Posted on 09/27/2005 10:55:14 PM PDT by Crackingham
How do you kno they are frauds. What is your line of reasoning?
Wouldn't that be nice?
Oh yeah. :)
I see no evidence at your link to suggest Archopteryx is anything but what it is -- a bird with reptilian features, or a reptile with bird features. There are large numbers of additional fossils that have been found since Archopteryx, including ones with far more pronounced reptilian features.
The authenticity of Piltdown man was not discredited on the basis of file marks and chemical residue. It was questioned because other fossils were found, and it didn't fit into any scheme predicted by evolution. Perhaps it's real, and evilutionist are saying it's a hoax to protect their evil theory.
National Geo jumped the shark by trying to get a scoop. They published an article on a fossil find without getting the input of paleontologists. The fossil was at least two different pieces glued together.
The pieces, even separately, are interesting, and many more good specimins are being unearthed under the supervision of competent scientists.
It was, of course, mainstream scientist who exposed the problem, and they did so almost before the ink was dry on the Geo article.
A gleeful agenda.
Dr. Storrs L. Olson, the eminent curator of birds at the prestigious Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, verbally castigated the Society, Dr. Raven, Christopher P. Sloan (author of the National Geographic article), and Bill Allen, the magazine’s editor, for what he called “an all-time low for engaging in sensationalistic, unsubstantiated, tabloid journalism.” And that was the nicest thing he had to say! Dr. Olson continued:
Prior to the publication of the article “Dinosaurs Take Wing” in the July 1998 National Geographic, Lou Mazzatenta, the photographer for Sloan’s article, invited me to the National Geographic Society to review his photographs of Chinese fossils and to comment on the slant being given to the story. At that time, I tried to interject the fact that strongly-supported alternative viewpoints existed to what National Geographic intended to present, but it eventually became clear to me that National Geographic was not interested in anything other than the prevailing dogma that birds evolved from dinosaurs.
Sloan’s article takes prejudice to an entirely new level and consists in large part of unverifiable or undocumented information that “makes” the news rather than reporting it. His bald statement that “we can now say that birds are theropods just as confidently as we say that humans are mammals” is not even suggested as reflecting the views of a particular scientist or group of scientists, so that it figures as little more than editorial propagandizing. This melodramatic assertion had already been disproven by recent studies of embryology and comparative morphology, which, of course, are never mentioned.
More importantly, however, none of the structures illustrated in Sloan’s article that are claimed to be feathers have actually been proven to be feathers. Saying that they are is little more than wishful thinking that has been presented as fact. The statement on page 103 that “hollow, hairlike structures characterize protofeathers” is nonsense, considering that protofeathers exist only as a theoretical construct, so that the internal structure of one is even more hypothetical.
The hype about feathered dinosaurs in the exhibit currently on display at the National Geographic Society is even worse, and makes the spurious claim that there is strong evidence that a wide variety of carnivorous dinosaurs had feathers. A model of the undisputed dinosaur Deinonychus and illustrations of baby tyrannosaurs are shown clad in feathers, all of which is simply imaginary and has no place outside of science fiction.
The idea of feathered dinosaurs and the theropod origin of birds is being actively promulgated by a cadre of zealous scientists acting in concert with certain editors at Nature and National Geographic who themselves have become outspoken and highly biased proselytizers of the faith.
You didn't write this, so where did you steal it from?
From the website mentioned. However, your attempt at calling me a thief is duly noted. You must lose graciously when you play a game for keeps.
The National Geo fiasco has nothing to do with science. It's a popular magazine and they were warned not to publish without getting more opinions. Your own article makes that clear.
The argument against dino to bird evolution has pretty much been settled in the four years since your article was published.
To be honest, I used that link because I had class in a few minutes. Despite that, the evidence pointed out by FReeper zeeba neighba should be more than conclusie. In addition, if you are really opposed to evolution, then you are contradicting yourself. The PD man and the Arch have been used by evolutionists to justify their theories. When the "missing links" between man and ape and birds and reptiles is proven false, the situation only lends more ammunition to Creationists.
Thank you for the info. The link I used was not the best I could have used, I was in a hurry.
Uh-huh.
I'm pretty sure. There was a big brouhaha over this a couple of years ago. Apparently they took dinosaur bones and created fake wings for it.
Out of curiosity...why would you give the word of one astronomer more weight than the bulk of paleontologist when it comes to the identification of animal fossils.
I was in Thailand when I first heard of it. I don't know any Fred Hoyle, but it was pretty big in the news. I remember how disappointed I was that one of the greatest link between dinosaurs and birds is a hoax. I didn't even know about the debate between Creationist design and evolution. This was even before my time as a FReeper.
I am a Crevo, a man who believs in both evolution and Creationism. I don't like fraud on one side or another. Archeopteryx is ass fictitious as the "giant fossil" used to prove that giants existed in prehistoric times, as is said in the Bible.
Then again, this might be a big mistake. Maybe the news people confused Archeoraptor with Archeopteryx and it isn't a hoax. If that is the case, mea culpa. But the jury is still out. One thing for sure, I don't like to be decieved by either side. Whether it is true or a hoax remains to be seen.
For the science room, no free speech
By Bill Murchison
Dec 28, 2005
Will the federal courts, and the people who rely on the federal courts to enforce secular ideals, ever get it? The anti-school-prayer decisions of the past 40 years -- not unlike the pro-choice-in-abortion decisions, starting with Roe vs. Wade -- haven't driven pro-school-prayer, anti-choice Americans from the marketplace of ideas and activity.
Neither will U.S. Dist. Judge John Jones' anti-intelligent-design ruling in Dover, Pa., just before Christmas choke off challenges to the public schools' Darwinian monopoly.
Jones' contempt for the "breathtaking inanity" of school-board members who wanted ninth-grade biology students to hear a brief statement regarding Darwinism's "gaps/problems" is unlikely to intimidate the millions who find evolution only partly persuasive -- at best.
Millions? Scores of millions might be more like it. A 2004 Gallup Poll found that just 13 percent of Americans believe in evolution unaided by God. A Kansas newspaper poll last summer found 55 percent support for exposing public-school students to critiques of Darwinism.
This accounts for the widespread desire that children be able to factor in some alternatives to the notion that "natural selection" has brought us, humanly speaking, where we are. Well, maybe it has. But what if it hasn't? The science classroom can't take cognizance of such a possibility? Under the Jones ruling, it can't. Jones discerns a plot to establish a religious view of the question, though the religion he worries about exists only in the possibility that God, per Genesis 1, might intrude celestially into the discussion. (Intelligent-designers, for the record, say the power of a Creator God is just one of various possible counter-explanations.)
Not that Darwinism, as Jones acknowledges, is perfect. Still, "the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent scientific propositions."
Ah. We see now: Federal judges are the final word on good science. Who gave them the power to exclude even whispers of divinity from the classroom? Supposedly, the First Amendment to the Constitution: the odd part here being the assumption that the "free speech" amendment shuts down discussion of alternatives to an establishment-approved concept of Truth.
With energy and undisguised contempt for the critics of Darwinism, Jones thrusts out the back door of his courthouse the very possibility that any sustained critique of Darwinism should be admitted to public classrooms.
However, the writ of almighty federal judges runs only so far, as witness their ongoing failure to convince Americans that the Constitution requires almost unobstructed access to abortion. Pro-life voters and activists, who number in the millions, clearly aren't buying it. We're to suppose efforts to smother intelligent design will bear larger, lusher fruit?
The meeting place of faith and reason is proverbially darkish and unstable -- a place to which the discussants bring sometimes violently different assumptions about truth and where to find it. Yet, the recent remarks of the philosopher-theologian Michael Novak make great sense: "I don't understand why in the public schools we cannot have a day or two of discussion about the relative roles of science and religion." A discussion isn't a sermon or an altar call, is it?
Equally to the point, what does secular intolerance achieve in terms of revitalizing public schools, rendering them intellectually catalytic? As many religious folk see it, witch-hunts for Christian influences are an engrained part of present public-school curricula. Is this where they want the kids? Might private schools -- not necessarily religious ones -- offer a better alternative? Might home schooling?
Alienating bright, energized, intellectually alert customers is normally accounted bad business, but that's the direction in which Darwinian dogmatists point. Thanks to them and other such foes of free speech in the science classroom -- federal judges included -- we seem likely to hear less and less about survival of the fittest and more and more about survival of the least curious, the least motivated, the most gullible.
Thanks for the article. Judicial activism at its finest. This moron's ruling must be interpreted from the Marx version of the US Constitution because I can't find it in my copy. :<
BTW Happy New Year!
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