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.

There are people who do not think evolution has advanced beyond the theory stage,

There is nowhere to advance "beyond" the theory stage. Theories are endpoints in science.

Noah's ark may or may not be true, I don't know, do you?

What evidence is there to suggest that it is true?

What I do know is there are many holes in the theory of evolution

Name three?

and many, many fakes have been advanced as "proof" that evolution is fact not theory.

"Many, many" fakes? Let's see...there was Piltdown man, exposed by scientists (not creationists) as soon as it was available for study. Then there was that recent bird-like fossil that was discounted, though I don't remember if any actual scientist claimed that it was a genuine find or if it was a layman who didn't necessarily know better.

Now we have the frauds perpetrated by the subject of this article, but nowhere is it suggested that his frauds were presented as unique finds, so they would only represent a false specimen amongst an already established line.

The reason for the fakes is that hard proof is sorely lacking.

The reason for the Piltdown man fake is that the scientists had a cultural bias and wanted to "prove" that humans originally came out of a certain region even when the evidence did not support it. I can't speculate on the reason for the other fakes, because I don't know of any others.

To lump all people who do not give credence to evolution as whacko nut jobs who lack education in science is just a little on the liberal side don't you think?

Some of them are not whacko nutjobs; they just lack education in science. Others lack education in science, yet still see fit to proclaim themselves experts on a subject that they've not even given the slightest bit of study -- the majority of vocal creationists here on FR seem to fall into that category. There are a few intellectually honest creationists who make themselves known here, but I can probably count their number in binary without going beyond a single nibble.

To cite just a few fakes that are proven and so well proven that I will not provide links,

IOW: "I don't do any research, I just parrot creationist stuff without doing any fact-checking

1.)Nebraska man.

Nebraska man was the result of an overzealous paleontologist hastily jumping to a conclusion over a single tooth without subjecting the find to any further study or peer review. The man who found the tooth was not trying to "fake" anything, and even he acknowledged that it was too early to classify the find.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/a_nebraska.html

Key quote:
" Most other scientists were skeptical even of the more modest claim that the Hesperopithecus tooth belonged to a primate. It is simply not true that Nebraska Man was widely accepted as an ape-man, or even as an ape, by scientists, and its effect upon the scientific thinking of the time was negligible.

2.)One of the best known, Piltdown man

"Discovered" by http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/piltdown.html

An actual fake, though it should be noted that one of the reasons for it being exposed was that it did not fit in with the real evidence collected for evolution; the "find" didn't make any sense in light of the other actual, non-faked evidence for human evolution. I'd like to hear a creationist explain what "proves" Piltdown to be a fake, because if you don't accept the evidence for evolution, you lose a fundamental basis for rejecting Piltdown as a genuine find.

3.) The dino to bird fakes, most notably that of Archaeoraptor liaoningensis, which was supposedly discovered in China and was printed up in National Geographic and later turned out to be a fake comprised of 88 different bones glued together.

You're being dishonestly misleading with the statement "88 different bones", because the "find" was still only a combination of two different fossils yet you seem to be implying that it was haphazardly tossed together from the remains of any species that could be found lying around.

A "fake"? More of a case of National Geographic jumping the gun and presenting a find as "confirmed" before it went through the peer review process. The fossil was subjected to peer review by scientists who accept the theory of evolution, and rejected based upon what they observed. It was not cobbled together in some lame attempt to support dinosaur-to-bird evolution; we have plenty of genuine fossils for that.

It was sloppy journalism, and nothing more, but dishonest creationsts latch onto it and blow it completely out of proportion to "prove" that evolutionary biologists and other scientists are perpetrating a deliberate "fraud", though they never once explain why, if there is a deliberate attempt at fraud, the find was ever exposed as invalid in the first place. Surely if there was truly conspiracy here, the people studying the fossil -- who all accept evolution and thus have reason to keep the lie going -- would have kept the fact that it was actually a joining of two species under wraps.

4.) The well known horse chart showing the Hyrax as the first early horse, which turned out not to be a horse at all. The order of the horses shown in the chart was also fake.

Uh, no.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/horses/eohippus_hyrax.html

5.) The fake chart and drawings showing the development of the fetus that supposedly cycled through all the stages of evolution. This was proven to be fake almost immediately but schools kept this chart in text books and taught it as fact for over 40 years.

Geez, I'm getting sick of this claim; it's one of the more common creationist misrepresentations out there.

The fake drawings were done by a man named Haeckel. Haeckel hypothesized that the stages of evolution in an organism's history could be viewed through embryonic development. He believed that observing a developing embryo would show the zygote, then fetus -- from fish to humans -- developing similar features, such as gills that would then be "lost", through later development in organisms that no longer had such structures. To that end, he created a series of embyro drawings. Yes, he did fudge the data. His fraud was exposed within his own lifetime, and he was forced to admit it.

Now, he fudged his drawings to advance his hypothesis. Thing is, most scientists at the time didn't buy his hypothesis. They didn't see any reason why certain structures couldn't be dropped from embryonic development altogether (though it should be noted that there are some cases where 'no longer used' parts seem to form on an embryo and are lost, even if these aren't quite as common as Haeckel wanted to believe), and Haeckel's hypothesis never really gained any momentum.

Now, yes Haeckel's 'fudged' drawings have appeared in textbooks. Personally, I believe that it is sloppy to present them at all in any context beyond pointing out Haeckel's fraud, however it should be noted that I have not seen any textbook using the drawings as "evidence" of Haeckel's failed hypothesis.

Let me say this again, in case I was not clear: While some textbooks continued to use Hackel's drawings, they were not using the drawings in tandem with a claim that Haeckel's hypothesis was correct. The use of the drawings was not a means of passing misinformation regarding the theory of evolution; there were merely flawed attempts to show embryonic development.

Yes, it is bad that textbooks use flawed drawings, but creationists pretend that there's a far deeper meaning here than is really present.

Let me reiterate. I am not religious, I do not believe in ID,

No, but you are willing to parrot the dishonest "arguments" of ID (aka creationist) proponents.

but also I know evolution to not be proven. I doubt it ever will be.

Theories in science are never proven.

It requires just as much faith to believe in evolution as creationists need to believe in ID.

Evolution is a scientific theory supported by non-fakes in the fossil record and DNA evidence. What physical evidence is there for the non-scientific assertion of ID?

There are people who do not think evolution has advanced beyond the theory stage, because it hasn't, who do not subscribe to the young earth belief.

But it always turns out that all the science they know is the pig-ignorant YEC propaganda turned out by sites like ICR and AiG. Let me scratch around a little bit in my files and maybe I can find some examples. Then again ...

To cite just a few fakes that are proven and so well proven that I will not provide links, if you want to google them you can find them easily enough. 1.)Nebraska man.

Not a fake. A misinterpretation in 1922 that was retracted in 1926 or so. Irrelevant the the current state of any science. Long forgotten until revived by the Morris-Gish crowd. And what's a "secular skeptic" doing stretching a misinterpretation into a deliberate fraud? The first data item out of your mouth is a misrepresentation -- by you. I mean, what's the agenda?

2.)One of the best known, Piltdown man.

From 1912. Suspected by many scientists (mostly in Europe and America) almost at once, finally discredited in 1954 by means and reasoning not recognized as valid even now by creationists.

The dino to bird fakes, most notably that of Archaeoraptor liaoningensis, which was supposedly discovered in China and was printed up in National Geographic and later turned out to be a fake comprised of 88 different bones glued together.

Your "most notable" is the only one of which I have ever heard. Stretching again, aren't you, Mr. Secular Skeptic? What's the agenda? Please produce the others.

4.) The well known horse chart showing the Hyrax as the first early horse, which turned out not to be a horse at all.

Hyracotherium is not a hyrax. Inexcusable mistake for someone so expert in science as to know the experts have it all wrong, and yet you aren't the first. It's a creationist thang. How did that happen to you, Mr. Secular Skeptic?

BTW, the horse chart is just an oversimplification, not a fraud. The problem is not that horses didn't evolve from Hyracotherium, but that it's a tree structure, not a straight line. In jumping from that correction to a claim of "fraud," you're giving the ICR talking points again. So far, you've been doing it right down the line.

5.) The fake chart and drawings showing the development of the fetus that supposedly cycled through all the stages of evolution.

Haeckel's drawings were shown innacurate, yes. I don't think anyone has proven fraud, yet here you are claiming it. Embryology continues a valid science, and its link to evolution remains strong.

Ontogeny and Developmental Biology.

Figure 2.4.1. Cat and human embryos in the tailbud stage. A cat embryo is shown on top, a human embryo below. Note the post-anal tail in both, positioned at the lower left below the head of each. The human embryo is about 32 days old.

All these and many more fakes have made many people sceptical about evolution.

But I can only give you Piltdown, Archaeoraptor, and (at a stretch) Haeckel for any sort of fraud at all. Furthermore, you contaminated your Archaeoraptor claim with an attempt to stretch it to some unknown number of other fossils you conventiently forgot to mention. Thus, two out of five of your claims of fraud are themselves fraudulent and fraud may be suspected in a further two. Of your valid claims, the only thing recent is Archaeoraptor and that fraud was by two Chinese merchants.

You don't have to be a creationists or beliver in ID to doubt evolution.

You just have to get all your science from their web sites. And how did that happen, Mr. Secular Skeptic?

What's phoney through and through here is you. There are no secular skeptics, only lying creationists.

The creationoids will have a ball with this.

Well of course they will! This is indisputable proof that the entire work "supporting" the so-called "theory" of evolution is all a lie; it's nothing but a sham aimed at destroying our faith in God and turning us into Nazis/Communists/heathens/barbarians/homosexuals.

Why look at the facts when you can point to one case of fraud?

Yawn. Just add it to the list, which is already very long.

One does not need to be a creationist to have deep reservations about the "just so stories" that pepper the basically unfalsifiable patchwork of mythologies that go under the name of darwinism. Add to these all of the long discredited "icons" that still appear in biology texts, and one needs a lot of faith to continue to take this theory as a given.

http://www.alienryderflex.com/evolution/IconsOfEvolution.html
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0895262002/qid=1108847002/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103-9066210-1931033
Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? Why Much of What We Teach About Evolution is Wrong
by Jonathan Wells, Jody F. Sjogren

The author retraces the reasoning of proponents of evolution from Darwin to the present to show what he sees as their empirically false, and frequently faked conclusions. He contends that these conclusions are presented to the public so many times and in so many ways that they become irrefutable "icons." The information conveyed by these icons is never questioned and is in fact promoted with tax dollars in many contexts. Wells is a postdoctoral biologist (with Ph.D.s from both Yale and the U. of California at Berkeley) who is currently affiliated with the Discovery Institute, Seattle, Washington)

http://www.jamesphogan.com/bb/content/072197-2.shtml
EVOLUTION Posted on July 21, 1997

Some people have asked why I'm less persuaded these days by natural selection as the driving force behind evolution. The short answer is that the evidence for its being so just isn't there, and the numbers don't work: even with the age of the Earth stretched to the maximum that can be postulated to give natural selection a chance, it just hasn't got the innovative power to produce the things we see. The main reason for continuing to cling to it, it seems to me, is at root just as "religious" as literal Biblical fundamentalism: It's the only explanation that the mechanistic/materialist school has to offer.

The only one, that is, while it persists with its dogma of gradualist uniformatarianism--i.e. that the only processes permissible to think about as operating in the past are those observed today.

But the Catastrophist view, which seems to be regaining respectability after being overruled in the 19th century, avoids the extremism of both camps. Its basic tenet is that the diversity of life originated rapidly in a series of massive, cataclysmic events occurring on a global scale--for which abundant evidence exists, but is ignored. Natural selection comes into play afterward, winnowing out the less fit and reducing overall diversity, which is again what the fossil record shows. This would explain why the profusions of expected ancestral and transitional forms don't seem to be there. And what is the mechanism that generates all this variety? That's the unacceptable part: the answer just at the present seems to be, nobody really knows.

EVOLUTION Posted on May 9, 1997

Several people have responded to my comment in the last BB about being less persuaded by orthodox Darwinian evolution than I was when I wrote THE REVEALED WORD OF GOD, included in MM&E, and asked if it means I'm a Creationist. No, it doesn't--there seems little doubt that life in the past was different from life these days, so evolution of some kind evidently happens. But I'm no longer convinced that natural selection accounts for it. No doubt selection happens and has its effects, but, it seems, marginally. Wind and water might shape the surface details of landscapes, but deeper processes are necessary to explain mountain building and continent moving. An astounding book that goes into a whole science of ways in which complex systems can spontaneously order themselves and remain stable, not through selection but in spite of it, is Stuart A. Kauffman's THE ORIGINS OF ORDER (709 pp., Oxford University Press, New York, 1993).

Having said that, I ought to add that I don't have any problem with Creationism--as I see it properly defined. Scientists and much of the media treat the term as synonymous with "Biblical literalist," a needlessly narrow sense, seemingly adopted for the sole purpose of setting it up to be attacked. A broader view would see it simply as not ruling out the possibility of some kind of guiding intelligence at work behind the complexities that we see, which is not at all incompatible with creation over an extended time, i.e. evolution. Excluding it on principle seems every bit as dogmatic to me as anything the other side is accused of. The spirit of true science is simply to follow the evidence wherever it leads, not select and twist it to fit any preconceived notions. Isaac Newton didn't have any difficulty reconciling his religion with his science. You couldn't ask for a better precedent than that.

Two books that started me rethinking my ideas on the subject were:
Evolution: A Theory In Crisis, by Michael Denton (Adler & Adler, 1986)
Darwin On Trial, by Phillip E. Johnson (Regnery Gateway, 1991)

Phil Johnson is a law professor at Berkeley. What, one might ask, are the credentials of someone like that to judge a subject of science? Well, when it comes to examining the evidence, assumptions, and logic of the case being argued, quite a lot.

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