“Hello,” he said.
“Thank you for coming,” Anna said, feigning composure.
She unlocked the door to the collection and switched on the light, which scrambled and rattled into action. Anna heard a chair scrape across the floor far away and knew she had to get Professor Freeman to say something, so Dr. Tybjerg would know that she wasn’t alone.
“Do you have a vertebrate collection at UBC?” she asked. She said UBC so loudly that it was a miracle Freeman didn’t comment on it.
“Yes, obviously,” he said. “Our collection is far bigger than yours. The biggest in North America… but the atmosphere in here,” he added, sounding almost amiable, “is really quite special. The cabinets, the systematics, it’s all very old-worldly.”
There was silence at the far end of the collection where Tybjerg must have heard Anna arrive with a guest and presumably figured out who it was. Anna had planned the scenario the night before, and she deliberately led Professor Freeman to the place where she had found Dr. Tybjerg last Wednesday. She lit a desk lamp, pulled out a chair, and asked Freeman to sit down. Then she opened her bag and took out her dissertation and the draft of the lecture she would give in a week.
“You said you had something for me,” Freeman said.
“I lied,” Anna said, looking straight at Freeman. “I want you to listen to what I have to say.”
Freeman reached for his jacket, which had slipped to the floor. He looked as if he was about to leave.
“You’re a coward if you leave,” Anna declared. Professor Freeman blinked and let his jacket fall.
“You have fifteen minutes. Not a second more,” he said through clenched teeth.
Anna gulped. Her lecture lasted an hour, and the subsequent defense, forty-five minutes. Now she had fifteen.
“I wrote my dissertation on the controversy surrounding the origin of birds,” she began, “and you play a key part in this controversy.”
Professor Freeman looked at her as if he couldn’t be less interested in what she had to say.
“I’ve read everything you have written, papers and books. Gone through them with a fine-tooth comb.” She studied him. “And I’ve read everything your opponents have written and examined that just as closely.”
Professor Freeman still looked utterly bored.
“Your most prominent opponents are,” Anna continued, “Walter Darren from New York University, Chang and Laam from the University of China, T. K. Gordon from the University of Sydney, Belinda Clark from the University of South Africa, and, of course, Lars Helland and Erik Tybjerg from the University of Copenhagen.” She flicked through her papers.
“What your opponents have in common is that they all criticize your fossil analyses and, on that basis, reject your conclusions regarding the origin of birds; criticism that you don’t accept, am I right?” She didn’t wait for his consent, but carried on.
“For more than fifteen years you have engaged in fossil trench warfare, even though experts agree there’s no longer anything to debate. Let me give an example of your critics’ view on the origin of birds: Belinda Clark is quoted in the September 2006 issue of Nature as saying…” Anna picked up a sheet and read out loud:
“We basically try to ignore him. For dinosaur specialists it’s a done deal. Birds are living dinosaurs.” She lowered the sheet.
“Your opponents say they’re ignoring you, but that’s not entirely true, is it? The debate is still ongoing. Why?”
“Well, why do you think?” Freeman said, giving Anna a neutral look. “Because we can’t agree, and why is that? Because they’re wrong. Clark and Laam and Chang; Helland and Tybjerg. They’re wrong.”
Anna ignored him.
“No one can catch you out in terms of anatomical and fossil arguments. I’ve been through all the material, and the order of battle is the same: you interpret the bones differently, so you draw different conclusions. It’s a vicious circle. You’ll never agree.
“I was about to give up.” She gave Professor Freeman a dark look. “I was desperate. You have maintained your position for so many years, so how could I—”
Freeman glanced at his watch. Anna took a step forward and looked straight at him.
“So instead, I reviewed your premise. And it stinks!”
“Allegations,” Professor Freeman yawned. “Unscientific allegations. From a postgraduate.” Again he reached for his jacket. Anna handed him a piece of paper, which he automatically accepted.
“Please would you read it and tell me if you agree?”
He looked baffled for a moment, then he scanned the page.
“Basic rules that should be adhered to if work is to be deemed scientific,” he read out loud. “What’s this?”
“Just read it and tell me if you agree.”
Professor Freeman read it. He shrugged.
“It’s elementary,” he said. “It’s the requirements for internal consistency and convincing argumentation for selection and refutation of scientific positions. Is this what they teach postgraduates here at the University of Copenhagen?”
Anna was aware she was starting to sweat.
He was walking right into her trap.
“Do you agree with them?”
“Completely.” Professor Freeman let the paper rest against his thigh and looked at Anna.
“Then please could you tell me why you, in your argumentation on feathers, to name one example, are guilty of a severe case of inconsistency, which you’ve just agreed mustn’t happen if a position is to be deemed scientific?”
Silence.
Then Freeman said, “What sort of nonsense is this?”
“Your nonsense, Professor Freeman.” Anna flicked through her papers. “In 2000, Chang and Laam described Sinosauropteryx as having well-preserved, feather-like skin structures. Since then dinosaurs with more or less distinct, feather-like structure have literally poured out of the ground, such as Tyrannosaurus Rex found in 2005. Your opponents argue convincingly for the structure being homologous with feathers, and that consequently a feather isn’t a diagnostic feature reserved for birds but characteristic of a wider group of predatory dinosaurs, including birds. One of the most important conclusions drawn from this is that feathers evolved before flight.” Anna looked briefly at Freeman.
“You obviously disagree profoundly with this statement and in 1985, in 1992, in 1995, three times in 1997, again in 1999, and six times between 2001 and 2004, you write, in a range of scientific journals, that the evolution of feathers is inextricably linked with the evolution of flight and it wasn’t until later that it served to insulate the animal. Is that correct?”
Freeman nodded in an off-hand manner.
“You also write several times that, in terms of evolution, it would be wasteful to develop complex contour feathers, which would only be used for insulation. Ergo, the structures might look like feathers, but they aren’t real feathers. Rather than Archaeopteryx, you and your supporters point to the archosaur, Longisquama, as the likely candidate for the ancestor of birds, is that correct?”
“That’s right.” Professor Freeman had regained his footing, but Anna could tell that he wasn’t enjoying it.
“So now we turn to theoretical science issues, still on the premise that you agree with the rules for scientific integrity, as stated on the sheet of paper. Do we still agree with those rules?”
“Yes,” Freeman croaked.
“Then how do you explain that you, in two papers, one from 1995 and the other from 2002, are critical of the feather-like structures found on Longisquama, and argue these structures bear a striking resemblance to plant material, when you, in a paper from 2000 claim, in great detail, these very structures seal a homologous relationship between modern birds and Longisquama? Plant material, Professor Freeman?”