| |
Statement |
My response |
Comment |
| 15 |
2. The research dealing with
mans "evolution" from the apes (or to be specious,
ape-like ancestors) begins with the assumption that man did in fact
evolve from the apes. |
No it doesn't’t. It hypothesizes descent
from an ape-like ancestor because apes are closer to humans in their anatomy
than any other animals. The research investigates this hypothesis, which
is well-supported by evidence from anatomy, genetics and studies of behaviour
as well as evidence from the fossil record. |
FALSE |
| 16 |
No observations or interpretations are
allowed to question this a priori assumption. |
Utter nonsense. It is not an a priori
assumption. |
FALSE |
| 17 |
What has been sought in
paleo-anthropology then are the transitional stages from ape-like
animals to man. |
True, though it rather begs the
question 'what is a man?' |
TRUE |
| 18 |
Transitional forms have proven as
elusive here, however, as between any other plants or animals. |
Simply untrue. There are many fossils
of human ancestors. |
FALSE |
| |
|
Link
- Leakey speaking here on new fossils |
|
| 19 |
In short, the missing link remains
missing. |
If by 'missing link' you mean
ancestral forms, it doesn't. See above. |
FALSE |
| |
|
|
|
| |
3. Past mistakes |
|
| |
a) Piltdown Man |
|
| 20 |
Eanthropus dawsoni or "dawn
man." Discovered in 1912 by Charles Dawson, a medical doctor and
amateur paleontologist who discovered a mandible and a small piece of a
skull in a gravel pit near Piltdown England. The jaw-bone was ape-like
but the teeth had human characteristics. The skull piece was very
human-like. These 2 specimens were combined to form dawn man, which was
supposedly 500,000 years old. However, the whole thing turned out to be
an elaborate hoax. The skull was indeed human (about 500 years old) but
the jaw was that of a modern ape whose teeth had been filed to look like
human wear. |
A reasonable account of the events,
and copied verbatim from here
http://evolutionlie.faithweb.com/piltdown.html,
or here http://www.wasdarwinright.com/Earlyman.html |
TRUE |
| 21 |
The success of this hoax for 50
years, despite the scrutiny of the best authorities in the world, ... |
Untrue - the specimens were kept
under lock and key in the British Museum, and access was very limited.
Experts outside the Museum were not allowed to study the
material. There are several books and web sites available that give a
full account of the story. |
FALSE |
| |
|
Unraveling Piltdown: : The Science
Fraud of the Century and Its Solution by John Walsh (Random House, 1996;
ISBN: 0679444440) |
|
| |
|
The Piltdown Inquest by Charles
Blinderman (Prometheus Books; (December 1986) ASIN: 0879753595 ) |
|
| |
|
The Piltdown Forgery by J. S. Weiner,
Chris Stringer (Oxford University Press; 2nd edition (January 2004)
ISBN: 0198607806) |
|
| |
|
Link
- The Piltdown Fraud |
|
| |
|
Link
- PILTDOWN: Evidence of Smith-Woodward's Complicity |
|
| 22 |
... led Solly Zuckerman to say, "It
is doubtful if there is any science at all in the search for mans fossil
ancestry." |
Possibly true - though I suspect that
it is a quote taken out of context. I'd like to know where and when this
was said. |
uncertain |
| 23 |
Had the original bones been
available for study, then this hoax would not have continued for as long
as it did. |
It is precisely because the bones
were not made available for study that the hoax was not exposed. This
flatly contradicts statement (20) above in any case. |
misleading |
| 24 |
It was not until 38 years after the
bones had been "found" that the hoax was exposed. In 1953
Kenneth Oakley, Joseph Weiner and Wilfred Le Gros Clark realized that
Piltdown man was a hoax. |
Quite true! A triumph of science.
Here's the original paper: |
TRUE |
| |
|
Link
- The Piltdown Fraud: Available Evidence Reviewed |
|
| 25 |
Why is Piltdown Man not being taught
as a fraud in our schools when it is a known hoax? |
I'm not clear on the distinction between
a fraud and a hoax. In any case, Piltdown Man is taught as a hoax, certainly
in British Schools. If schools in the USA don't, that's their business.
In any case this is completely irrelevant to the argument. |
FALSE |
| |
|
|
|
| |
b) Nebraska Man -- Hesperopithecus
haroldcookii. | |
| 27 |
Discovered in 1922 in the Pliocene
deposits of Nebraska by a mysterious "Mister Cook" and made
famous by Henry Osborn of the American Museum of Natural History. |
The press picked up on this find and
blew it's significance out of all proportion. Henry Osbourne was at best
tentative in his support for the 'human ancestor' hypothesis. Steven Jay
Gould's essay on the subject is well worth reading. |
FALSE |
| |
|
'An Essay on a Pig Roast' by Stephen
Jay Gould In Bully for brontosaurus. (pp. 432-47). New York: W.W.Norton,
1991. |
|
| |
|
Link
- Textbooks Continue to Use Nebraska Man? |
|
| 28 |
This tooth was being heavily
promoted by the press at the Scopes "monkey" trial in 1925 as
irrefutable evidence of the animal ancestry of man. |
What have the actions of the press to
do with science? |
irrelevant |
| 29 |
A "picture" of Nebraska
Man and his wife were published in the London Daily News. |
So what? |
irrelevant |
| 30 |
All from a tooth ! When other parts
of the skeleton were found in 1927, it quickly became clear that it was
nothing more than the tooth of an extinct pig |
So scientists discovered the truth
and published a correction. A good example of science in action. |
TRUE |
| 31 |
From this colossal screw-up,
evolution is being taught as fact in public schools. |
Simply untrue. This incident is not used
to teach evolution as fact. How could it be? It might be used as a good
example of how science works - i.e. mistakes are corrected by the process
of sceptical scrutiny. |
FALSE |
