harkins (03/28/83)
to clarify, there have been numerous claims to the effect that the so called human tracks found in stone near Glen Rose, Tx., tend to "prove" evolution wrong, in that these tracks supposedly demonstrate humans existed at the wrong "evolutionary time." These tracks have become something of an article of faith to the creationists. For those who may have access to a copy, Nov. 1982 Texas Monthly, p.148, provides a short history of the famous footprints. To synopsize, author Dale Turner recaps how dinosaur tracks were found in 1908 in the Paluxy River after a flood broke away some rock. These tracks later became such a tourist attraction that some locals were prying them up to sell, and some phony tracks were even carved. In 1938, Roland T. Bird, a paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History, NYC, found some phony tracks, but noticed that they were fairly accurate, and eventually wound up at the Paluxy River site, (near Glen Rose), where he found dozens; some still are on display there today. Bird said that the dinosaur tracks were around 100 million years old, but as for the 'other' tracks that somewhat resembled a human foot, he "didn't know what had caused them for sure, but he steadfastly denied that they could accurately be labeled human footprints." Creationists disagree. SMU paleontologist Bob Slaughter, asked to examine the "prints" by the creationists followed a set of tracks until he found one he recognized, "This is the heel of a camptosaur." As Slaughter relates it, a year or so later, he was back out at the site with a student, went over to show him the very same track, and now it had toes. "Somebody had put toes on that track." As Turner says quite well: "One of the great evolutionist hoaxes-- the famous Piltdown hoax, in which a faked skull was passed off as the missing link in man's evolution from the apes-- was described by Harvard biologist Stephen Jay Gould as the 'imposition of strong hope upon dubious evidence.' That, in the end, appears also to be a good description of what the creationists are doing in the Paluxy River basin." ernie harkins