Bent Spoon Winner 1992

Dr Allen S Roberts

The following is the text of the announcement of the winner of the Australian Skeptics Bent Spoon Award for 1992, made by National President, Barry Williams at the National Convention in Newcastle on Saturday, June 20, 1992.

Those who were fortunate enough to attend the now notorious Sydney "Noah’s Ark" meeting (the Skeptic Vol 12, No 2) had the opportunity to acquire a twenty eight page document entitled "If this is not Noah’s Ark - then what is it?".

Before answering the question, let me tell you a little of what the tract says. It begins by telling us that the copyright is held by one Allen S Roberts, so we can assume that he is responsible for the contents. Roberts styles himself "Doctor", though investigations independently conducted by the Australian Vice Chancellors Committee, Dr Peter Pockley, freelance science columnist, and Australian Skeptics reveal that the institution which awarded this doctorate is not mentioned in the directories that list accredited tertiary institutions in the USA, nor indeed in the telephone directory of Orlando, Florida, where it is located. It is in fact a correspondence Bible college, located in an "80 seat church" in the Orlando suburb of Maitland and is allowed to operate under a Florida statute which gives exemptions to certain religious schools, which are not evaluated by the state Board of Independent Colleges and Universities.

In the document and publicly on a radio programme, Roberts seeks to draw parallels between this "university" and Yale and Harvard, two of the world’s most respected tertiary institutions. In the unmitigated gall stakes, this breathtaking claim must rate very highly, and all I can say in response is that is that Yale and Harvard Universities are certainly to be found in the relevant telephone directories.

Roberts is described in the document as "archaeological research consultant" for Ark Search although he has publicly admitted that he has no qualifications in archaeology, nor in any of the related sciences. He seeks to obscure this point by stating "A goat herd discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls". That is true, but totally irrelevant. Roberts did not "discover" the geological formation under discussion, which has been known about for at least 40 years, nor, as far as our most stringent research can determine, has the goat herd been appointed as archaeological research consultant to the Dead Sea Scrolls project.

Roberts further states that his bachelor degree from the University of New England qualifies him as an historian and goes on to say: "This following overview of Dr Robert’s academic background indicates something of the intellectual discipline his involvement is contributing to the search and to his particular role in carefully recording the investigations and findings." We have no reason to doubt that Roberts has a degree that allows him to call himself an historian. As to what this contributes to his careful recording of any facts, well, we shall see. Let me further quote from the document in hand.

In referring to some "evidence" of fossilised animal antlers, dung and hair, he claims that they "are able to be forensically analysed to determine types of animals and their diets". Curiously, in light of recent events, this statement may well be true, but I doubt if it is what he meant to say. If you care to look up the meaning of the word "forensic’ in the Collins English Dictionary, you will find that it means "Relating to, used in, or connected with a court of law". That’s it - nothing more. It is a common misapprehension that ‘forensic’ in some way refers to science. It does not, it refers purely to the legal process. One can just imagine the learned justices of the High Court analysing fossilised dung to determine the diet of the animal who dropped it, using only the Constitution and legal precedents. The mind boggles. It is a common mistake, but not one that you would expect from a former English teacher who applies intellectual discipline to the recording of facts.

Let us move on to another piece of intellectual rigour. On page 23 of the document we find a proposal to build a protective cover for the site, and I will quote: " Such an approach has been shown to be both exciting and viable by such projects as the Spanish Galleon, ‘Mary Rose’ in Great Britain and Sweden’s ancient Viking ship, the ‘Wasa’."

Nothing controversial there you say? Well I am neither an historian nor an archaeologist (and if anyone offered me a job as an archaeological or historical consultant, I would invite them to step outside until they sobered up), but even I know that the Mary Rose was an English ship, built for Henry VIII, which foundered on its first voyage after a refit and which was refloated in recent years, amid much publicity and fanfare, under the patronage of the Prince of Wales. I am astonished that anyone with even a passing interest in history could have thought that the Mary Rose was a Spanish ship. And what about the "Viking ship Wasa"? Readers are probably aware that the so-called Viking Age extended from the ninth to the eleventh centuries and was all over by about 1100. The Wasa was a Swedish warship which sank as soon as it first raised its sails. The year was 1627 and the ship is described in the Encyclopaedia Brittanica as "a unique example of a 17^th Century sailing ship". The best way these ‘facts’ can be reconciled with the intellectual discipline of an historian is if Roberts is an historian from an alternative time line, where Britain was a Spanish colony and the Vikings hung around for 500 years longer than they did in this one.

But better is yet to come, and this is an example of intellectual rigour that I doubt will ever be surpassed.

On page 10 of the tract, which discusses the dimensions of the alleged boat, we find that the formation exactly equates with the Genesis description (ie 300 cubits long by 50 cubits wide by 30 cubits high). Well exactly that is, except for the width and the height, and providing one uses a cubit of 20.6 inches. (The rock is allegedly 515 feet long and if you multiply 300 by 20.6 and divide by 12, you certainly get 515, though where exactly you measure from and to on a rough rock formation is not made clear.)

As I mentioned previously, not being an expert on history or archaeology, I didn’t know just how long a cubit was, so I looked it up. In fact the experts in the field are also uncertain, as the cubit is based on the length of the forearm, not on the frequency of Krypton 86 like the metre. You can see that the cubit is not necessarily a particularly accurate measuring stick and different ancient cultures apparently had different cubits (not surprisingly, as forearms differ considerably), but the consensus seems to be that the Egyptian ‘Royal’ cubit was 20.62 inches, the Babylonian about 20.9", the Roman about 17.5" and the Hebrew about 22". It would seem then, that Noah built his Ark using the Egyptian standard rather than the Hebrew one.

In any case it is not the length of the cubit that is important to the story - it is the footnote that Roberts inserts at this point. Always eager to learn from an historian, I quickly turned to page 25 to find on what authority Roberts based his certainty of this rather precise measurement. I will quote it verbatim.

6 Piazzi-Smith, Astronomer Royal in Great Britain last century.

At this point, I must tell you that there never was any such bloke. But I do know who is meant and it is singularly appropriate that this man should appear in a footnote, because his appearances in history are largely as footnotes to the careers of three of the great 19^th century men of science. Although neither an historian, nor an archaeologist, I am something of an authority on the man in question, by which I mean that I am one of the few people I know who has even heard of him.

He was actually Charles Piazzi Smyth (no hyphen) (1819-1900), son of a British naval officer, Admiral Smyth, who named his son in honour of his friend, the well known Italian priest/ astronomer Giuseppi Piazzi, discoverer of the asteroid Ceres (the first such to be discovered).

As a lad of 16, Smyth began working for Sir John Herschel, another of the outstanding astronomers of the 19^th century, at his observatory in South Africa. At the age of 26, young Smyth was appointed Astronomer Royal for Scotland (not Great Britain) and professor at Edinburgh and, at age 38, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Not bad you might say, and you would be right. He was by all accounts a pretty fair astronomer, but at around this time he became involved in the study that lifted him from competent astronomer into the ranks of the all-time great eccentrics.

He discovered the Great Pyramid of Khufu. (When I say he discovered it, I don’t mean he discovered it. It didn’t need to be discovered - it was pretty hard to miss, but you know what I mean - it swam into his ken.)

At this point, I must insert a little background as to what was going on in Britain at the time. Of course, this was a time when Darwin had just published his great work and most people still believed the creation story, Noah’s flood and all those other Biblical myths. The British had for some time been a world power and, naturally enough, it became obvious to many of them that they must be God’s Chosen People. Now this was a good idea, but it was a bit inconvenient, as the Bible had it that the Jews held this honour. As it was obvious that most Britons were not named Coen or Greenberg, it therefore became imperative to find a solution and thus it was decided that the British were the descendants of the "Lost Tribes of Israel".

Among the organisations thrown up by this belief was the Anglo-Israel movement, whose aim was the conversion of all Jews to the Anglican church. This was not just a fringe group as it had many prominent adherents and reading about the movement will repay you for the trouble. It also, though possibly unintentionally, led to the Jews being somewhat better treated in Britain than they were in other parts of Europe.

Another prominent thread which wound its way through the 19^th Century British consciousness was a violent and long standing antipathy towards anything French.

This interesting combination of fundamentalism, nationalism and Francophobia caused one John Taylor, a retired publisher, to decide that the Great Pyramid could not have been built by the Egyptians, but must have been built by the Tribes of Israel (proto-British) under God’s direct guidance. He was the one who began the growth industry of pyramidology (or pyramidiocy as I prefer to call it), which holds that the Great Pyramid’s measurements contain signs and portents to all of the world’s history.

At this time, someone discovered a pyramid casing stone which was 25.025 inches wide and this was taken to be evidence that God had used the British system of measurement in designing the pyramid. Although it was later found that other casing stones had different dimensions, the "sacred" cubit became 25.025 inches and, because the pyramid has five sides and five corners, one twenty fifth of the cubit became the "pyramid inch", which was only one part in a thousand larger than the British inch. What more proof could anyone need that the British system of measurement was ordained by God? And it was one in the eye to the atheistic and regicidal French, who were trying to foist their noxious metric system onto the world.

This persuasive argument had a great influence on the Astronomer Royal for Scotland and he spent the rest of his long life writing voluminous and obscure books about it. He also, along with his mentor Herschel, succesfully persuaded the Standards Commission to reject attempts to introduce the metric system into Britain, a decision which is only now being rescinded.

While on a visit to Egypt, Smyth sought to find the divinely ordained ‘pyramid inch’. Not unnaturally he succeeded, in the shape of a masons’ boss left on the side of an otherwise undistinguished block of stone. In fact, it was not quite accurate and a disciple of Smyth was later found trying to file it down to fit but that is irrelevant here.

The final footnote to Smyth’s career was that he encouraged a young Englishman to travel to Egypt to refine the multitude of measurements of the Great Pyramid. When this man arrived, he found that most of the claims made for the pyramid were hopelessly wrong. Nonetheless he stayed on to make his own discoveries and became the recognised father of scientific archaeology. His name was Flinders Petrie.

Now you might think that I have strayed a long way from my point, which was, if you remember, the intellectual rigour that Roberts applies to his work, so let me tie it all together.

There is only one measurement of this rock formation (the length) that is confirmed by the Genesis story, and this is totally dependent on a cubit being 20.6 inches. For this measurement, Roberts appeals to a non-existent person Piazzi (hyphen) Smith, who was actually Piazzi (no hyphen) Smyth; he gives him an incorrect title (Astronomer Royal in Great Britain, when he was actually Astronomer Royal for Scotland), he ascribes the ‘sacred cubit’ to Smyth when it was in fact the idea of John Taylor and he makes it 20.6 inches, when it was really 25.025 inches. (515 feet reduced to ‘sacred’ cubits comes to 246.953047, which Genesis definitely did not say.) In fact, the cubit whose measurement Roberts almost uses to make his rock come out at the right size was the Egyptian "Royal" cubit, which was used in constructing the Great Pyramid, and examples of which have been found. It was an entirely Egyptian invention, which had nothing to do with the Hebrews (nor indeed the British) and certainly had nothing to do with Smyth. Add this to the blunders he made about the ships and I ask you to judge for yourself the intellectual rigour displayed by Allen Roberts.

But all of this is merely a preamble and is totally unconnected with the real reason why the committee decided to make this award of the Australian Skeptics Bent Spoon for 1992. When we sat together, a vision appeared before us and a voice spake unto us, saying, "The truth about the formation in the mountains of Turkey is that both Professor Plimer and Mr Roberts are wrong. The formation is neither a syncline, nor is it the remains of Noah’s Ark. It is in fact a giant, fossilised Bent Spoon."

How could we argue?

Therefore I am pleased to announce that Australian Skeptics, under divine guidance, has awarded the Bent Spoon for 1992 to Allen S Roberts, archaeological research consultant for Ark Search and a worthy successor to Charles Piazzi (no hyphen) Smyth.