In the introduction to their book Scientific Controversies (2000), Machammer, Pera, and Baltas state that scientific controversies that are focused on the result or methodology of one single experiment or on the interpretation of any scientific result or object often hide disagreements on more general theoretical conceptions.155 As we have seen, in the Orce case there is one single point of contention: the classification of the cranial fragment VM-0 as a human species, Homo sp., or its classification as a member of the genus Equus. This was also related to the fossil’s dating, which could potentially allow for the placement of the crucial label ‘First European’. Yet, as the first chapter tried to show, this labelling of the Orce remain did not cause any conceptual disagreement between scientists at the beginning of the story when there was no controversy. Moreover, the main general theoretical claim made by Gibert (that Orce showed very early hominid presence in Europe) was shared by most of his opponents (the de Lumleys, Agustí, Toro, Rivas, the Atapuerca trio, Martínez-Navarro, Palmqvist...), who acknowledged that stone tools found in the Orce area proved this claim. Even foreign scientists, like Roebroeks, who first supported the so-called ‘short chronology’ of the occupation of Europe (in which Orce did not fit), later admitted that this did not apply to southern European cases, including Orce.156
But there was another claim that was more debated. It was the claim that these early hominids crossed, over one and a half million years ago, the Strait of Gibraltar to reach Europe.157 As previously noted, the most accepted route for the hominid ‘journey’ to Europe is the Levantine Corridor, which was further strengthened with the 1990s findings in Georgia. The Atapuerca researchers, for instance, maintained (in both scientific and public forums) that they were completely against the Gibraltar claim, and despite the geographic closeness of Africa and Spain they argued that Atapuerca and Orce hominids came all the way from the East to the Iberian Peninsula.158 Yet, there were also some international researchers, such as Soondar or Roebroeks, who supported the idea of an early hominid crossing via Gibraltar, or at least found it plausible.159 Roebroeks, for instance, by admitting the possibility of an early hominid presence in the Iberian Peninsula but not beyond the Pyrenees, was also admitting the arrival of these hominids through Gibraltar.160 Agustí acknowledged that the arrival through Gibraltar was a clear possibility and even
155 Machammer/Pera/Baltas 2000, 8-9.
156 Dennell/Roebroeks 1996.
157 Gibert/Gibert/Iglesias 2003.
158 See Arsuaga's statements in TVE 2011; Carbonell's in Guàrdia/Pou 1996 and see also Carbonell/Estévez 1983, 152 (68); Carbonell/Sala 2000, 113.
159 See, for instance: Arias, El País 1995.
160 Dennell/Roebroeks 1996.
discussed the issue in one of his popular science books.161 Meanwhile, for Moyà-Solà this was a pointless debate because it would never be totally proven and therefore it would never be a scientifically stated fact.162 In short, the Strait of Gibraltar crossing was not a clear debate between the same parties that disputed the Orce Man’s validity. Therefore it appears that the controversy over the cranial fragment did not hide any crucial disagreement over a more general theoretical issue.
Instead, as this thesis has tried to show, the controversy over the cranial fragment hid more unscientific issues like personal or political disagreements and interests and efforts to gain public prominence. As we saw earlier, the way that Gibert was excluded from the Orce area excavations was based more on political and personal factors than scientific ones. Gibert’s way of acting, his emphasis on the cranial fragment, his highly public profile, and even his political ideas played a crucial role in the controversy, in his isolation, and in the way other scientists criticised him and classified him as a ‘bad scientist’. These factors often played a bigger role than specific scientific claims. In many ways, the controversy was not about whether VM-0 was a hominid or not, but about by whom and how the evidence related to the bone was presented to both scientists and the general public. Somehow, deciding whether the cranial fragment was a hominid or not was the same as deciding whether Gibert’s methodology was correct or not, whether he had enough credibility as a scientist or not, and whether he was a valid expert or not. As Steven Shapin stated, ‘credibility and the validity of a proposition ought to be one and the same’.163 Seen in this way, the Orce Man controversy could be, following Aristides Baltas’s classification in the same Scientific Controversies, a ‘surface controversy’, in which what was at stake was not a scientific problem but a way of doing science. The ‘boundary work’ analysis discussed earlier also supports this approach to the controversy.164 Like Jesse Richmond stated about the Taung Boy case, the discovery of this possible human ancestor was not only that, ‘but also a new opportunity for Dart to fulfill his scientific ambitions. The debates over the credibility of his claim were, in this way, also debates over Dart’s professional standing in science.’165
Likewise, as we saw earlier, at some points this controversy was also a fight for a scientific or even a public ‘niche’. After Miquel Crusafont’s death and with the Orce Man generating scientific media hype, Gibert became not only the new director of the Institut de Paleontologia de Sabadell but also a Spanish public expert on palaeontology and palaeoanthropology. Gibert became a ‘visible scientist’ in Rae Goodell’s terms, a scientist that had an interesting and appealing topic to
161 Agustí/Lordkipanidze 2005.
162 Garcia Ruiz 2003.
163 Shapin 1995, 255-56.
164 Baltas 2000, 46. For more on ‘boundary-work’ see sections 2.5 and 3.8 of this thesis.
165 Richmond 2009, 3 and 23-24.
‘sell’ to the public and to politicians and therefore to get funding.166 At that point, Gibert did not present any controversial issues or generate controversy among the scientific community despite, for instance, publically presenting research that had not been published in scientific literature.
Somehow, Gibert established himself as the ‘Spanish public palaeontologist’, the expert that the media could call on when necessary. This situation may have aroused distrust among peers. Once the controversy broke out, those same peers felt that Gibert, and his insistence on the validity of the Orce Man, were an easy target to direct their attacks in order to eliminate him as a rival for the
‘Spanish public palaeontologist’ position, and therefore in the fight for funding and popular praise.
Several such attacks were directed at Gibert and he was substituted as director of the Institut, as we saw earlier, mainly because of the controversy’s strong media presence.
After that, Gibert became a different kind of ‘visible scientist’: an outcast marginalised by his scientific peers. Following Goodell's analysis, this situation led him to brake some theoretically
‘unwritten rules’ of science, like avoiding public controversy or avoiding going public before releasing a scientific publication.167 As Goodell states, ‘for unpopular scientists whose views are criticized or ignored by fellow scientists, the media may represent a chance for a more sympathetic forum.’168 This situation, added to the political dimension explained in chapter three, prevented Gibert from continuing to work in Venta Micena and in the Orce area more generally. Control over the excavations was also a ‘niche’ to be fought for. Gibert, despite being very popular in Orce, was not welcomed by the Junta politicians or scientists, or scientist-politicians, who prohibited his work as much as possible.
In their book, Machammer, Pera, and Baltas also point out how disputes between scientists can foster the development and growth of science, bringing innovation into scientific practice and generating opportunities for junior scholars.169 In the Orce case, on the one hand, it was the early uncontroversial discovery that propelled the Institut into a new age of scientific research and allowed the scientific collaboration between Andalusian and Catalan institutions. The subsequent controversy led to Gibert’s isolation in the Institut and the impossibility of continuing scientific research in the Venta Micena site, which was closed and had no scientific activity for many years.
On the other hand, the desire to demonstrate the hominid nature of the cranial fragment also brought new and innovative techniques to palaeontology and palaeoanthropology in Spain. The immunological test that attempted to identify human proteins in fossils was performed for the first time in Europe on the cranial fragment and on other remains from Orce. The mathematical fractal
166 Goodell 1977.
167 Goodell, 1977, 92/130.
168 Goodell, 1977, 180.
169 Machammer/Pera/Baltas 2000, 10/30.
analysis performed twice by Paul Palmqvist on drawings of the Orce bone was also a very innovative technique applied to the analysis of palaeontological remains.
Furthermore, the Orce Man controversy created great opportunities for young scholars like Bienvenido Martínez-Navarro or Gibert’s son, Lluís, and other scientists linked to Gibert’s group who based their early careers on work related to the Orce controversy. They published articles and books, organised conferences, and based their doctoral theses on work related, in one way or another, to the case. In a way, they grew up as scholars within the context of a scientific controversy. Later, when Martínez-Navarro changed sides, he was able to apply for jobs and present excavation projects thanks to his extensive curriculum vitae based on several national and international publications on the Orce Man and Orce fauna (his speciality) and on his participation as part of Gibert’s team in conferences, research stays, and excavation and research projects.170 In 2003, he got a permanent position from the Catalan government as an ICREA research professor at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona and later at the Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES), founded in 2004 by Eudald Carbonell, who was also the director.171
To sum up, the scientific and public controversy of the Orce Man paralysed the excavations in Venta Micena and left Gibert with very little financial support from the institutions. Yet, it also resulted in the application of innovative trans-disciplinary techniques in palaeontology as well as creating academic and professional ‘niches’ for young scholars that were involved in the controversy very early on in their careers.
170 See Martínez-Navarro's curriculum in Martínez-Navarro, n.d.
171 Ibid.