miller@uiucdcs.UUCP (miller ) (03/26/84)
#N:uiucdcs:10600150:000:6705
uiucdcs!miller Mar 25 20:09:00 1984
There have been many responses on creation/evolution this week (as usual).
I'll try and answer as many as possible before this note gets too long.
opus!rcd (ignoring my comments about the limitations of my list) supposes
that the evidence I presented was too small; evolution has much more he claims.
I think he should look again. The number of hominid fossils "claimed" to be
transitional is pretty small. Indeed, evolutionists are pretty good at making
mountains out of molehills. A few examples will suffice. Eoanthropus dawsoni
(Piltdown Man) was accepted for over 40 years, in which time over 500 doctoral
dissertations referenced him. But it consisted of nothing more than an ape jaw
and human skull, and was eventually shown to be a hoax. Pithecanthropus (Java
Man) was later rejected even by its own discoverer (Eugene DuBois) as the unre-
lated parts of a human and giant gibbon. (Johanson continued to refer to Java
Man as late as 1981 oddly enough.) Hesperopithecus haroldcookii (Nebraska Man)
was used in the 1925 Scopes "monkey" trial. It was nothing more than a single
tooth. They had pictures of what he and his mate looked like, what he ate,
etc. All of this from a single tooth! (The tooth was later shown to have come
from an extinct pig.) Ramapithecus, which was "reconstructed as a biped on the
basis of teeth and jaws alone" has just recently been dropped as a "false start
of the human parade" in the Aug. 79 "Natural History". The saga goes on, with
each generation of evolutionists embarrassed by the next. Currently, we have
Australopithecus (e.g. Lucy) getting all of the media. Lucy is an extinct ape
which people like Johanson have made all sorts of speculations about. Others,
like Oxnard and Richard Leakey, have strong disagreements with Johanson.
Indeed, in one debate between Johanson and Leakey when both were asked to draw
the history of man's evolution on a blackboard Leakey walked up, erased every-
thing Johanson just drew, and simply placed a big question mark on the board.
I could go on, but suffice it to say that evolution is like a used car. It may
look great to a lot of people, but if you look at it too closely you'll find
out that it's falling apart. "Where's the beef?" seems most appropriate.
seismo!flinn requested 4 specific references out of the 75 from last week.
Here they are: "Ancient Man in Missouri" Scientific American, Sept. 1880, p169.
"Strange Relics from the Depths of the Earth", J. R. Jochmans, 1979, p2.
"Discovery of Human Skeletons in Cretaceous Formation" Creation Research Soci-
ety Quarterly (CRSQ) Dec. 1974 pp.100, 101. And the last one is also from
Jochman except on page 4. Before you complain about the one old reference
consider: 1) many of the fossils you still see today in museums were also found
that long ago and 2) some of the references on that list are as recent as March
1979 in Nature magazine.
Byron Howes, taking the "shotgun approach", raised so many points that it
would take a novel to address them all. I will spare the net said book by me
and deal with three that I simply cannot let pass. He claims enlarged pictures
from the film "Footprints in Stone" demonstrates that the human tracks in the
Paluxy River are really 3 toed dinosaur prints. This is nonsense and I would
like for him to tell me, specifically, which trail in the film he is talking
about. The much newer book "Tracking those Incredible Dinosaurs" indexes every
trail known at that time (print by print) including those in the film. Next,
he says of lamination lines, which prove whether or not a depression has been
carved (by hoax or erosion), "erosion in the distant past would not have
affected lamination lines". This displays a complete lack of understanding of
how they are formed. If lamination lines follow the contour of a depression,
it is because the mud (before it became unmalleable rock) was *compressed* into
the shape of that depression. If we find a series of left-right human shaped
depressions, with toes, heel, arch, etc. such that the lamination lines follow
the contours (and the better trails have that) then there is only one explana-
tion. A weight compressed, not cut, the Cretaceous era mud in a shape identi-
cal to that of a human footprint. Finally, Byron wants to agree on a date with
me to inspect the site. How about sometime this fall? I *hope* to get back
there then, though plans are tentative at present. You do indeed want to go
when either creationists or evolutionists are presently excavating. The reason
for that is once the overlying strata is taken off, the prints must either be
removed (and you will have to go to a museum to see them) or else many of the
fine details will start to erode (now that they are exposed). So it is impor-
tant to be present to see them in situ. Get back with me in 5 months and I
should have a better idea of a schedule.
Two people have wondered whether or not Reagan is a creationist. I don't
know for sure but he did once advocate equal time. On the other hand, several
prominent evolutionists have also done that, e.g., Sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra
Wickramasinghe. So that alone gives no indication. Reagan also has made
comments that come from an evolutionary scenario (whether he recognized that or
not). Frankly, I suppose that Reagan is like most other Americans: they call
themselves one thing or the other without really knowing why or what that en-
tails. Certainly nothing here on which to base a vote (either way).
Finally, research!dmr (and others) asks for the creation science view of
the "history of the universe". Now that's a pretty all-inclusive question (for
either side). Essentially what you're asking is "What is Creation Science?"
Now it so happens that there is a book entitled just that which I have recom-
mended several times already as an introduction, but nobody seems to have read
it but me. This would answer 90% of the questions on the net so far. Addi-
tional detail exists too, but takes more work. For example a fine bit of crea-
tionist research is Dr. Steve Austin's doctoral dissertation (1979 Penn State)
which deals with coal deposition and formation. His model, though still young,
has already been used to successfully predict the location and quality of coal.
Next week, a discussion of the Balanced Treatment Act trials, which I
promised last week. (BTW, these responses are getting quite long. I'm either
going to have to increase the time between responses, or else ignore more of
your questions. I do have other priorities, you know. Any suggestions? (Go
away is not considered a polite response...))
A. Ray Miller
Univ Illinoisbill@utastro.UUCP (William H. Jefferys) (03/26/84)
Ray Miller says: > Essentially what you're asking is "What is Creation Science?" > Now it so happens that there is a book entitled just that which I have recom- > mended several times already as an introduction, but nobody seems to have read > it but me. This would answer 90% of the questions on the net so far. This is by Morris and Parker. Yes, Ray, I have read it. No matter how thinly you slice it, it is nothing but the same old creationist baloney. Do read it, everyone, if you want to know how silly creationism is. My only regret is having paid good money for it. -- Bill Jefferys 8-% Astronomy Dept, University of Texas, Austin TX 78712 (USnail) {ihnp4,kpno,ctvax}!ut-sally!utastro!bill (uucp) utastro!bill@ut-ngp (ARPANET)
rcd@opus.UUCP (03/28/84)
> (BTW, these responses are getting quite long. I'm either > going to have to increase the time between responses, or else ignore more of > your questions. I do have other priorities, you know. Any suggestions? Well, Mr. Miller, you spent 27 lines of your last response talking about mistaken transitional hominids - setting up five or six "straw men" and proceeding to knock them down - allegedly in response to a comment I made, though the response had nothing to do with my objections. Try eliminating irrelevant material. If you want to come to the point that a lot of us would like to hear about, take research!dmr's suggestion and give us an explanation of the creationist view. Don't give us references, that's a copout. Give us an honest statement of the situation as you see it - forget the long digressions about this-and-that meeting, or so-and-so's dissertation (which is probably only available at considerable expense after a long delay anyway). --- {hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd -- {hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd