Theo,
First, this is a case of a man falsifying evidence. Like the Piltdown Man and the few other cases of fraud in anthropology and paleontology, this fraud was exposed by scientists using the scientific method and technology. The discovery of fraud discredits the man and his claims, but validates the method and corrects the data.
Second, history is rife with the serial claims pertaining to the physical universe made by biblical literalists, every single one of which having been demonstrated to be significantly at odds with evidence. Such a history does not augur well for any current claims of biblical literalists.
Third, on the various CREVO threads we are inundated by "goofy" statements from not ONE Creationist but from almost EVERY Creationist who participates. Chief among these claims are intransigent insistence on misconstruing the purpose and applications of science, the scientific method, and theories.
Fourth, we do not have a "presumption of the 'truth' of evolution" if by "evolution" you mean (as do so many Creationists):
- that we believe we have absolute knowledge of the full sequence of changes in life from its pre-living origins all the way up to the present
- that we believe the theory of the origin of species in some way "disproves" the existence and participation of some supernatural entity
- that we believe that the current model is perfect
None of the above are accurate depictions of the beliefs of scientists, no matter how many times Creationists claim them to be (see the third paragraph above: Intransigent insistence on misconstruing the purpose and applications of science).
We find the theory of the origin of the species, through serial branching and diversion from common ancestors over time/many generations of offspring due to the observably factual mechanisms of genetic mutation and natural selection, is at this time the most useful explanation available for the hundreds of thousands of individual evidence indicating serial origin and extinction of life forms over several hundred million years AND various indicators pointing to distal and proximal ranges of taxonomic and genetic similarity between species extinct and extant. This theory has also been repeatedly (exhaustively) demonstrated to be useful in predicting the discovery of new data not available at the time of the prediction. That is one of the pricipal purposes of all sciences - prediction of results based on extant data. Success or failure in these predictions is one of the principal proofs of utility of a theory.
IF a new theory is devised which explains the evidence better and serves as a better predictor of data not available when the theory is devised, we shall either modify evolutionary theory or abandon it altogether. That's how science works, Theo.
Can you provide some references to satisfy my curiosity?
However, I have a couple of nitpicky comments, about behavior:
Fourth, we do not have a "presumption of the 'truth' of evolution" if by "evolution" you mean (as do so many Creationists):
- that we believe we have absolute knowledge of the full sequence of changes in life from its pre-living origins all the way up to the present,/i>
- that we believe the theory of the origin of species in some way "disproves" the existence and participation of some supernatural entity
- that we believe that the current model is perfect
Some of the evo posters on these threads lean towards giving the impression of absolute knowledge--or at least close enough in principle. And some of the other evo posters seem to come across as athiests. My belief is that many of said posters just lose patience and so try to tweak the nose of anyone arguing with them.
"Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb" and all that.