Anthropologist resigns in 'dating disaster'

Worlnetdaily ^ | February 19, 2005 | unattributed

[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.

[RaceBannon]

Are you sure about that? He misidentified modern humans as Neandertals. That's classic creationist.

No, It has to be evolutionist, because Creationists just think that all men are related as long as you give him a shave and a nice suit.

It is the heathen evolutionist who thinks these creatures are so different, yet, this man, presented a modern skull, and the evolutionists fawned over it just because of the false data presented, meaning, they haven't got a clue what they were looking at until someone lied to them and then they used their evolutionary theory to define what they saw, instead of using their own common sense.

11.) Let's turn to the origin of man, and specifically, the fossil record of `Man'. Many people believe we have `proof' of evolution through the fossil record, yet is this true? What is the facts surrounding fossils that are presumed to portray man?

Ramapithicus, often pictured as walking erect, has been degrade to the status of extinct ape. It's teeth and dental characteristics are similar to the gelada gibbon.(Richard Leaky/Roger Lewin Origins P.68). It has also been declared to be part of orangutan lineage.(Science News Vol 121 #5 Jan 30, 1982 P.84)

12.) Australopithecine: Not a missing link, but an extinct ape. Dr. Charles Oxnard, U. of Chicago says, " These fossils clearly differ more from both humans and African apes, than these two living groups from each other. "The Australopithecines are unique." (Fossils, Teeth, and Sex: New Perspectives on human evolution; Seattle U. of Wash Press)

13.) Lucy has been compared to modem pygmy chimpanzees. Paleontologist Adrienne Zihlman, Univ. of Cal at Santa Cruz:( Lucy's fossil remains match up remarkably well with the bones of a pygmy chimp,(although there are some differences)). Adrienne Zihlman, "Pygmy chimps and pundits", New Scientist Vol 104 #1430 Nov 15, 1984 P.39-40

14.) Homo habilis was once called a missing link between Australopithecus and homo erectus, and a missing link between ape and man. Current conclusions are a chimpanzee, orangutan, or an Australopithecine. (Albert W. Mehlert, "Homo Habilis Dethroned", Contrast: The creation evolution controversy Vol 6 #6)

15.) Sianthropus, or Peking Man, was found in China in the 20's and 30's. Evidence included skulls and a few limb bones, but were lost during W.W.II. Clear evidence at the same site showed true man along with a 30 ft. deep ash pile and a limestone mine. All of the skulls of Sianthropus were broken in the same manner as those of monkeys who are eaten for their brains.(Ian Taylor, "In the Minds of Men: Darwin and the World Order", Toronto Canada, TFE pub. 1984 p. 234-241

16.) Pithecanthropus, or Java Man, is based solely on the evidence of a skull cap and a femur that was dug up a year later and 50 feet away. The finder, Eugene Dubois, admitted the skull cap was from a gibbon like ape.(Eugene Dubois, "On the gibbon like appearance of Pithecanthropus Erectus", Koniklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen Vol 38 Amsterdam Koninklijke Akademie 1935 P.578)

17.) Nebraska Man was a local fossil, the entire evidence consisting of a single tooth. Nebraska Man was pictured on the front page of Life magazine in a hunter-gatherer mode. During the famous Scopes Monkey Trial, Nebraska Man was labeled a genuine missing link. The tooth turned out to be a tooth of a pig. (Henry Fairfield Osborne, Hesperopithicus Haroldcookii, the first anthropoid primate found in North America, Science Vol 60 #1427 May 3, 1922 P.463)(William K. Gregory, "Hesperopithecus apparently not ape or man" Science Vol 66 #17209 Dec 16, 1927)

18.) Piltdown Man, a deliberate hoax some blame on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, had people fooled for years and even had its picture on Life Magazine.(Joseph Wiener "The Piltdown Forgery" London Oxford U. Press)

19.) Other hoaxes have occurred in the evolutionary tree, consider this one: Science News , Week of Jan. 15, 2000; Vol. 157, No. 3 All mixed up over birds and dinosaurs By R. Monastersky. Red-faced and downhearted, paleontologists are growing convinced that they have been snookered by a bit of fossil fakery from China. The "feathered dinosaur"specimen that they recently unveiled to much fanfare apparently combines the tail of a dinosaur with the body of a bird, they say. "It's the craziest thing I've ever been involved with in my career," says paleontologist Philip J. Currie of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology in Drumheller,Alberta.

The fossil, named Archaeoraptor liaoningensis, comes from the northeastern province of Liaoning, where local farmers have been unearthing many new dinosaur species, some showing evidence of downlike coats and feathers. Currie, Stephen Czerkas of the Dinosaur Museum in Blanding, Utah, and Xing Xu of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing announced the discovery of Archaeoraptor at a press conference in Washington, D.C., at the National Geographic Society last October (SN: 11/20/99, p. 328). At the time, they called it a missing link between birds and dinosaurs because it manifested the long bony tail of dromaeosaurid dinosaurs and the specialized shoulders and chest of birds. The scientists couldn't be sure of the fossil's history because they had not excavated it. Spirited out of China, the specimen attracted Czerkas' attention when he saw it for sale in Utah. His museum arranged its purchase by a benefactor. Recently, while examining a dromaeosaurid dinosaur in a private collection in China, Xu decided that the Archaeoraptor fossil is a chimera [A chimera is a mix of parts from different critters - Mar.]. The tail of that dinosaur is identical to the Archaeoraptor tail, he told Science News. The two tails are mirror images of each other, derived from the same individual, says Xu. When rocks containing fossils are split, they often break into two fossils.

Currie suspects that someone sought to enhance the value of Archaeoraptor by pasting one part of the dinosaur's tail to a bird fossil. Czerkas is reserving judgement until he can view both fossils together. "I've got all this other evidence suggesting the tail does belong with the [Archaeoraptor] fossil," he says. The paleontologists already had concerns about the tail because the bones connecting it to the body are missing and the slab shows signs of reworking. They had convinced themselves, however, that the two parts belonged together. Other scientists criticize the team and the National Geographic Society for unveiling the fossil before any detailed article had appeared in a scientific journal. "There probably has never been a fossil with a sadder history than this one," says Storrs L. Olson of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

Neanderthal Man was found in Neanderthal Valley in West Germany. Long accepted as a missing link, Neanderthal man has been proven to be human, very similar to Europeans today, yet with proven diseases such as rickets, syphilis, and arthritis.(Carl Hodge "Neanderthal Traits Extant, Group Told" The Arizona Republic Vol 99 #186 P. B-5)

There is no proof that man evolved from an ape like creature. In fact, many fossils of man have been found, dated to coincide with the ages of these extinct apes:

24.) Petralona Man, found in a stalagmite 700 thousand years old.(Current Anthropology Vol 22 #3 June 1981 P.287)

25.) Human Jawbone found in China in Yangtze River dated 2 million years old.(Java Man is only 500 thousand)(Mesa Tribune Mesa Arizona Nov 20 1988)

Also, there are some findings that contradict all known science:

26.) Human skeleton found 1. 6 million years old, by Richard Leaky( Wash. Post Oct 19, 1984)

27.) Human footprints, dated 3.75 million years old at Latolil (Nature Vol28 #5702 Mar 22.1979, P.317-323)

28.) THE OLDEST MAN: "[African footprints]... they belonged to the genus Homo (or true man), rather than to man-apes (like Australopithecus, who was once thought to be the forerunner of Man but is now regarded as a possible evolutionary dead end)... they were 3.35 to 3.75 million years old... they would, in Mary Leakey's words, be people 'not unlike ourselves'" TIME, Nov. 10, 1975, p.93

29.) TOO HUMAN TOO OLD: Russell H Tuttle, Professor of Anthropology, University of Chicago, Affiliate Scientist, Primate Research Center, Emory University, "In sum, the 3.5 million year old footprint trails at Laetoli site G resemble those of habitually unshod modern Humans... If the G footprints were not known to be so old, we would readily conclude that they were made by a member of our genus... in any case, we should shelve the loose assumption that the Laetoli footprints were made by Lucy's kind..." NATURAL HISTORY, March 1990, p. 64


Evolutionists themselves disagree on just what the fossils mean and just how old they are. Consider the following:

30.) RUINED FAMILY TREE: "either we toss out this [skull 11470] or we toss out our theories of early man," asserts anthropologist Richard Leakey of this 2.8 million year old fossil, which he has tentatively identified as belonging to our own genus. "It simply fits no previous models of human beginnings." The author, son of famed anthropologist Louis S.B. Leakey, believes that the skull's surprisingly large braincase "leaves in ruins the notion that all early fossils can be arranged to an orderly sequence of evolutionary change." NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, June 1973, p.819

31.) HUMAN BRAIN: "Leakey further describes the whole shape of the brain case [skull 11470] as remarkably reminiscent of modern man, lacking the heavy and protruding eyebrow ridges and thick bone characteristics of Homo Erectus." SCIENCE NEWS, April 3, 1972, p. 324

32.) "OLD" MODERN MAN: Louis Leakey, "In 1933 I published on a small fragment of jaw we call Homo Kanamens 1s, and I said categorically that this is not a near-man or ape, this is a true member of genus Homo. There were stone tools with it too. The age was probably around 2.5 to 3 million years. It was promptly put upon a shelf by my colleagues, except for two of them. The rest said it must be placed in a "suspense account". Now, 36 years later, we have proved I was right." Quoted in Bones of Contention, p.156

33.) MODERN AND TALL: Richard Leakey, "... the boy from Tukana was surprisingly large compared with modern boys his age... he would probably go unnoticed in a crowd today. This find combines with previous discoveries of Homo Erectus to contradict a long held idea that humans have grown larger over the millennia," NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, Nov. 1985, p. 629

34.) MAN EVEN BEFORE "LUCY": Charles E. Oxnard, Dean, Grad School, Professor Biology and Anatomy, USC, "...earlier finds, for instance, at Kanapoi, existed at the same time as, and probably even earlier than, the original gracile Australopithecines... almost indistinguishable in shape from that of modern Humans at four and a half million years..." AMERICAN BIOLOGY TEACHER, Vol. 41, May 1979, p.274

35.) HENRY M. MCHENRY, U of C, DAVIS, "The results show that the Kanapoi specimen, which is 4 to 4.5 million years old, is indistinguishable from modern Homo Sapiens..." SCIENCE, Vol. 190, p.28

36.) WILLIAM HOWELLS, HARVARD, "With a date of about 4.4 million years, [KP 2711] could not be distinguished from Homo Sapiens morphologically or by multivariate analysis by Patterson or myself in 1967 (or by much searching analysis by others since then). We suggested that it might represent Australopithecus because at the time, time allocation to Homo seemed preposterous, although it would be the correct one without the time element." HOMO ERECTUS, 1981, pp. 79-80

[Thatcherite]

REAL SCIENCE proves them wrong again...

So you accept C14 dates as real science? You must not be a young earth creationist then, I guess.

[VadeRetro]

As I was going to say before a power outage cut me off... I seem to recall the guy was controversial long before his final exposure. He was always dating skulls to times that would have had them living on or under the Pleistocene ice sheets on Northern Europe.

[Thatcherite]

Does this mean that the Neanderthals didn't live in the Neander Tal after which they are named? Or is the reputation of the Neander Tal specimens intact? Anyone?

[Thatcherite]

Evolutionists themselves disagree on just what the fossils mean and just how old they are.

ToE predicts disagreement on such issues since the fossil record is imperfect and the definition of species hard to tie down. What is much more interesting is that creationist scientists who study fossil hominids also cannot agree amongst themselves on their classification. This ought to be surprising to creationists, given that it is a tenet of creationism that there are no man/ape transitionals. I believe that I have pointed this out to you before so it is surprising that you continue to post this particular argument.

[lafroste]

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.

As far as I can see is the only thing so far "proven" is it will be impossible to have a reasoned discussion of the issue from either the impassioned evolutionists or creationists. Good Lord, no body even said anything before you guys were already foaming at the mouths (yeah, yeah, I know: experience is a good teacher). Just my two cents...

BTW: I believe in ID, and I'm also a scientist and inventor. Why is it so difficult to conceive of a system designed to evolve? You have a phenomenal example of ID driven evolution all around you, yet you never see it. Why is that?

[RaceBannon]

Because if you call yourself a Christian, and you believe that God created evolution, not genetic variation, but evolution, then you deny the bok of Genesis, the very foundation of whay Jesus had to die on the Cross.

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.

And eveolution is exactly one of the ways those things were promoted, and you should know that if you have been here for a while.

[RaceBannon]

Actually, what is pointed out continually, is that the FOSSIL RECORD is in doubt because all it is, is dead things buried down in rock layers laid down by water.

And that is all it is.

It is not proof of anything in itself, it is just dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water.

Where you go from there is the issue.

NONE of the evolutionary theories can stand the scrutiny of the fossil record, as I clearly show and as this most recent article proves ("Neanderthal" skull was actually human but because of false dates was accepted as ancient...meaning not one 'Evolutionary Expert' had the brains to see it was a "modern Human")

And that is the whole point here.

Repeatedly, Evolutionists theories have been destroyed when science steps in and tells them how wrong they are, but then all the evolutionist does is change their theories to match the preconceived notions that everything evolved, whereas the Creationist just has to sit back and laugh and wait for GOOD SCIENCE to expose the latest complex FRAUD upon science, and then engage in trying to educate those who think they are so smart to accept a modern skull as an ancient NEANDERTAHAL Skull.

[RaceBannon]

C-14 has dated living mollusks as being 10,000 years old.

I distrust any process that tells me that nothing intervened in the normal processes for that period of time, especially K-R dating and such.

Besides, a Young Earth Creationist goes by the geneologies in the Bible for his dating, not physical processes that can be influenced by sunlight or rain or heat or cold.

[DannyTN]

not one 'Evolutionary Expert' had the brains to see it was a "modern Human"....And that is the whole point here.

Indeed that is exactly the point. If scientists approach the evidence with a belief in long ages, then that is what they will usually see. They won't see the obviously modern skull in front of them. They won't test for short ages, they will test only for long ages.

And they are doing this with everything. They expect long ages, so they don't thoroughly examine the dating techniques and assumptions for problems.

They expect long ages, so they interpret ice cores to have long ages. ICR has an Ice core model that matches the data much better than the evolutionist model. Recently, some secular scientists dated volcanic ash in the ice core last month and said the oldest glacier on Earth might be less than 50,000 years old. (Those particular scientists are into global warming so there might be a political agenda).

They expect long ages, so they approach the fossil record expecting that and don't ask the questions that would lead them to conclude otherwise. They miss the obvious contradictions because they aren't even looking for them.

[VadeRetro]

Neanderthal's status as a species has no dependence on this guy. (The ones found fossilized in the Neander Tal probably lived there, but they've been found over much of Eurasia.)

[shubi]

I don't think most ID proponents would agree with your idea.

I do to a certain extent. However first life originated, DNA is designed to evolve.

[Stultis]

From 1912. Suspected by many scientists (mostly in Europe and America) almost at once

I'm not aware (and don't *think*) that it was suspected as a possible hoax, at least in so far as anyone coming out and saying so, and I'm not *aware* of any documentary evidence that anyone privately thought so.

What you are probably getting at, however, is that -- apart from the hoax angle -- many contemporary anthropologists (and I think a majority among leading figures) did correctly interpret Piltdown initially, suggesting that it was a fortuitous association of an ape jaw and a human cranium. IOW they felt that it was not a single individual or species, or at least couldn't be accepted as such on the available evidence.

The hoaxer doctored some of his remaining material and arranged a second find, clearly designed to eliminate these objections. (The second or "Sheffield Park" find was a piece of frontal bone from the left lower eye orbit to the root of the nose, a bit of the occiput, and a molar. This was the same association of human cranial/face and apish jaw. The finder and probable hoaxer Charles Dawson represented it as a second individual of Eoanthropus, but IIRC it was all material left over from creating the initial find.)

John Evangelist Walsh, in Unraveling Piltdown (Random House, 1996) describes the effects of the Sheffield Park find as follows (pg 60) first quoting Arthur Smith Woodward at the scientific meeting where it was described:

... "The occurrence of the same type of frontal bone," he stated pointedly, "with the same type of lower molar in two separate localities adds to the probability that they belonged to one and the same species."

In that professional audience, all knew well what Woodward meant by the quiet mention of "probability" in connection with the "two localities." Perhaps it might happen once, accidentally and randomly, that a real ape's jaw should wind up in the same pit alongside a human brain case, both of them fossilized. That sort of accident was admissible, though barely. But the odds against such a chance pairing of opposites, of unrelated but similar artifacts, occurring a second time in the identical vicinity could be said to verge on the mathematically impossible. It was clear that the Sheffield Park finds established the incontestable reality of Piltdown.

Gradually, over the next several months and years, accelerating with the war's end in the fall of 1918, many experts who had vehemently opposed the combination of jaw and cranium now simply gave way, confessing themselves wrong. The conversion, while by no means complete, was dramatic and sweeping, affecting some of the leading names in the field worldwide -- for instance, one of the best-known, Marcellin Boule of France. The reaction of one American anthropologist, long an opponent of linkage, wonderfully illustrates the transposing impact of the new discovery.

In the summer of 1921, Henry Fairfield Osborn, president of the American Museum of Natural History, visited London. [allowed to examine the Piltdown material...] For two uninterrupted hours the skeptical Osborn peered and measured, his comparisons patient and painstaking. Suddenly he found he could no longer hold out.

"If there is a Providence hanging over the affairs of prehistoric men," he said afterward, "it certainly manifested itself in this case." The three small fragments of the second Piltdown man, he marveled, "were exactly those which we should have selected to confirm the comparison with the original type." Just those specimens which were most needed by the advocates of Eoanthropus had actually been found. Inspecting the second Piltdown cache, placed side by side with the corresponding fossils of the first, Osborn was forced to admit that "they agree precisely; there is not a shadow of difference."

[VadeRetro]

Indeed, but it was the Brits who held on doggedly over the decades as evidence mounted that Piltdown made no sense. Its support outside the British Isles eroded much faster.

[Oztrich Boy]

I note all words you capitalized are lies. Is this a new Creationist policy? If so, it will make like easier for decent, honest people,

27,400 years old. It was believed to be the oldest human remain found in the region

As Padeborn is about 100 miles from Dusseldorf, where the original Neanderthal speciman was found, this tells most people that with that being called the oldest at the age dating means the Padeborn skull was classed as Homo sapiens sapiens not Homo sapiens neanderthalis.

Don't lie. Dumb and dishonest is no way to go throiugh life

[Dimensio]

kindly refute Race's statement with your eloquent logic.

Race's statement was based upon fallacious reasoning. He asserted that because one man was shown to have engaged in fraudulent practices, the theory of evolution is false, even though the theory of evolution is neither founded upon nor based in any significant part on the work of the now exposed fraudster.

RaceBannon did not make a logical statement, thus there's no need to refute it. He appealed to an illogical connection, and I was merely making a note of it.

[Dimensio]

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.

How exactly is he qualified to examine biological evidence when he is not a biologist?

[ApplegateRanch]

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.

Frankfurt U's equivilent of Ward Churchill?

[Just mythoughts]

LOL, come on now you E's take what unlearned Christians believe and throw the baby out with the bath water.

E's are correct about the fact this earth is millions upon millions of years old, and there is no way any 'man' can accurately date it, just guess or estimate. However the E's are as wrong about 'creation' as the C's are about the age of this earth.

[Dimensio]

Good Lord, no body even said anything before you guys were already foaming at the mouths (yeah, yeah, I know: experience is a good teacher). Just my two cents...

PatrickHenry and I made predictions of common creationist reactions. Turns out our predictions were correct. RaceBannon was the one who decided that the fact that one person lied somehow disproves a theory that has stood for 150 years.

Why is it so difficult to conceive of a system designed to evolve?

I don't see anything difficult with such a concept. ID proponents, however, have yet to provide any actual evidence of ID within living organisms.