Eric Orwoll’s video response to my Epic Rap Battle of Edenism leaves something to be desired. Or rather, everything.
It is precisely my contention that these skulls have not been properly studied, due to the reflexive skeptard reactions of people like Eric. A relevant answer would constitute turning up some competent papers by mainstream anthro about these elongated skulls, and then we read them and evaluate their arguments. His response vid doesn’t even rise to that level. Zero effort. I am dissapoint. And if he is relying on Stephen Novella’s refuted hack job for his Starchild critique, I swear, my respect for him will drop to zero…
Anyway, Eric’s adopted the standard skeptard line, best summarizedhere:
Author Robert Connolly has collected and photographed a number of skulls from ancient Peru, skulls that are surprisingly elongated. In Peru, a practice called “skull binding” involved wrapping fabric or leather straps about a child’s head, molding it as it grew into this strange oval shape. There’s nothing mysterious or unknown about this; we have plenty of historical and archaeological data about this practice. But Connolly disagrees, stating that this explanation “has been rejected”. Well, it has, by him; but not by the anthropologists who make Peru their business. The elongated skulls of Peru are certainly interesting, but their origin is well understood and no mystery exists outside of the delusions of those who insist on alien or supernatural explanations for just about anything.
This is the only response they have – head binding. No explanation for why then the skulls don’t look like these real examples of head binding:
As I stated in the video, head binding leaves grooves or flat planes in the bone, whereas natural unrestrained bone has natural convolutions, because it does not grow perfectly straight or flat. Moreover, head binding cannot increase brain and skull volume, it can only move it around. The result is itty bitty coneheads, not giant promethean coneheads. This Google Image Search says it all, juxtaposing real mega-coneheads with cheap manmade imitations. The difference is so obvious only a blind man or a guild anthropologist could miss it.
Eric criticizes Lumir G. Janku’s photographic interpolation method for estimating cranial volume. I can’t find any additional info about the method on Google. But Lumir’s discourse is measured, reasonable, and well informed. For example, his is the only location I found for the largest modern cranial volume recorded, a retarded man with approximately 2000 cc.
So here’s my challenge to Eric and the skeptards: show me one headbound skull that looks anything like the melons.
These skulls are found from Peru to Mexico to Siberia to Egypt to Malta. Sure, it’s all magical “headbinding”. Hey, we can do all anthropology that way! Ignore volume and shape, just say the magic word: “headbinding”. Voila.
(The Egyptian and Mexican ones are a bit smaller, suggesting a trend of degeneration to the sizes we see today in modern melons.)
A skeptic is someone who is familiar with human nature. A skeptard is someone who is familiar with human nature only as it applies to those outside the current high-status consensus.
See more melonhead skull vids at end of my article here.