TPO 28 About Peary reach to the North Pole

The reading and the lecture both have conflicting opinions about Peary's reach the North Pole in 1909. The author strongly postulates that Peary actually reached the North pole and provided three arguments to support this claim. On the other hand, the lecturer casts doubts on each of the claims made by the author presented in the reading. He is of the opinion that there are no evidence that Peary reached to the North pole and thinks that the claims are not convincing.

First of all, The author argues that a committee was put together by the National Geographic that was instructed to conduct a deep findings of Peary's records and items. However, the professor refutes this by mentioning that it is true that the National Geographic set up a committee for more investigations of Peary's records but that committee was almost composed of Peary's close friends who contributed large funds for Peary's trip to the North Pole. Moreover, committee did not record any diligent records on this. Thus, the committee was not trustworthy to support evidence for Pear's reaching to the North Pole.

Secondly, another evidence provides that Peary reached the North Pole in 37 days after setting out of Ellesmere Island. In fact, Tom Avery used the same kind of dogsled as Peary had. Nonetheless, the lecturer strongly delineates that Avery was different from Peary in many ways. He explains that Avery took less food with him and most of his food was dropped by the airplane. Also, weather conditions were suitable at Avery's time unlike Peary.

Finally, the author claims that there were photographs taken by Peary which really support that he did reach to the North Pole. In other words, measuring the shadows in Peary's photographs makes it practical to calculate the sun's position in the North Pole. The speaker in the listening counters these indications by insisting that photographs do not prove anything. It is not possible without measuring the sun's position very precisely, this is not the exact position. Furthermore, those fizzy, unfocused photographs faded over time. Shadows can not be calculated to use accuracy of sun's position.Therefore, it clearly does not tell that Peary reached to the North Pole.