I quoted the “right” places because he went to the Koror State Government and issued the required permits to explore the caves and conduct the findings. I quote the “right” places because he did do everything well and he notified the “right” people.

Koror State Goverment has control over most of the Rock Islands and the KSG has responsibility to notify the the public. So Dr. Lee Berger is not to blame here. Whatever is disclosed or not among the Palauan community has to do with the indigenous politics. In truth, the bones that are now sitting in the Belau National Museum are from a certain village in what is now Koror State. The chiefs of the village where the bones are located did not know of this dig because the KSG has more control.

If anything unethical was going on… well… you know what I mean.

But what Lee Berger failed to see… like any trained anthropologist should see, is the bigger picture. As an anthropologist/archaeologist, he should have done research on the indigenous culture and how does he go about in making the, if not appropriate, RIGHT moves in handling indigenous epistemology. Screw the government! It’s a total copy of the U.S. government! Palau, like many other cultures of the world, has a political system in which different states have different applications! If anybody should have been notified of this study, it should have been the people of where these sites are. The chiefs of Ngermid should have been notified. It’s no surprise that KSG did not mention that to Berger… but then again, Berger, after all his experience in South Africa (he must have dealt with the indigenous politics as well!), he should have at least done the respectful thing and let the ones who live in that part of Palau know, especially the chiefs.

Firstly, I would very much appreciate you not lumping your comments to me and Frodo Baggins together. We are two separate persons. I would suggest to you that I have not downplayed the socio-cultural aspects of this research. I was not involved in the earlier discussions on this blog. In my first post I clearly outlined the involvement of all of the Palauan’s I had worked with. Your comment that something went “awry” is correct, manifestly, but let me see if I can put my perspective on this clearly. Until the very moment that Rex Dalton set foot on Palau and begin his “witch hunt” – my colleagues and I were completely unaware of any negative issues that any Palauan’s might have – and that includes Mr. Adalbert Eledu. We were in communication with the Bureau and in good relations. Mr. Dalton quite literally “dropped out of the sky” – a form of ambush journalism. If you read his stories carefully, it seems that there is an underlying agenda concerning money. That’s the context he quotes Adalbert Eledu in. You must remember that I represent a research team. Yes, we want to continue research in Palau, and believe me when I tell you that we want to do it in a culturally sensitive manner. As you certainly must be aware, the internal and external politics in any situation like this – particularly when you are dealing with human remains – is like walking a tightrope. My team and I were in fact instructed by the Palauan authorities – including the traditional leaders we met with – to not speak to anyone on Palau about this matter. They would handle it. Sure it was a poorly kept secret – the island is small – but that was not our decision to make.

What happened were two very unfortunate things: firstly, National Geographic broke its own embargo through a television scheduling error. The show came out before the paper and this almost certainly led to the Palauan’s being embarrassed by not being able to break the news of this find coming out to all in a sensitive manner to all potentially concerned parties. Secondly, on the heels of this, Dalton drops in unannounced as a “reporter for Nature”. Now we compound the first mistake with a reporter from a prestigious journal snooping around for a story which I think, given everything that has happened, has more to do with an issue between Dalton and NGS than with us. He was simply fishing. But fishing in these sorts of circumstances can be extremely damaging. How long did it take him to find a disgruntled leader who had not been informed by the group in the know? Not long. How long did it take him to jump on a boat with this disgruntled leader and race off to the caves for a photo op? Not long. Should this obviously distressed leader have been informed – I don’t know – but it certainly wasn’t my decision to make. It belonged to the Palauan’s who were caught off-guard by the show and Mr. Dalton. It’s their history after all. Do I bear some responsibility for this? Of course, but its hard to learn lessons from reports like Dalton’s – he’s ignoring certain facts and publishing others – as he told me on the phone just the week before last “It doesn’t matter what I say anyway, he’ll have the last word…” . Now there is a lesson in anthropology and science journalism for you.

Concerning the quote of Mr. Adalbert Eledu, I am certain that this is a deliberate misinterpretation by Dalton of ongoing discussions I have been having with the Palauan representatives on the best way forward. From mid- 2007 we were in discussions about looking for ways to raise funds to purchase a boat, driver etc – they don’t have one to survey and protect the shelters. We wanted to look at ways of both protecting the caves and at the same time possibly using them for tourism. While one small part of the community may not wish to have tourism in these caves, another part does and sees this as a way of sharing their culture. Tours were going there already after all. I also wanted to look around for funds to continue exploratory research – these islands have tremendous potential as we have seen. Dalton twists this to imply “National Geographic owes the Palauan’s money”. I am not National Geographic any more than a researcher using an NSF grant is the National Science Foundation. But it is important that field researchers work with the communities to make sure they benefit from not only the publicity around important finds, but from the research itself, to help better understand their origins and protect sensitive sites. But this takes time. I know, I have raised a lot of funds for development here in South Africa around palaeoanthropology.

In a telephone conversation with Dalton held at 7am on Sunday morning March 9th, when he called from “Hawaii”, and ambushed me with the news that Nat. Geo. had broken the embargo and he was just leaving Palau after digging for dirt, I was truly taken off-guard. I explained this history – he chose to ignore it in his first publication – and in his second. He even went so far as to go on and publish online the next evening after he promised me he would not go ahead with the story until after talking with me the next morning giving me time to find out what was going on. He had clearly already made up his mind and written his story. That, from my point of view, is a deliberate twisting of the facts and might now jeopardize our ability to raise funds for these much needed projects.

When you add in the fact that he is putting juicy quotes into the articles about the science – and he knows those facts to be wrong – then what am I to make of this? You may not see it as a big deal, but for Dalton to use the Fitzpatrick and Pietrusewsky quotes about body size knowing that it’s not true, I think this is a very big deal. Can we have powerful science journalist always having the last word on issues like this? What am I supposed to expect his agenda is – to discredit the research at any cost? You did the same in your gleeful first commentary on Dalton’s “new” revelations. You knew about John Hawk’s data in his commentary on Palau. You must have, you quoted his commentary elsewhere, but you chose instead to take a dig at us on other issues – where is the fairness and balanced journalism in that? Above, you just answered two separate people in one review – the only reference to the post I made was you did not like me talking about you heading off on tangents – fair enough. But for you to now say you don’t want to talk about the science is a bit unfair when you went to some considerable lengths to use Dalton’s quotes and take a “slap” at Hawk’s and me and my colleagues on these very scientific issues.

Finally, despite your denials, you did imply I was posting as Frodo Baggins – I presume in order to discredit my integrity in these posts. No one here is stupid. Amongst numerous other comments above the “Well, Dr. Berger if you’re not the person who wrote the comment by Frodo Baggins and since you don’t know who is… then you most likely have security problem with your computer(s).” and “Even if you don’t want the evidence, I’d figure out if anyone (Hobbit or human) may have used your computer(s) on March 11th, 2008, if I were you!” is juvenile sarcasm and your message is clear.

We as scientists are fairly limited in our ability to protect ourselves from this sort of journalism. In blogs, we have to answer as I am doing here. For journals like Nature, I have sent a correspondence to them and we will see – but as Dalton says – they effectively hold all of the cards as to whether they will even allow a reply.

I never said I was backing out of the discussion, I said after I made the 11 March post that I moved on and never checked back, you drug me back into it. I made the post in March as, what I considered then, a courtesy to a fellow scientist who may want to know more about the background to the science. Was I authorized to make such statements, no. Should I have tried to clear up the mis information, in hindsight no, I shouldn’t have considering the replies that have come from you. And another point you seem to have missed, you say the “Palauns were asked to not be on the author list”, I never said that, I said the Palauns them selves asked to be removed from authorship for their own reasons (Which Prof. Berger has since explained to you). I agree with you that indigenous populations rights and feelings should come first and foremost prior to any research or digs being conducted, from my understanding this was done on Palau. The science comes after, once the material has been unearthed, then the measurements are taken and the comparisons made. In theory palaeoanthropologists should be grown up enough to put aside their ego’s (yes I have one as well) their petty dislikes for one another and look at the science for what it is, SCIENCE, not the playground attitudes of my find is better than yours, and what you uncover is meaningless compared to what I have uncovered load of crap that permeates the field. But as you point out, we have to cooperate and work with humans, and that goes to people within the field as well as the people living near and around potential research sites.

As for your comment, “if you manned up and wrote your comments in this forum under your true identity, it would make your comment about my dedication to thorough paleoanthropology a bit less spineless”…. I don’t recall questioning your dedication to palaeoanthropology, I just queried why you insist upon perpetuating the miss information by Mr. Dalton when Prof. Berger has openly told you the facts has he knows them to be…… perhaps there is more to you and Mr. Dalton then meets the eye??

Frodo, first and foremost if you manned up and wrote your comments in this forum under your true identity, it would make your comment about my dedication to thorough paleoanthropology a bit less spineless. But, you don’t. You also said you’d back out of this discussion… You don’t. And now with your latest comment, you’re not standing behind your authoritative facts posted on March 11th, 2008. Can’t say I’m totally surprised that this happened, you’ve portrayed yourself a fictional character associated with Berger from the get-go.

In regards to the quote you mined, I want to spend time focusing on the fact that you fail to include the rest of my quote, where I explain the anthropology behind the science. Pitiful mistake on your behalf… I can’t believe I have to remind a post-doc that anthropology is the study of humans throughout all time and place. And while some anthropologists, like you, Dr. Berger, or I want to focus on investigating past humans, we cannot be ignorant of the fact that paleontological and archaeological research has to interface and cooperate with living humans. The ways scientists interact with locals and government officials affect paleoanthropology. This was the crux of my first post on this subject, which seems like it didn’t quite get thru to you.

In his original piece, Rex Dalton got a couple of alarming quotes from Palauns that raised questions on how the socio-cultural context of this research was conducted. Aside from one vocal angry tribal leader, a very upset Adalbert Eledu, a person that Berger et al. acknowledge in the PLoS One paper, also expressed disappointment. Like many others, I saw this as a sign that the ‘interfacing’ that needs to be done between scientists and locals went awry. To acknowledge someone and then have them publicly express disdain is not a good thing. This coupled with the ‘fact’ you first mentioned in your comment on March 11th, 2008, where Palauns were asked to not be on the author list, indicated that the Palaun interests were ignored in favor for releasing the National Geographic Society documentary. That is what instigated the inquiry into what happened to interfacing with Palauns.

The consistency and frequency at which both you and Dr. Berger have down played or skirted aside the socio-cultural issues is why I called you both out on being dismissive. Time and time again I’ve read from both of you to “move on and focus on the science,” as if anything else is not worthy of your consideration. But I won’t be focusing just on the science. You call the points and questions I have raised as “moving off on tangents which have no bearing on the issue,” but they do.

Furthermore, for Dr. Berger to also say his mistyping of my name was somehow my fault further showed more signs of his neglect in integrating the socio-cultural context with addressing someone in a discussion. And that’s why I called him out on it. There’s a point of distinction that I see neither of you are getting in your arguments. I don’t care about the typo. I care about how the typo was justified. Suffice to say, based off of these interactions and observations, I’m not surprised to read that there are pissed off Palauns out there and I’m not shy to share that.

I hope you see that you’re breaking into jail by reiterating the focus on the science mantra. I also hope you realize it is bad PR, especially when addressing a community of anthropologists. I’ll keep reiterating that focus has to also be spent on investigating why people are pissed off and what can be done to remedy that. I am confident that many anthropologists will also acknowledge that as well.

Kambiz

P.S. – In regards to accusing Dr. Berger of signing his comments as anyone other than yourself, I did not. I mentioned to Anne Gilbert that I had an idea who Frodo maybe, but I asked Dr. Berger directly if he knew who Frodo Baggins is and if he was the person behind Frodo Baggins. To say I accused Dr. Berger of being Frodo is false.

Lets just get this clear, Prof. Berger is not and has never posted as ‘Frodo Baggins’, all your IP address and cookies tell you is that we are in the same building, running off the same server. Considering the ‘Facts’ I posted on 11 March (when Prof. Berger was in the States by the way) the logical conclusion would have been that I indeed work closely with Prof. Berger. You say “Now with Frodo saying he’s never gonna bother to check again, I’m a bit disappointed with how you and your people are dealing with this situation.” This situation is being perpetuated by you expounding upon mis information that someone is apparently feeding you. Prof. Berger posted on your blog in an attempt to clarify the issues you and Mr. Dalton have published and you point out his spelling errors and say he is being dismissive. A scientist would have looked into all the ‘facts’ being presented by Mr. Dalton and Prof. Berger before launching into a diatribe of this sort, attacking the man without really looking at the science involved. But of course you did say earlier “Paleoanthropology is not just about the science. We don’t care just about the bones and the measurements.” Which pretty much sums it up…………..

Kambiz, while I recognize that this is your “private” blog-space, you could use some manners in your discourse with me. My “team” and I have not been asked this question before. The post-doc in question is not part of the Palauan studies. I presume he was just speaking from discussions with other grad students etc. I have answered every one of your enquiries directly. I chose to do so because on the entire web, it was only on your very fine blog spot that you were choosing to not only repeat Dalton’s incorrect information, but enhance upon it with your own opinions. All of your information comes from two sources – Dalton’s two articles – which you then elaborate on. I have put to you that a great deal of what he says, and you elaborate on, is not true, but you do not seem to wish to pursue these lines of discussion. You are, however, willing to move off on tangents which have no bearing on the issue – such as the misspelling of your name, or your incorrect assumption that I was hiding behind another identity on your blog. I have used my real name from the beginning of this discourse and expect some levels of courtesy for this.

Why, might I ask you, are you not critically examining Nature’s and Dalton’s motives in this bizarre episode? Why, for example, would Dalton in his most recent article, publish the quotations of Fitzpatrick and Pietrusewsky concerning what they thought were “normal-sized” individuals, when he knew this to be untrue? I had emailed him on the 26th of March, pointing him to John Hawk’s data showing Fitzpatrick to be incorrect in his statements. Fitzpatrick’s 3000 year old individuals from Orrak are not of “normal” size, they are within the size range of small-bodied populations and similar to the body size of our sample. As I pointed out to you earlier, Fitzpatrick, and obviously Pietrusewsky, missed this. Why then would a senior journalist at Nature go ahead and publish not only a statement he knew to be incorrect, but add in impolite and aggressive comments relating to this “fact”? Was it laziness on his part, or sloppiness for not reading and understanding Hawk’s comments? Did he not understand John’s clear writing, or is there, as John Hawk’s alludes to, possibly a deeper agenda behind these sorts of articles coming out of Nature publishing against open access journals? And it wasn’t just him. I copied the senior science editor on that same email.

Let’s, for the time being, move beyond the issues about whether it is right or wrong to publicize science and look at the following points.

1. We conducted a series of legal, permitted expeditions to Palau and published the results in a refereed journal after a normal review process.
2. We kept all of the local officials and traditional leaders – individuals that the Palauan government officials put forward themselves – informed of our research progress, in a series of meetings held throughout 2006 and 2007.
3. Contrary to the implications in Dalton’s article, we had permission and permits to go into Omedokel cave. Dalton knew this.
4. Mr. Dalton, ignoring evidence at hand, chose to print factually incorrect data concerning Fitzpatrick’s assumptions about the body size of his sample – adding in aggressive, demeaning comments about our research from individuals who he may not have made aware that their statements were incorrect, apparently just to get a juicy comment. This evidence was not only freely available to him online, but had been sent to him and copied to his editor by me personally – well in advance of his article deadline.

The above are facts – verifiable, real, and to my knowledge, undisputed. What then, might I put to you, would drive Dalton to write not one, but two articles on this matter? Is John Hawk’s right in his assessment that Nature is in fact afraid of open access journals like PloS – or was it just sloppy journalism and an individual trying to justify a heavy expense account in Palau? It certainly wasn’t a search for the “truth”.

Given the context, that Dr. Berger suspected it was one of his graduate students, and how Frodo Baggins responded, I’m assume Frodo is one of your students or at least someone who has access to your computers and knowledge of rather intimate details about the research behind Palaun fossils, that he was willing to share with us while you were out of your office.

The information that Frodo shared has remained unanswered and are critical points to be explained now that they are out in the open, especially:

“Palauans were informed, and were on the original team…. [and were] on the list of authors for the article and asked that they be removed for their own political reasons….”

Since Frodo put these tidbits out there, and is linked to you Dr. Berger, can you please clarify why Palauns were on the original list but were asked to be removed? I asked this previously and like I said it has been unanswered.

Now with Frodo saying he’s never gonna bother to check again, I’m a bit disappointed with how you and your people are dealing with this situation. Since you explain that you interfaced with Palauns so well, and how willing they were to help you, why did they not wanna be part of the original publishing team?

Kambiz