# Whatever happened to Thor Heyerdahl? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 16, 2005, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-thor-heyerdahl/294858 "2005-03-16T18:44:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2005, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-thor-heyerdahl/294858/41 "2005-03-19T22:09:38Z")
> [@smiling bandit](#): > > Yes I bloody well do! His idea was that people from Polynesia arrived there from SOuth America. His Hypothesis was that it could be done. He tested it. He didn’t go any further. It’s still science even if you don’t completely prove the idea. You’re just making it more obvious that you don’t understand the first thing about science or the scientific method. A hypothesis would certainly not be that “it could be done.” > [@](#): > > I said we can’t go back and check for sure. We say Heyerdahl’ wrong now, and it would be foolish to say he’s right. It would also be foolish to assume that everyone from now on will agree with us. Based on the evidence, there is no possibility that Heyerdahl was right. The evidence is so strong, and from so many different fields of inquiry, that there is no serious possibility that the idea that Polynesia was colonized from the west will be overturned in the future. > [@](#): > > Who said I was talking about the OP? The others who were responding to the thread were answering the OP’s request to provide information on why Heyerdahl was wrong. You objected to people talking about why he was wrong. In other words, you were objecting to people answering the OP. > [@](#): > > The idea that Heyerdahl cheated is insulting and misleading, and that’s is what I was bugged about. You are indeed a person of refined sensibilities. > [@](#): > > For some ungodly reason, everyone always insists on putting their own ideas in mny mouth. I say what I mean and correct myself when I don’t. Frankly, half the time I can’t tell what you mean. You might try to put a bit more effort in expressing your thoughts coherently. > [@](#): > > He did for historians. He wasn’t the first amateur to challenge the establishment, but from my POV, Hayerdahl changed archeology and history studies considerably with Kon Tiki. Before it was often confined to dusty stacks. Now it’s a pretty exciting field. You seem to know as little about the history of archeology as you do about the scientific method. I wonder if you’ve ever heard of Heinrich Schliemann or Hiram Bingham. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2005, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-thor-heyerdahl/294858/42 "2005-03-19T22:22:42Z")
It’s always dangerous to rip things out of their historic context, but this is getting ludicrous. “Scientific” expeditions are nothing new. They’ve been going on for centuries. The Victorian English, who had both better means of transportation and a new sense of how science was to be conducted, were always going to the far ends of the earth. Conan Doyle used this when he had Holmes explain his three-year “hiatus” by his travels to Tibet and other far-flung locales. After Theodore Roosevelt left the presidency, he embarked on a one-year “scientific” expedition to Africa, collecting hundreds of specimens and writing another bestseller about his trip. The 1920s may have been the Golden Age of such adventures, with Richard Halliburton, Osa and Martin Johnson, and Frank “Bring 'em back alive” Buck in the headlines. These explorations were parodied by Groucho Marx as Captain Spaulding the African Explorer in _Animal Crackers_. (It’s an interesting question whether Buck was the direct inspiration. His book, _Bring "em Back Alive_, wasn’t published until 1930, but he made his first trek in 1911 and had established his zoo in the 1920s. Buck is supposed to be the model for Carl Denham in _King Kong_, however.) World War II put an end to these, of course, so Heyerdahl was perfectly positioned to make headlines post-war by a new type of derring-do. But he didn’t do a damn thing to vitalize archaeology that hadn’t already been done by Egyptologists two decades earlier (ever hear of King Tut?) or Roy Chapman Andrews in his Chinese dinosaur expeditions in the 1930s. And I checked the book version of _Kon-Tiki_. Heyerdahl only says that the tug towed the raft all night long, but never gives a direct figure. Quite an omission for a scientist. Heyerdahl did NOT test “idea was that people from Polynesia arrived there from SOuth America.” He tested the idea that a raft could float from South America to Polynesia once it was free of coastal currents. This is NOT the same thing at all. > [@](#): > > For some ungodly reason, everyone always insists on putting their own ideas in mny mouth. I say what I mean and correct myself when I don’t. Hogwash. If this were true you’d be apologizing to everyone you’ve insulted in this thread. The words that are coming out of your mouth show that you don’t seem to understand science, history, archaeology, or anthropology. Merely proclaiming that you do is not very convincing in face of the evidence. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2005, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-thor-heyerdahl/294858/43 "2005-03-20T00:37:30Z")
**Everyone** needs to calm down. If there is more information regarding Heyerdahl’s epedition or the actual evidence that has been formulated against it, feel free to post that. Attacks on (or defenses against) the personalities or skills of other posters do not belong in **General Questions**. [/Moderator Mode] ---
**Author:** ![Erroneous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71c47a/32.png) [@Erroneous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erroneous)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2005, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-thor-heyerdahl/294858/44 "2005-03-20T10:32:14Z")
Heyerdahl did find indications that pre-Columbian South Americans had made return voyages to the Galapagos islands. He also used his ‘weight’ to organise novel archaeological work in the Maldives, on Tenerife, in Peru and in Russia. Overall I’d say that’s a positive thing, regardless of whatever theories Heyerdahl personally had regarding those regions. But yeah, as has been said already, there’s no archaeological evidence that any Polynesian islands were ever colonised by populations of South Americans. The occasional perceived similarities in artistic motifs are not deemed admissible archaeological evidence (and rightly so). There is a list of plants that are found in Polynesia, which originate in South America, and for a few of these, deliberate transportation by humans seems to be the best explanation for their appearence in Polynesia (the Kumara potato, as well as the Soapberry, I think…I’ll see if I can find the paper I’m vaguely remembering). So yes, there probably was contact between South Americans and Polynesians at some point, but it was so fleeting and minor that it’s impossible to determine archaeologically where it took place, when it took place, with which specific populations it took place, and in whcih direction it went. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatever-happened-to-thor-heyerdahl/294858.md?page=2)