Post Mortem on the debunked horse series

[BobRyan]

A question for all. In the case of the debunked horse series - what was the "mechanism' that allowed the half-truths and outright lies in that presentation to start with?

Do you really think Simpson was trying to "fool" someone?

Did the author "discover something" later such that the information from later "discoveries" provided "a correction" to the data he already had??

(That's the one we "LIKE" to imagine when science thought experiences a "correction")

OR are the typical facts provided today AGAINST the bogus horse series as it was presented and published - facts that WERE ALREADY KNOWN to the one presenting it from the very start?

What did you "discover" when you did the "reading"?

In Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

Here is some "data" that may help.

"The ancestral family tree of the horse is not what scientists have thought it to be. Prof. T.S. Westoll, Durham University geologist, told the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Edinburgh that the early classical evolutionary tree of the horse, beginning in the small dog-sized Eohippus and tracing directly to our present day Equinus, was all wrong."—*Science News Letter, August 25, 1951, p. 118.

"There was a time when the existing fossils of the horses seemed to indicate a straight-lined evolution from small to large, from dog-like to horse-like, from animals with simple grinding teeth to animals with complicated cusps of modern horses . . As more fossils were uncovered, the chain splayed out into the usual phylogenetic net, and it was all too apparent that evolution had not been in a straight line at all. Unfortunately, before the picture was completely clear, an exhibit of horses as an example . . had been set up at the American Museum of Natural History [in New York City], photographed, and much reproduced in elementary textbooks[/b]."—*Garrett Hardin, Nature and Man’s Fate (1960), pp. 225-226. (Those pictures are still being used in those textbooks.
)

Notice the presentation was “all wrong”. HOW could an “ALL wrong” presentation be concocted WITHOUT the evidence for it?? Answer: With LESS data and fewer example there is room for “more story telling”!!. Their “Story” was better with less data!! (And so it is with “all stories”!!)

"I admit that an awful lot of that [imaginary stories] has gotten into the textbooks as though it were true. For instance, the most famous example still on exhibit downstairs [in the American Museum of Natural History] is the exhibit on horse evolution prepared perhaps 50 years ago. That has been presented as literal truth in textbook after textbook. Now I think that that is lamentable ..."
Niles Eldredge, as quoted in Luther D Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, 4th ed. 1988, pg 78.

"The uniform continuous transformation of Hyracotherium (Eohippus) into Equus, so dear to the hearts of generations of textbook writers, never happened in nature."— *G.G. Simpson, Life of the Past (1953), p. 119.

 

[BobRyan]

"The uniform continuous transformation of Hyracotherium into Equus, so dear to the hearts of generations of textbook writers, never happened in nature."—G.G. Simpson, Life of the Past (1953), p. 119.

“Obviously” the claim we make here is NOT that Simpson is no longer an atheist.

“Obviously” the claim we make here is not that Simpson is not an “evolutionist anyway” – in spite of the disconfirming evidence. It is that he sees the problem with the WELL KNOWN horse series and admits to it. No doubt he clings to evolutionism “anyway” and hopes that punctuated equilibrium will be the “excuse” needed for lack of transitional forms (a lack “predicted” by the Creation story in Genesis).

"Horse phylogeny is thus far from being the simple monophyletic, so-called orthogenetic, sequence that appears to be in most texts and popularizations."—George G. Simpson, "The Principles of Classification and a Classification of Mammals" in Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 85:1-350.

 

[BobRyan]

Smooth intermediates between Baupläne [the German word meaning basic morphological designs or different types of creatures—BH/BT] are almost impossible to construct, even in thought experiments. There is certainly no evidence for them in the fossil record (curious mosaics like Archaeopteryx do not count)” [Gould and Eldredge, 1977, 3:147, parenthetical comment in orig.].

“Just so” stories “easy enough to tell” euphemistically called “thought experiements”

"Once portrayed as simple and direct, it is now so complicated that accepting one version rather than another is more a matter of faith than rational choice. Eohippus, supposedly the earliest horse, and said by experts to be long extinct and known to us only through fossils, may in fact be alive and well and not a horse at all—a shy, fox-sized animal called a daman that darts about in the African bush."—*Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe (1982), p. 31.

[ February 06, 2006, 03:35 PM: Message edited by: BobRyan ]

 

[BobRyan]

Dr. Eldredge [curator of the Department of Invertebrates of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City] called the textbook characterization of the horse series ‘lamentable.’

"When scientists speak in their offices or behind closed doors, they frequently make candid statements that sharply conflict with statements they make for public consumption before the media. For example, after Dr. Eldredge made the statement [in 1979] about the horse series being the best example of a lamentable imaginary story being presented as though it were literal truth

". . [On February 14, 1981] in California he was on a network television program. The host asked him to comment on the creationist claim that there were no examples of transitional forms to be found in the fossil record. Dr. Eldredge turned to the horse series display at the American Museum and stated that it was the best available example of a transitional sequence."—L.D. Sunderland, Darwin’s Enigma (1988), p. 82.

 

[BobRyan]

So the question in the OP is (in the words of the atheist comments in the previous posts here) how did the "Lamentable" And "All wrong' series that "never happened in the fossil record" ever get published to start with.

Sure we could take remains of a dog, a fish and cat and "line up" and call that a "serious" but it would be "lamentable" it would be "All wrong" it would have "never happened in the fossil record".

BUt COULD we find a fossil of a dog in one place, a fish in another and a cat in another? Why we sure could!!

But that does NOT make it a fossil "series".

The problem is that IF the fossil record NEVER supported that false "Story" why was it told to start with?

What is the "reasoning" that brings such bogus "never happened in nature' sequence into the science text books?

In Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

"The supposed pedigree of the horse is a deceitful delusion, which . . in no way enlightens us as to the paleontological origins of the horse."—*Charles Deperet, Transformations of the Animal World, p. 105 [French paleontologist].

The popularly told (story) example of horse evolution, suggesting a gradual sequence of changes from four-toed fox-sized creatures living nearly 50 million years ago to today’s much larger one-toed horse, has long been known to be wrong. Instead of gradual change, fossils of each intermediate species appear fully distinct, persist unchanged, and then become extinct.[/b] Transitional forms are unknown.
B. Rensberger, Houston Chronicle, Nov 5, 1980, sec. 4 pg 15.

"Throughout the history of horses, the species are well-marked and static over millions of years."
S. Gould, Full House, p. 69.

Wait! That can’t be! What about accumulated advantages going from ancestor to descendant and ALL of that piling up and DRIVING evolution!??

As Dr. Berlinski points out below – “No HINT of accumulated advantages”?!! Then it really was all just “Stories easy enough to make up… but NOT science!!”

"High school textbooks propose that, ..., the rabbit sized Eohippus commenced his move up through the evolutionary ranks, one incremental step after another. ... The high school progression is an artifact; .... The facts are discrete. There is no hint of gradual change, no hint either of selective advantages accumulating."
D. Berlinski, review of Full House, O&D 18(1), pg 30.

(D. Berlinski is a professor at Princeton and a critic of Darwinian evolutionism. Berlinski was a longtime friend of the late Marcel Schützenberger, with whom he collaborated on the mathematical critique of Darwinism. Berlinski is a fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture. He is also the author of works on systems analysis, differential topology, theoretical biology, analytic philosophy and the philosophy of mathematics)

David M. Raup, in Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin 50 (1979), p. 23.

quote:
________________________________________
Instead of finding the gradual unfolding of life, what geologists of Darwin's time, and geologists of the present day actually find is a highly uneven or jerky record; that is, species appear in the sequence very suddenly, show little or no change during their existence in the record, then abruptly go out of the record. and it is not always clear, in fact it's rarely clear, that the descendants were actually better adapted than their predecessors. In other words, biological improvement is hard to find.
________________________________________

"I admit that an awful lot of that [imaginary stories] has gotten into the textbooks as though it were true. For instance, the most famous example still on exhibit downstairs [in the American Museum of Natural History] is the exhibit on horse evolution prepared perhaps 50 years ago. That has been presented as literal truth in textbook after textbook. Now I think that that is lamentable ..."
Niles Eldredge, as quoted in Luther D Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, 4th ed. 1988, pg 78.

 

[Paul of Eugene]

All that's wrong with the horse evolution series is that we have several cases where there are alternative possibilities for the ancestor for the next step up and so we can't be sure which one it was. It's an embarrassment of riches.

 

[Paul of Eugene]

The shin splints on modern horses show they are descended from three toed ancestors.

 

[BobRyan]

A little glossing of the facts a little hand waiving and "maybe we can ignore" the details posted here SHOWING that "IT never happened in nature"!

The falsehood "presented as IF it were literal truth"

The faked series "AS IF it were fact". CAlled - "Lamentable" even by atheist evolutionists!

The progression is an "artifact"! Says the Atheist scientist!

Should we believe them! Or should we "gloss over" the inconvenient facts?

What is the "right" post mortem for this?

In Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

Originally posted by BobRyan:

"The supposed pedigree of the horse is a deceitful delusion, which . . in no way enlightens us as to the paleontological origins of the horse."—*Charles Deperet, Transformations of the Animal World, p. 105 [French paleontologist].

The popularly told (story) example of horse evolution, suggesting a gradual sequence of changes from four-toed fox-sized creatures living nearly 50 million years ago to today’s much larger one-toed horse, has long been known to be wrong. Instead of gradual change, fossils of each intermediate species appear fully distinct, persist unchanged, and then become extinct.[/b] Transitional forms are unknown.
B. Rensberger, Houston Chronicle, Nov 5, 1980, sec. 4 pg 15.

"Throughout the history of horses, the species are well-marked and static over millions of years."
S. Gould, Full House, p. 69.

More "Facts to gloss over" in the post mortem?

 

[BobRyan]

"I admit that an awful lot of that [imaginary stories] has gotten into the textbooks as though it were true. For instance, the most famous example still on exhibit downstairs [in the American Museum of Natural History] is the exhibit on horse evolution prepared perhaps 50 years ago. That has been presented as literal truth in textbook after textbook. Now I think that that is lamentable ..."
Niles Eldredge, as quoted in Luther D Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, 4th ed. 1988, pg 78.

The "post mortem" question is "HOW" did we ever let this "lamentable" thing HAPPEN? HOW did we let it ever get presented "AS THOUGH it were LITERAL TRUTH"??

What "mechanism" was working to create this lie AND THEN to foist it into unsuspecting science class rooms??

The answer is telling. The answer is that when the series was "assembled" ALL the DEBUNKING data for shooting it down as a lie - was ALREADY KNOWN to the author!!

He already KNEW that the samples were not from the same site AND were from different layers in different locations showing NO connection in location, sequence etc.

The author already knew THAT HE was arranging the SEQUENCE to "fit the story" he wanted to te..

The author ALREADY KNEW He was not "telling" the audience that THIS is what he was doing!!

That it was merely contrived to fit the story!

Why did he do this? Because it is "acceptable practice among evolutionists AND HE KNEW IT"

The rule in the cloistered halls of evolutionist faithful devotees is "spin the yarn in a way that supports our doctrines and yet have it done in a way that does not make it easy to expose"

Because the author was merely following "Standard procedure" you never see him chastized among evolutionists for TELLING A STORY that is today "lamentable".

"The uniform continuous transformation of Hyracotherium (Eohippus) into Equus, so dear to the hearts of generations of textbook writers, never happened in nature."— *G.G. Simpson, Life of the Past (1953), p. 119.

In Christ,

Bob

[ February 07, 2006, 12:33 AM: Message edited by: BobRyan ]

 

[BobRyan]

Going back to the "lamentable" start of the "lamentable" series known as "the horse series".

In the 1870s, *Othniel C. Marsh claimed to have found 30 different kinds of horse fossils in Wyoming and Nebraska. He reconstructed and arranged these fossils in an evolutionary series, and they were put on display at Yale University. Copies of this "horse series" are to be found in many museums in the United States and overseas. Visually, it looks convincing.

"Horses are among the best-documented examples of evolutionary development."—*World Book Encyclopedia (1982 ed.), p. 333.

"The development of the horse is allegedly one of the most concrete examples of evolution. The changes in size, type of teeth, shape of head, number of toes, etc., are frequently illustrated in books and museums as an undeniable evidence of the evolution of living things."—Harold G. Coffin, Creation: Accident or Design? (1969), p. 193.

"There was a time when the existing fossils of the horses seemed to indicate a straight-lined evolution from small to large, from dog-like to horse-like, from animals with simple grinding teeth to animals with complicated cusps of modern horses . . As more fossils were uncovered, the chain splayed out into the usual phylogenetic net, and it was all too apparent that evolution had not been in a straight line at all. Unfortunately, before the picture was completely clear, an exhibit of horses as an example . . had been set up at the American Museum of Natural History [in New York City], photographed, and much reproduced in elementary textbooks[/b]."—*Garrett Hardin, Nature and Man’s Fate (1960), pp. 225-226. (Those pictures are still being used in those textbooks.

Notice the above quote says "Reconstructed IN an evolutionary series"!! That is "a nice way to put it" friends.

He in fact "ARRANGED the fossils" into an "artifact" of science! Did HE KNOW he had contrived an arrangement to FIT the story that atheist darwinian evolutionism 'wants to tell'? Yes!!

Did He KNOW He was ARRANGING? YES!

Did He KNOW He was NOT telling the audience "This is simply a contrived arrangement to fit a story that I would like to tell"? YES!!

He knew this FROM THE START!!

In science we try to DISCOVER that we are wrong and need to make a correction. So what did we DISCOVER to call what he was doing "lamentable"?

Think about it.

 

[BobRyan]

Lying, glossing over inconvenient facts, hiding the fact that it is a contrived sequence -- this is the heart and soul of the pseudoscience known as evolutionism. Marsh was just following SOP.

Hence his result was "quickly snarfed up" and swallowed by text book after textbook. Museum after museum! Even today we see faithful devotees still trying to tow his line.

They see NOTHING wrong with what the atheist evolutionists are now calling a "lamentable" artifact!

In Christ,

Bob

 

[Petrel]

Originally posted by BobRyan:
Even today we see faithful devotees still trying to tow his line.

I keep seeing this mistake over and over. It's toe the line! Toe! Like those appendages on your feet! Toe, not tow!

Regarding the rest of the thread:

 

[Paul of Eugene]

Say, BobRyan, it occurs to me that creationists of your ilk are claiming something very interesting without doing their homework.

You claim that there have been a certain amount of speciation "within a given kind" . . .

but you give us no family tree! I expect that in view of the fact that there has been speciation "within a given kind" that there has to be some kind of family tree to go with it.

Where is the creationist family tree, showing how the family line really did split and diverge from the ancestral lines of the original creation, and then cut off and develop again from the time of the flood?

Give us the details, man, as they should properly be done, not as those foolish universal descent scientists claim . . .

 

[BobRyan]

As far as I know we do not have a "picture" of the clean animals that came 'by sevens' and the unclean that came 'by twos' off of the ark to show how they speciated.

Now - as Colin Patterson noted - we certainly COULD engage in the Evolutionist practices of "Stories easy enough to tell but they are NOT science" to MAKE UP a series as was the case with the horse.

Are you suggesting that this form of story telling is already such a tried and true tested process of storytelling that Bible believing Christians should think about doing it??

IN Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

I find it facinating that the atheist icons (before whom the Christian Darwinian evolutionists pay homage) are "easily ignored" when they provide quotes given on this thread that expose the "inconvenient blunders" of Darwinian evolutionists over time.

Amazing what these true believers will do and not do!

 

[BobRyan]

Recall that "reading" was a required skill mentioned in the OP??

Well this one takes us all the way back to the horse blunder's "origin".

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/66/131.html#000012

 

[BobRyan]

Funny how the Atheist Darwinist evolutionists strictly hold to dead silence here! (Even though these are NOT creationist sources being quoted!! )

You would think that the atheist darwinist evolutionist sources I am exposing here would bring out our own members of that club in droves!