dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (Paul DuBois) (05/25/85)
>> 18. Stories claiming that primitive, ape-like men have been >> found are overstated [a-c]. >> [goes on to list Piltdown, Nebraska man (Hesperopithecus >> early interpretation of Ramapithecus, Java man, Peking man, > skull 1470, "stooped" posture of Neanderthal, etc.] > Even if all of this is true, it has nothing to do with disproving > evolution. It merely indicates that SOME evidence may have been > misinterpreted. Owing to the immense amount of evidence for evolution, > it is no surprise that some of it has been misinterpreted. The phrase "immense amount of evidence" is a striking example of a handwave. It amounts to, in fact, begging the question, because the gist of the passage is that misinterpretation of the "evidence" is not an isolated occasional phenomenon confined to insignificant findings, but that the evidence is *habitually* misinterpreted, and in relation to what are considered by evolutionists to be major pieces of the puzzle. The family tree of man is regularly given substantial revision. That makes it tempting to reject the whole mess. The temptation should be resisted: "[S]ome creationists have committed the sad error of refusing to accept bona fide fossils because they seemed to contradict, or pose apparently insoluble problems to, the creationists view of man's origin. It should be realized that where bones have been found as fossils they represent facts and must be dealt with as such. In addition, because some human paleontologists have been guilty of misrepresentation as well as honest mistakes, other creaionists have tended to say, 'A plague on your whole house' and have ignored all the findings of anthropology." pp89-90, from Wilbert H Rusch, "Fossil Evidence", in _A Challenge to Education_, Walter Lang, ed, Bible-Science Association, Caldwell, Idaho, 1972, 89-96. -- | Paul DuBois {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois --+-- | |
mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) (05/28/85)
In article <1146@uwmacc.UUCP> dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (Paul DuBois) writes: > ... The family tree of man is regularly given substantial > revision. > > That makes it tempting to reject the whole mess. The temptation should > be resisted: "[S]ome creationists have committed the sad error of > refusing to accept bona fide fossils because they seemed to contradict, > or pose apparently insoluble problems to, the creationists view of man's > origin. It should be realized that where bones have been found as > fossils they represent facts and must be dealt with as such. In > addition, because some human paleontologists have been guilty of > misrepresentation as well as honest mistakes, other creaionists have > tended to say, 'A plague on your whole house' and have ignored all the > findings of anthropology." pp89-90, from Wilbert H Rusch, "Fossil > Evidence", in _A Challenge to Education_, Walter Lang, ed, > Bible-Science Association, Caldwell, Idaho, 1972, 89-96. Not just creationists. Personally, I despise human paleontology the way I despise butterfly collectors. There are some branches of science that are intrinsically gaudy: they attract alot of attention. As a consequence, they get overworked when too many people compete on the basis of too little subject material to go around. Good workers get outcompeted or outshouted by the egotistical who want to be headline-makers. Quality is overwhelmed by quantity. The pressure to stand out from the crowd encourages bad practices like working with too-small sample sizes in human phylogenies, or naming every population of a butterfly a subspecies. Human evolution is in my opinion one of the most poorly documented (by the fossil record) phylogenies around. It's unfortunate that it happens to be the one we're most curious about, and that this provides an opening for abuse by scientist/showmen and creationists. It's still important (and well funded), but other groups have much better evidence. -- Mike Huybensz ...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh
keithd@cadovax.UUCP (Keith Doyle) (05/31/85)
>>> 18. Stories claiming that primitive, ape-like men have been >>> found are overstated [a-c]. >>> [goes on to list Piltdown, Nebraska man (Hesperopithecus >>> early interpretation of Ramapithecus, Java man, Peking man, >> skull 1470, "stooped" posture of Neanderthal, etc.] > >> Even if all of this is true, it has nothing to do with disproving >> evolution. It merely indicates that SOME evidence may have been >> misinterpreted. Owing to the immense amount of evidence for evolution, >> it is no surprise that some of it has been misinterpreted. > >The phrase "immense amount of evidence" is a striking example of a >handwave. It amounts to, in fact, begging the question, because the >gist of the passage is that misinterpretation of the "evidence" is not >an isolated occasional phenomenon confined to insignificant findings, >but that the evidence is *habitually* misinterpreted, and in relation >to what are considered by evolutionists to be major pieces of the >puzzle. The family tree of man is regularly given substantial >revision. >Paul DuBois {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois --+-- My "immense amount of evidence" is as much a 'handwave' as you're "*habitually* misinterpreted" claim, as in this article, NEITHER is supported by much. Keith Doyle # {ucbvax,ihnp4,decvax}!trwrb!cadovax!keithd