal forest understory flower, and I do not think it lived during the ice age with incredibly cold, harsh arctic conditions. The ecology does not fit,” he says.

Now that the age of the Arctic Lupine seeds have proved to be modern; where did they come from? How did they get in that lemming burrow? It is just too dreadful to think that an esteemed scientist would ever place false evidence, to then feign discovery and attempt to fool the world. The alternate explanation is that Professor Harington was the victim of a malicious hoax. The story is not ended yet.
It appears that there is still another shoe waiting to be dropped.