History is full of examples of the respectable insider consensus being dead wrong. Phrenology was accepted and respectable opinion for a long time, and I imagi

History is full of examples of the respectable insider consensus being dead wrong. Phrenology was accepted and respectable opinion for a long time, and I imagine that ordinary people saw through it as much as they do now. Spontaneous generation of life was a serious theory for a while. Baron Kelvin was influentially wrong about the age of the earth. Phlogiston theory was "respectable" opinion for a long time. Besides: if you'd read the linked articles, you'd have understood that many people _within_ the profession agree with my perspective. They form a growing minority, and they come with very good evidence. The past 50 years of anthropology really is shaping up to be another one of these instances in history in which science takes an unproductive detour on its way toward the truth. Granted, that's an extraordinary claim, and extraordinary claims do require extraordinary evidence. But in this case, we actually have that extraordinary evidence: ancient DNA.