Haunting 'mermaid' mummy discovered in Japan is even weirder than scientists expected

[admin]

A new analysis of a mummified "mermaid" found in a Japanese temple has revealed exactly what it is made from, and it's not what scientists thought.

Haunting 'mermaid' mummy discovered in Japan is even weirder than scientists expected : Read more

 

[glk]

Why do experts need to take the fun out of this?

 

[uuu]

i agree. i find it funny with all the "new findings" they use the word "likely" a lot-and "perhaps" it was made for the purpose of fooling people. so now, since we still don't exactly know what this is made from, or why....let's spend money comparing 14 more, write a new report on what we "think" it is again-then wait with anticipation to find ANOTHER one, and start all over again.

don't get me wrong, i'm all for science....but some things in life are what they are, just let it go.

 

[Zaboem]

Why are we so quick in these comments to criticize the language used in the article? Scientists are trained to not write in absolutely about their results. Results can always be disputed, retested, and revised based on new data when new types of tests become available. Furthermore, the researchers might themselves be Japanese, and speaking bluntly with no qualifiers is considered rude in Japanese culture. It's the scientists who arrogantly do write in absolutes and tell everyone what is true that cause me to be wary.

 

[phenom]

i agree. i find it funny with all the "new findings" they use the word "likely" a lot-and "perhaps" it was made for the purpose of fooling people. so now, since we still don't exactly know what this is made from, or why....let's spend money comparing 14 more, write a new report on what we "think" it is again-then wait with anticipation to find ANOTHER one, and start all over again.

don't get me wrong, i'm all for science....but some things in life are what they are, just let it go.

in this article they actually state they do know what it's made of - cloth and paper mache basically, with some different animal bits.

it's old, so getting enough DNA to analyze and compare to known specimens is challenging.

Scientists use words like "likely" and "probably" because we know we aren't 1000% certain. If we have an 80% dna match to a fish and we have other visual identifiers, we can say "likely this" but new data could come and show that it's actually something else.

Also, without people or sources from that time to explain the exact reasoning, we won't ever actually really know why they made this. Maybe it was a toy made for a kid that some rich dude thought was real, and of course hes too rich to be wrong, so now theres a whole doll in a temple being worshipped. But we can make educated guesses with the info we have and knowing how humans operate, so we can find a more reasonable and likely story to tell