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Evolutionary Propoganda - A True Story
- Thread starter Mark Osgatharp
- Start date
Them's mighty strong words. Accusing a professional of that kind of intellectual dishonesty. You care to back it up with proof that any of the key fossils in the whale transitional series are faked? Otherwise it sounds alot like bearing false witness.Originally posted by john6:63:
I’m sure he can find some poor archeologists who fabricated some fossils just to keep that money that’s being funneling in from the National Geographic, which supports his digs.
Its a sad but disturbing fact that some ( not all ) YEC's accuse so many professional scientists of 'lying'.
As Dr Hugh Ross said the notion that hundreds of astronomers are all part of a hugh conspiracy to falsly promote the age of the Universe as very old is absurd. Can't you imagine all those astronomers and astrophysicists at clandestine meetings gathered hushed round the campfire discussing how to falsely portray the redshift, cepheid variable period luminosity laws, etc to further the work of the devil.
I don't mind someone questioning their tenets of belief but a conspiracy ? Deliberate lying ? Okay say they're mistaken but deliberately lying ? I don't think they do.
The danger of accusing scientists of deliberately lying puts YEC necks firmly on the block.
Need I remind YEC's of the very disturbing record of YEC speakers concerning the accuracy of some of their qualifications.
As Dr Hugh Ross said the notion that hundreds of astronomers are all part of a hugh conspiracy to falsly promote the age of the Universe as very old is absurd. Can't you imagine all those astronomers and astrophysicists at clandestine meetings gathered hushed round the campfire discussing how to falsely portray the redshift, cepheid variable period luminosity laws, etc to further the work of the devil.
I don't mind someone questioning their tenets of belief but a conspiracy ? Deliberate lying ? Okay say they're mistaken but deliberately lying ? I don't think they do.
The danger of accusing scientists of deliberately lying puts YEC necks firmly on the block.
Need I remind YEC's of the very disturbing record of YEC speakers concerning the accuracy of some of their qualifications.
Matthew 16:24
New Member
I wouldn't say lying. More like misled.
Same challenge as above. You are making a very serious charge here. Fabricating evidence is just not allowed and anyone caught doing so would likely find him or herself permanently ostracized and discredited. You need to document that a significant number of them are in fact fabricated. Else you are bearing false witness against these gentlemen and ladies and you should withdraw the accusation.
Here is a partial listing of ancestral species:
Ardipithecus ramidus
Australopithecus anamensis
Australopithecus afarensis
Australopithecus africanus
Australopithecus garhi
Paranthropus aethiopicus
Paranthropus boisei
Paranthropus robustus
Homo habilis
Homo rudolfensis
Homo ergaster
Homo erectus
Homo heidelbergensis
Homo neanderthalensis
Homo sapiens
If things are so well documented you should easily be able to show that all of the fossil finds for several of these species are "pure fabrication." If you cannot, withdraw the false accusation.
Yes but just one.
The one that decided to go from the land to the water.</font>[/QUOTE]Ah, you knew the absurdity of that request when you made it. No animal "decided" to go from the land to the water. It just gradually happened. You cannot even say that there was an evolutionary desire to get the animals back in the water. They were just exploiting an ecological niche that eventually led them to being fully aquatic once again. Put a different way. Has a seal "decided" to be a terrestrial mammal or a marine mammal? What about an otter? A seal lion? A walrus? A hippo? Penguin: land bird or sea bird? Any of these have reached the point where they are well equiped for the sea but they return to the land, just as ancestral whales would have at one point.
Anyhow, the answer you are looking for would be Ambulocetus. An ancestral whale with short, powerful legs with a flattened tail and a long snout. It was a little bit similar in size and appearance to a marine crocodile. Its skeleton indicates that it would have been a very good swimmer and capable of getting around on land, also. Ambulocetus has some very specific bone structures in common with other whales to show that it is fact an ancestor, most importantly the unique ear structure of cetaceans.
Yet when it comes down to it this is an assumption on your part. It is mere guess work. The evolutionary theories have changed throughout time. They still can't decide which one fits their "hypothesis" best. And at best the evolution that is taught as fact in our schools hasn't even reached the stage of being a theory; it is still at the stage of an hypothesis. It is merely a hypothesis, a guess, and that is all.
Julian Huxley, that great advocate of the evolutionary theory, in answer to a question said:
Huxley was no fool. There is nothing credible to hang your faith on evolution. He knew that it was either God or evolution (the alternative to a belief in God). If he admitted that God was the creator of the universe, then he also must admit that he was the creature, and of consequence must submit himself to the Creator as His master, something he didn't want to do. Thus he would rather believe in that which was more incredible, more outlandish for him to believe in--evolution, rather that put his faith in God.
There is no possible way that a person can believe the Bible and believe evolution at the same time. Evolution amounts to unbelief in the Creator. In the case of theistic evolutionists so-called, it is still a case of unbelief--unbelief that God cannot do what He said He did.
DHK
I would be interested in seeing some actual support for this claim. Which fossils, specifically, have been purely fabricated?
(Excluding the hoary old standbys of Piltdown and "Nebraska Man"--they are almost a century old and we all know those stories by heart, I think. Something currently considered to be a real fossil, perhaps?).
(Excluding the hoary old standbys of Piltdown and "Nebraska Man"--they are almost a century old and we all know those stories by heart, I think. Something currently considered to be a real fossil, perhaps?).
Reading through the last couple of pages only, out of curiosity, a couple of things might be added:
1. Although most professional scientists certainly have not faked fosslized remains, the fact remains that a good many of them have fallen for the fakes at different times, and this is really just as damaging to the general public in terms of what is true and what isn't.
2. Although anyone from any background may become a born again Christian, and although the previous beliefs about a number of things may hang on for awhile (including evolution), the fact remains that the Holy Spirit will be leading each of us into all truth and that, in the finality of it all, we will all be Bible-believing creationists.
And, personally, I think we will all end up in the YEC position, too...
1. Although most professional scientists certainly have not faked fosslized remains, the fact remains that a good many of them have fallen for the fakes at different times, and this is really just as damaging to the general public in terms of what is true and what isn't.
2. Although anyone from any background may become a born again Christian, and although the previous beliefs about a number of things may hang on for awhile (including evolution), the fact remains that the Holy Spirit will be leading each of us into all truth and that, in the finality of it all, we will all be Bible-believing creationists.
And, personally, I think we will all end up in the YEC position, too...
Although I personally wouldn’t call it a conspiracy, it has happened:
http://home.tiac.net/~cri_a/piltdown/piltdown.html
http://www.gospelhour.net/1875.html
I believe many many Christians would strongly disagree with you. (And it's not up to you or me to decide who is a "real" Christian....) </font>[/QUOTE]I will not question your salvation. I will question whether you are right or wrong on any given issue, and whether you believe God on that issue. For a more specific example, do you believe that Jonah was swallowed by a whale (or large fish), or is that just a myth or allegorical story to you. If the latter, then you remain in a state of unbelief as far as the Biblical record is concerned.
DHK
Ambulocetus or the “walking Whale”.
There are other voices:
http://www.darwinismrefuted.com/natural_history_2_15.html
You mentioned seals: A seal cannot live entirely on land or entirely in the sea without dying.
One day a seal-whale-like creature “decided” hmmm, I’m going swimming and I’m never coming back to land.
How did that work?
I used the word “Decided” of which you don’t approve
OK well let me define it, somewhere in the midst of natural selection, survival of the fittest and mutation a creature or creature(s) took the path of “what’s best for me in the long run”.
Please explain this journey from seal to whale and why we still have both seals and whales but nothing in between like the “ambulocetus” or “walking whale”.
HankD
Mistakes do happen. On both sides of the debate. The question is how quickly such mistakes are a) detected and b) owned up to and corrected.
However, I still think a clarification is needed on the claim "a good many". I suspect it is not all that prevalent.
As far as "damage"--apart from questioning how much actual "damage" might realistically be expected, it is a statement absolutely applicable to both sides of the debate. This very topic might be a case-in-point: if erroneous claims of fossil fabrication are made on websites and in books (and I have seen them) and are not retracted or corrected, then other people, expecting these claims to have some veracity, will make the same erroneous claims.
And that is just a fancy way of saying that the only "real" Christian is one who interprets scripture the way you (generalized "you"--not personal) do.2. Although anyone from any background may become a born again Christian, and although the previous beliefs about a number of things may hang on for awhile (including evolution), the fact remains that the Holy Spirit will be leading each of us into all truth and that, in the finality of it all, we will all be Bible-believing creationists.
And, personally, I think we will all end up in the YEC position, too...
There is a necessity on believing the literalness and the actual historical account of events such as creation, the flood, and Jonah and the whale. One good reason is that Christ Himself referred to all of them in a historical context. To deny them as such is to call Christ a liar. There are literally dozens of references to these events in both Old and New testaments alike. Did all the authors of these other books believe them to be allegories? I find that very hard to believe. Did Peter believe the flood was just a myth or an allegory? Likewise Jude? Jesus mentions Jonah no less than five times in the Book of Matthew alone. Was each time just an allegory?
If creation is an allegory, and then Jonah an allegorical story, and then the flood an allegory, why not Christ on the cross, the resurrection, the three missionary journeys of Paul? What is to stop one from allegorizing the entire Bible?
The Bible was written in a simple format for a reason. The Holy Spirit so inspired it so that man could understand it. The Old Testament (most of it) was written like a history book, and was meant to be read like history. One need not read into it his or her own ideas. That is not good hermeneutics at any time. Read the Bible as God intended it to be read: literally, unless it is obvious that it was otherwise intended--as in figures of speech. My Christ is not symbolic, not a myth. He lived, died, and rose again from the dead for the penalty of my sins. He is alive forevermore. That is not myth; it is history. The words of my Saviour verify also the historicity of Jonah.
DHK
Good work trying to find a few things, but I am afraid that the rebuttals offerred so far are, in my opinion, lacking.
Someone linked to a reasonable article about evolutionary frauds. It was actually fairly well written, but I thought a bit lacking in substance. A lot of space, for instance, was wasted showing how a lot of professional astronomers disliked Carl Sagan because of his work popularizing science. The author was absolutely right in saying that the less a person is an expert in a given area the less credit his thoughts should be given. In that sense, Sagan's more philosophical statements do not hold nearly the weight that some would insist. But the problem is that this shows that those who are experts, in this case in astronomy, should have their opinion in their areas of expertice held in higher regard than others opinions. Somewhat the opposite of what the author was getting at.
The author then goes on to mention a few stray stories, some untrue, and tries to spin them up into getting the reader to doubt all scientific claims because a few may have been dishonest. Of course Haeckel is mentioned alond with a century old claim of fraud. But most of the substanitive writing is about the Piltdown man. We all know that it was a hoax perpetrated by an amatuer scientist named Charles Dawson. From what I have read, the "fossil" was never as widely accepted as made to seem in the article, even then it did not quite fit what had already been learned. Eventually, scientists themselves were able to conclusively root out the "fossil" as a hoax. There is no attempt to connect this with the modern paleotological finds of human ancestors nor does it do anything to disprove their validity.
The author also makes the statement that Neaderthals can be explained as "result[ing] from rickets and syphilis." This is simply not true. Period. Rickets and syphilis cannot explain the skeletal differences between Neanderthal and us. One example: the brow ridge. He also tries to assert the "macro"evolution is impossible without offering any evidence.
Continuing on, some one again posted a link to Piltdown. Expected. Nothing about ergaster or heidelbergensis or the others as fakes. Only the old amatuer fraud.
Then we get to a nice link to an article trying to debunk Pakicetus, Ambulocetus, and Basilosaurus as being on the line of whale ancestors. Of course they have to draw the stark line and call Basilosaurus a whale and the others not whales, even though Basilosaurus would be quite an unusual whale if it were in the seas today. (Same thing is done with human ancestors. They are all labeled, usually differently by different creationists, as either fully non-human ape or fully human despite the stretches of imagination that takes.) The article goes to great lengths to show that Pakicetus was a land dwelling creature. It was! Even the scientist say so. The author tries to dismiss, unsuccessfully, the skeletal structures that show that Pakicetus was related to the later whales. (He tries to give an example of convergent evolution where the tasmainan wolf is similar to the wolf. He asserts that they would be classified as close relatives ignoring that the specifics of the skeletons would show this to not be the case despite whatever superficial resemblance there might be.) The author also completely ignores the genetic data that shows that whales are related to the land dwelling group that Pakicetus was a member of.
He then goes on to show how Ambulocetus was a land dwelling animal, talking about the powerful legs. Again, what is the point? This agrees with what scientists say. Ambulocetus was well suited for moving about on the land though the body also shows a good swimmer. The author states that "there is absolutely no basis for the claim that it swam in water, or that it lived on land and in water" despite the body plan that is good for swimming. But more crucially, he ignores a key detail about the ear of Ambulocetus. The difference in arrival time of sound at each ear is an important part of determining the direction of a sound. In water, however, the sound can be conducted into the skull and into the ear on the opposite side before the sound can travel the distance around in the water. This severly hinders the ability to determine direction. But Ambulocetus had ear bones surrounded by fat that would have insulated it from sounds transmitted through the bones of the skull. This is a powerful piece of evidence that the animal was well adapted to living and especially hunting in water. This adaptation is also shared with later cetaceans. This alone is strong evidence against the author's position.
The author then states that "The backbone of the quadrupedal mammal Ambulocetus ends at the pelvis, and powerful rear legs then extend from it. This is typical land-mammal anatomy. In whales, however, the backbone goes right down to the tail, and there is no pelvic bone at all. In fact, Basilosaurus, believed to have lived some 10 million years after Ambulocetus, possesses the latter anatomy. In other words, it is a typical whale. There is no transitional form between Ambulocetus, a typical land mammal, and Basilosaurus, a typical whale." He flatly states that there is no transition while ignoring the creature Rodhocetus he just mentioned in the preceeding paragraph. Rodhocetus still had legs, though much shorter than Ambulocetus, and could likely still get around on land a bit. But Rodhocetus had also developed large vertebrae in its tail for swimming. The location of Rodhocetus in geological time is also between that of the other two. So here is the transitional he says does not exist.
In summary, the links provided were a nice try, but fall well short. They take a few known examples of scientists behaving badly and try and tar the whole enterprise. (What would you think if a non-Christian tried to tar all Christians by bringing up Eric Rudolph, Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggert? Boy I cannot spell, none of that looks right.) They make some assertions they cannot prove. And the evidence they do try and present is incomplete to the point of misleading. It sounds good on the surface, but it is not very convincing. And when you can so easily toss their facts out as wrong, their whole argument falls apart.
Someone linked to a reasonable article about evolutionary frauds. It was actually fairly well written, but I thought a bit lacking in substance. A lot of space, for instance, was wasted showing how a lot of professional astronomers disliked Carl Sagan because of his work popularizing science. The author was absolutely right in saying that the less a person is an expert in a given area the less credit his thoughts should be given. In that sense, Sagan's more philosophical statements do not hold nearly the weight that some would insist. But the problem is that this shows that those who are experts, in this case in astronomy, should have their opinion in their areas of expertice held in higher regard than others opinions. Somewhat the opposite of what the author was getting at.
The author then goes on to mention a few stray stories, some untrue, and tries to spin them up into getting the reader to doubt all scientific claims because a few may have been dishonest. Of course Haeckel is mentioned alond with a century old claim of fraud. But most of the substanitive writing is about the Piltdown man. We all know that it was a hoax perpetrated by an amatuer scientist named Charles Dawson. From what I have read, the "fossil" was never as widely accepted as made to seem in the article, even then it did not quite fit what had already been learned. Eventually, scientists themselves were able to conclusively root out the "fossil" as a hoax. There is no attempt to connect this with the modern paleotological finds of human ancestors nor does it do anything to disprove their validity.
The author also makes the statement that Neaderthals can be explained as "result[ing] from rickets and syphilis." This is simply not true. Period. Rickets and syphilis cannot explain the skeletal differences between Neanderthal and us. One example: the brow ridge. He also tries to assert the "macro"evolution is impossible without offering any evidence.
Continuing on, some one again posted a link to Piltdown. Expected. Nothing about ergaster or heidelbergensis or the others as fakes. Only the old amatuer fraud.
Then we get to a nice link to an article trying to debunk Pakicetus, Ambulocetus, and Basilosaurus as being on the line of whale ancestors. Of course they have to draw the stark line and call Basilosaurus a whale and the others not whales, even though Basilosaurus would be quite an unusual whale if it were in the seas today. (Same thing is done with human ancestors. They are all labeled, usually differently by different creationists, as either fully non-human ape or fully human despite the stretches of imagination that takes.) The article goes to great lengths to show that Pakicetus was a land dwelling creature. It was! Even the scientist say so. The author tries to dismiss, unsuccessfully, the skeletal structures that show that Pakicetus was related to the later whales. (He tries to give an example of convergent evolution where the tasmainan wolf is similar to the wolf. He asserts that they would be classified as close relatives ignoring that the specifics of the skeletons would show this to not be the case despite whatever superficial resemblance there might be.) The author also completely ignores the genetic data that shows that whales are related to the land dwelling group that Pakicetus was a member of.
He then goes on to show how Ambulocetus was a land dwelling animal, talking about the powerful legs. Again, what is the point? This agrees with what scientists say. Ambulocetus was well suited for moving about on the land though the body also shows a good swimmer. The author states that "there is absolutely no basis for the claim that it swam in water, or that it lived on land and in water" despite the body plan that is good for swimming. But more crucially, he ignores a key detail about the ear of Ambulocetus. The difference in arrival time of sound at each ear is an important part of determining the direction of a sound. In water, however, the sound can be conducted into the skull and into the ear on the opposite side before the sound can travel the distance around in the water. This severly hinders the ability to determine direction. But Ambulocetus had ear bones surrounded by fat that would have insulated it from sounds transmitted through the bones of the skull. This is a powerful piece of evidence that the animal was well adapted to living and especially hunting in water. This adaptation is also shared with later cetaceans. This alone is strong evidence against the author's position.
The author then states that "The backbone of the quadrupedal mammal Ambulocetus ends at the pelvis, and powerful rear legs then extend from it. This is typical land-mammal anatomy. In whales, however, the backbone goes right down to the tail, and there is no pelvic bone at all. In fact, Basilosaurus, believed to have lived some 10 million years after Ambulocetus, possesses the latter anatomy. In other words, it is a typical whale. There is no transitional form between Ambulocetus, a typical land mammal, and Basilosaurus, a typical whale." He flatly states that there is no transition while ignoring the creature Rodhocetus he just mentioned in the preceeding paragraph. Rodhocetus still had legs, though much shorter than Ambulocetus, and could likely still get around on land a bit. But Rodhocetus had also developed large vertebrae in its tail for swimming. The location of Rodhocetus in geological time is also between that of the other two. So here is the transitional he says does not exist.
In summary, the links provided were a nice try, but fall well short. They take a few known examples of scientists behaving badly and try and tar the whole enterprise. (What would you think if a non-Christian tried to tar all Christians by bringing up Eric Rudolph, Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggert? Boy I cannot spell, none of that looks right.) They make some assertions they cannot prove. And the evidence they do try and present is incomplete to the point of misleading. It sounds good on the surface, but it is not very convincing. And when you can so easily toss their facts out as wrong, their whole argument falls apart.