Richard III remains

I remain sceptical that the remains found in a Leicester car park are in fact those of Richard III. I have two grounds for this.

The radio carbon dating cannot, exactly, narrow down the year of death of the skeleton. The radio carbon dating estimates that the person in the grave died between the years of 1450 and 1540. Richard III died in 1485. There is a considerable chance that the human buried there died before 1450.

Genetic evidence is rarely conclusive. The scientists have only made "matches" for mitochondrial DNA. They have not matched nuclear DNA. The findings have not been peer reviewed yet. There could be other living people who have the same match but are not on the genealogical line. If such a person is discovered it would cast doubt about the identity of the person buried in Greyfriars church.

We do not have known samples of Richard III DNA to make a direct comparison.

We should be careful to assume absolutely that these are the remains of Richard III. We should also be careful that the team investigating the remains are not making the facts fit the desired result.

There is strong circumstantial evidence but none of it is incontrovertible. When incontrovertible evidence is forthcoming I shall believe that they have found Richard III's grave.
 
There has been a lot of publicity and hullabaloo surrounding the remains and this type of PR activity makes me suspicious. The newspapers just seem to blindingly accept what the Richard III society and the University of Leicester are claiming. There seems to have been no real critical examination of the claims.

The Government and the Head of State have made no official comment and there seem to be no preparations being made for an official burial. The State is right to remain guarded until there is absolute proof.

I remind readers that scientists have made PR statements of a tenuous nature before and with "99% certainty". Every one could have reasonable grounds to believe that a meteorite discovered in Antarctica contained fossilised Martian microbes. This discovery was greeted with well founded scepticism. The microbes turned out to be an artifacts. But this does not mean to say that life or evidence of it will not be found on Mars itself.

We were also assured at a press conference that scientists at CERN had discovered Neutrinos that could travel faster than light. This, if proven to be true, would have over turned Einstein's theories of relativity. It turned out to be a measurement error. The sceptics were right to warn against jumping to conclusions before there was absolute proof positive.

But , of course, nearly every one wants to believe -but not me.