I was up in my mum's house the other night (she and my father are still active JWs) and saw the June 2010 Awake!. As I browsed through it I came to watching the world. As I read the article on the "baby mammoth" I noticed that there seemed to be some important information missing, as well as some good old Watchtower selective quoting.
Bear in mind that devout Witnesses would never question the organisation or suspect that an article could be misleading them far less go and research the information to check it's authenticity.
The article mentions the age of the animal at time of death (3 to 4 months) and the fact that it was well preservedin the ice and that it's airways and digestive systems were clogged with silt.
Right at the end of the article they say that the "scientists were lead to believe" the animal "must have drowned"
Here is a link to the article they have pulled the information from bild.com and another site similar info
To quickly highlight some things from the article
1.It mentions the ice age which causes Witnesses a big problem.
2. the baby mammoth has been incased in ice for 40,000 years! another big problem.
3 The actual quote" After carrying out an autopsy on the animal in St. Petersburg laboratories, they found a thick layer of sand and clay in the mouth and trunk – the four-month-old mammoth must have drowned to death in mud."
The actual reason they have included this article in the Awake! is to help the reader along the way to believing this animal may have perished in the worldwide flood of Noah's day.
However this belief is undermined if they include the actual facts presented in the original article. Such as how could an animal have been in ice for 40,000 years when according to JW dogma there was a worldwide flood only 4000 years ago prior to which they allege there was a sub tropical world where there could not exist large Glaciers such as the one described?
That the writers of the Awake are trying to duplicitously fool their readers into believing that this creature could have died as a result of the "Biblical flood" is not in doubt as they finish the peice by saying that scientists believe the animal " must have drowned". This is clearly decieving the reader into believing the death occured in water. The original source material clearly states as quoted in bold what the scientists beleived caused the animal's death." the four-month-old mammoth must have drowned to death in mud."
All of this shows a basic dishonest approach to their work. The Awake is not alone in the publications of Jehovah's Witnesses when it comes to misquoting people and scholastic dishonesty.
My point is if the Governing Body allow this kind of thing and can't even be trusted with something so mundane then what about the Nwt of the Bible and what about their doctrines and their presentation of their past history?
I would not trust them to put a stamp on an envelope.
Matt.