Anthropologist resigns in 'dating disaster'

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.

Or this...........

(You KNEW it was coming!!)

[Give it up -- you made a challenge, he met it.]

He met it?

Yes he did, even though you're not honorable enough to ever admit it. You challenged:

Feel free to produce a few examples [...] Feel free to produce even one example.

By your own admission in post #523, he provided at least *two*. He met your challenge. QED.

Here's another in case you still want to pretend that creationists *don't* often presume that evolutionists are necessarily atheists:

"Creationists are those who believe in God. Evolutionists are those who don't."

Look, the hole you stepped in is clear to everyone, and no amount of motormouthing by you is going to change that -- in fact, it's just going to make you look even more ridiculous.

He made the unremarkable statement that there is an "oft-repeated creationist lie that all who accept evolution are atheists". You've been on a lot of these threads, you KNOW that many creationists do jump to this false conclusion and make statements revealing that attitude. Your faux "astonishment" at this obvious fact fools no one. But nonetheless, in your misguided "circle the wagons" attempt, you challenged him to provide a "few" examples, or "even one", in an attempt to leave the implication that this sort of falsehood from creationists is actually so rare that digging out even a *single* example would be a Herculean task.

Unfortunately for you, he called your bluff and showed that it's not hard to list several definite examples, and several more showing variations on that same theme.

So rather than accept that your bluff fell flat, you ended up blustering about how a couple of definite examples (that constitutes the "few" you wanted to see, remember?) over a few months doesn't come close enough to "often", EVEN THOUGH YOU SIMPLY ASKED FOR A FEW EXAMPLES, PERIOD, AS IF YOU DIDN'T BELIEVE THEY EXISTED AT ALL, not in a specific timeframe.

Furthermore Dimensio specifically said that those examples were JUST the ones that HE PERSONALLY had responded to and were therefore in his own archives. So unless you want to try to claim that Dimensio's own personal archives are somehow a large fraction of all posts on all such threads, your WEASELING over the time spread of those posts is nothing but transparent hand-waving, and you're making a fool of yourself by trying to belabor it.

Then, of course, you immediately moved the goalposts AGAIN so you could weasel out, by ending your post with in effect, "even if you're right, so what?". Typical creationist behavior. (And how many examples would you like *me* to post of you and your creationist allies doing *that*? I'm ready when you are, son.)

Is that you Reiner?
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.

Wow, what a childish non sequitur. Par for the course for you.

I'm thinking of a noun, and it begins with "A" -- can you guess it?

Give it up, you've become a parody of yourself.

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;^)

It's a SIGN!!!