Posted on 02/19/2005 7:36:30 AM PST by Woodworker
Panel says professor of human origins made up data, plagiarized works
A flamboyant anthropology professor, whose work had been cited as evidence Neanderthal man once lived in Northern Europe, has resigned after a German university panel ruled he fabricated data and plagiarized the works of his colleagues. Reiner Protsch von Zieten, a Frankfurt university panel ruled, lied about the age of human skulls, dating them tens of thousands of years old, even though they were much younger, reports Deutsche Welle. "The commission finds that Prof. Protsch has forged and manipulated scientific facts over the past 30 years," the university said of the widely recognized expert in carbon data in a prepared statement.
Protsch's work first came under suspicion last year during a routine investigation of German prehistoric remains by two other anthropologists. "We had decided to subject many of these finds to modern techniques to check their authenticity so we sent them to Oxford [University] for testing," one of the researchers told The Sunday Telegraph. "It was a routine examination and in no way an attempt to discredit Prof. von Zieten." In their report, they called Protsch's 30 years of work a "dating disaster."
Among their findings was an age of only 3,300 years for the female "Bischof-Speyer" skeleton, found with unusually good teeth in Northern Germany, that Protsch dated to 21,300 years. Another dating error was identified for a skull found near Paderborn, Germany, that Protsch dated at 27,400 years old. It was believed to be the oldest human remain found in the region until the Oxford investigations indicated it belonged to an elderly man who died in 1750. The Herne anthropological museum, which owned the Paderborn skull, did its own tests following the unsettling results. "We had the skull cut open and it still smelt," said the museum's director. "We are naturally very disappointed."
Protsch, known for his love of Cuban cigars and Porsches, did not comment on the commission's findings, but in January he told the Frankfurter Neue Presse, "This was a court of inquisition. They don't have a single piece of hard evidence against me." The fallout from Protsch's false dating of northern European bone finds is only beginning.
Chris Stringer, a Stone Age specialist and head of human origins at London's Natural History Museum, said: "What was considered a major piece of evidence showing that the Neanderthals once lived in northern Europe has fallen by the wayside. We are having to rewrite prehistory." "Anthropology now has to revise its picture of modern man between 40,000 and 10,000 B.C.," added Thomas Terberger, an archaeologist at the University of Greifswald. Frankfurt University's president, Rudolf Steinberg, apologized for the university's failure to curb Protsch's misconduct for decades. "A lot of people looked the other way," he said.
From you, the label "liar" comes as a compliment. ;)
Why is it that if you find one Creationist who's said something goofy, then that is proof that all of Creationism is folly, but if you find one Evolutionist who's said something goofy, then it's proof of the validity of the scientific method?
Your responses are further evidence of your presumption of the "truth" of evolution.
Then you must be admitting it, because when I hear it from the Evos, after posting what I know to be true to the best of my abilities, it sounds like you are liars, and acting like Democrats, you get defeated on a point, so you make personal attacks.
He stated a fact: "Creationists don't do science." If you have evidence to the contrary, please provide it.
The creationist that mine the quotes are blatantly dishonest. Those who repeat the mined quotes without double checking are blatantly ignorant. What can one say about a movement relying on dishonesty and ignorance to advance its cause?
I would add that those who continue in this practice after the nature of the quotes is pointed out to them are ignorant and dishonest. Likewise those who fail to acknowledge their mistake and the ignorance that permitted that mistake when the dishonesty of the quotes is pointed out to them.
He has a Porsche and he has dating problems?
Yeah, some kind of car bone for teens problem apparently. He should date older chicks. (like about 20,000 years)
I should have heard of them if you have. I haven't. This is bull.
Perhaps you misunderstood my comment. There are a lot of fakes out there. Archeoraptor is unusual because it was actually examined by real paleontologists and passed for a while - even if begrudgingly. Normally, a bit of examination will show what the fossil was constructed from, but this pair of fossils was composed of two new types of creatures - a new bird, and a new dinosoar - which couldn't be immediately recognized.
Most of the time, these fake fossils are not available for examination, and so no one in the Western world even bothers to write about them. In the Archeoraptor case, the fossils used to make the composite are in and of themselves important examples, once they are separated - though one of the pieces was actually the counter-side to a fossil that was later available for study.
Discover Magazine (Interview): Ornithologist and Evolutionary Biologist Alan Feduccia Plucking Apart the Dino-Birds
So far, only one feathered dinosaur, Archaeoraptor, has been publicly acknowledged as a forgery. You think there are others?
Archaeoraptor is just the tip of the iceberg. There are scores of fake fossils out there, and they have cast a dark shadow over the whole field. When you go to these fossil shows, it's difficult to tell which ones are faked and which ones are not. I have heard that there is a fake-fossil factory in northeastern China, in Liaoning Province, near the deposits where many of these recent alleged feathered dinosaurs were found.
Journals like Nature don't require specimens to be authenticated, and the specimens immediately end up back in China, so nobody can examine them. They may be miraculous discoveries, they may be missing links as they are claimed, but there is no way to authenticate any of this stuff.
Why would anyone fake a fossil?
Money. The Chinese fossil trade has become a big business. These fossil forgeries have been sold on the black market for years now, for huge sums of money. Anyone who can produce a good fake stands to profit.
Now, why WOULD you hear a lot about dismissed forgeries? There are probably millions of forged paintings, but the only ones you hear about are the few that have been accepted as genuine by major experts and have sat in museums for a long time.
Ever read court rulings, and listened to arguments? Lawyers are not trained to figure out what words mean. They are trained to support or destroy conclusions. Some judges are so good at this that they approach illiteracy.
Trial lawyers, especially, are trained to SOUND logical...not BE logical.
For example, the authority for laws is based upon the Constitution. If the Constitution doesn't give the authority, then the lawmakers have no authority to make the given law. Lawyers rarely are particularly acquainted with the Constitution - it's barely even taught. Now, i don't mean that they simply have a different interpretation - they are generally only marginally acquainted with most of it.
I saw a commercial that shows a man arriving at a house to pickup his date..
It's a blind date.. He escorts the woman to the car, opens her door and she gets in.
While he proceeds to walk around to the driver's side, she proceeds to rip a horrendous fart and says, " Ahh " with obvious satisfaction...
Then you see him entering the vehicle and introducing his date to the couple sitting in the back seat...
That had to be the funniest commercial I'd ever seen... So funny, I forgot what the ad was for..
It is contentious because there are several pieces of evidence (such as manufacturing process), and some of them flatly contradict the dating, though some contradictions have plausible explanations. The shroud is not really an optimal subject for that kind of dating, having been handled, kissed, soaked, burned, subjected to heavy smoke from non-contemporary materials, and kept in an open environment for centuries...and is too thin to take core samples from. Even further, it appears that the dating was done on a patch, not the main part of the cloth.
Don't confuse j with facts.
He would rather impugn my Christianity than face the issues.
The main problem with this debate is the creationists are talking past the science. It seems like a real debate, but inserting origin of life into evolution makes the debate pointless.
Shells are dated as if they were rocks. They are made out of minerals. The shells will take on the age of the minerals they came from. I don't think there are too many methods for dating shells, unless you do radiometric dating of the surrounding rocks in the strata.
Dating fossils with C14 is not often done because there is no carbon left in fossils generally as they have been mineralized. Also, since C14 only dates 50,000 years back, it is not used for dating fossils which go back hundreds of thousands to millions of years.
This whole C14 dating stuff is a purposeful strawman the creationists use to argue their non-science. It is similar to inserting origin of life into evolution and then arguing about something that doesn't exist.
He's a professional pick-up artist:) I'll bet those German gals are flocking to his classes:)
I find it amusing you would even debate C14 dating.
Your post to Thatcherite was a little harsh.
If you still think your posting is true, when all of us have
provided refutations to your "science", it is a sign of the dishonesty of creationists that Thatcherite has pointed out.
You must either start to accept some facts of science or withdraw from the debate.
Many scientists have taken courses in logic. It is a part of learning math.
This is the type of non-christian nonsense that drives me nuts about creationists. Many scientists are theistic evolutionists. Cutting Christians from your idea of Christianity is not what Jesus would do.
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