The time of the dwarfs

We publish an open letter of the famous anthropologist, the leading researcher at the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Historical Sciences Maria Mednikova to the Culture television channel, dedicated to the next attempts to replace the popularization of the science of amusing cranberry journalistic fantasies, as well as the incorrect use of comments by the scientist himself.

On May 4, 2012, a show of the film “In the Traces of Secrets of Giants” was shown on the Culture channel . As you can see already from the name, the authors sought to share with the audience a sensational news about the find in the mountains of Armenia of human bones of incredible sizes. The magical landscapes of Armenia and the bewitching sounds of the duduk become a background for the evidence of numerous eyewitnesses. Among the latter, rural residents prevail, there are Armenian and one Russian historian and even the son of a physician who once attended at excavations.

In this film, my “comment” was also sounded. In this regard , I have to clarify and make a public appeal, since my point of view, repeatedly set out by the authors of this film production, did not sound on the air . It is curious that the film reproaches Soviet and modern science of “filtering of uncomfortable facts”, resorting to the indicated filtration in relation to my performance and, I suspect, to the performances of some other participants.

So :

And at the stage of a preliminary telephone conversation with director Armen Petrosyan, and during the recording of the interview, I repeatedly repeated that information about finding bones of four -meter people was an ordinary fake. From a formal point of view, it is not confirmed by documented archaeological excavations, there are no conclusions of experts - anthropologists or forensic doctors - who could argue with reasonably what these bones are.
The most important thing is that the authors of the “sensation” have nothing to present - there is no material evidence, except for photographs of poor quality, which every schoolboy can make, and foggy evidence of “eyewitnesses”, which resemble fishermen who boast of the sizes of fish caught. Thus, I clearly and unequivocally made the authors of the tape that I did not see an informational occasion for scientific commentary.
Instead, I tried to explain why, from a scientific point of view, the existence of people of four -meter growth in principle is impossible, even in ancient times. I talked about the norm of the biological reaction of the type of homo sapiens, about the boundaries of variability, about thermoregulation and the size of the body of mammals, about the rule of Bergmann-allen, about the concept of adaptive types of modern mankind, including about the high-mountain type with a large body length of about 180 cm (!), On the process of acceleration of growth and development, which repeatedly showed itself in our long history. In the end, I drew the attention of the presenter that the idea of giants, giants who existed in the distant past is archetypal and is included in many myths of the peoples of the world, so giants exist in the heads of people, and not in reality.
The filming group used the following technique of “pressure on an intractable scientist”: after I repeated the above arguments several times, the presenter said that this part of my speech was not recorded, because “if the facts about four -meter people are published, I will find myself in an uncomfortable position.”
Unfortunately, I wasted my time in vain, because in the film released on the screen, my monologue was dissected and mounted in such a way that I support the fantasies of the authors with a benevolent look. I want to emphasize that I did not give permission to contextual change in my comment, as well as on the placement of this material on the air (see 4th part of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation).

The specialty of a journalist does not necessarily imply encyclopedic knowledge, the representative of this profession has the right not to have knowledge in a certain field. But if this is an honest journalist, he will listen to the expert’s opinion, as if he would not want to be mistaken, and will not go to the future. Since during the interview I clearly identified my position, there can be no doubt, my words remaining in the film are deliberately torn out of the context, and such use completely distorted the meaning of this interview.

The technology of the authors, apparently, is very effective: loud statements without real evidence, then a specialist appears with an unintelligible comment, from which only a “picture” in the frame and surname is sometimes required.

All this could be considered a special case that affects only my scientific reputation. However, it seems that the problem is more serious.

There is a channel to which we are used to believing. This is "culture." Therefore, I want to ask a few questions to the leadership of the TV channel :

1. Armen Petrosyan is authorized to be officially introduced from the project "Academy" of the Channel "Culture"?

2. Did you order this movie or did the manufacturer offer it? Do you have a practice of scientific review and editing?

3. Do you really think that culture can exist without science?

I will answer the last question myself. Culture without science, especially in the 21st century, cannot be categorically to exist. And a demonstration of a frankly pseudoscientific, built from scratch, pseudo -domestic cinema is able to kill many years of educational efforts. Even the broadcast of philharmonic concerts and individual lectures of real scientists in the Academy project will not save. Trust is difficult to win and easy to lose.

Dear viewers! Please be vigilant. You may be deceived where you do not expect this.

And, the latter, the history of Armenia is beautiful and amazing in itself and does not need at all the artificial “cultivation” of its ancient inhabitants to worthy, according to the authors of this film, sizes.

Since I did not give permission to video recording, alteration of the filmed material and placement on the air, I forbid the channel to demonstrate fragments of my interview in the future.

On the author of the letter : Mednikova Maria Borisovna, anthropologist, candidate of biological sciences (1993), Doctor of Historical Sciences (2002), leading researcher at the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The author of over 220 scientific publications, including 5 monographs. Laureate of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences named after N.N. Miklukho-Maclay (2005). The field of scientific interests is the reconstruction of the living conditions of an ancient person according to anthropology, human morphology, evolutionary anthropology, manipulation with the human body in antiquity. The letter was also published on the Anthropogenesis.ru website .

The time of the dwarfs

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