Posted on 03/31/2007 1:09:59 AM PDT by Ethan Clive Osgoode
DARWIN THEORY IS PROVED TRUE!
That headline is from the New York Times. Have you seen similar headlines? I have. Many. "New Fossil Find Bolsters Evolution"... "DNA Proves Camels took to the Seas"... "Darwin Vindicated: Top Scientist evolves Yeast into Yeast", and so on.
I have seen many such headlines in the media, in the last few years alone. But this is, to the best of my knowledge, the original "Darwin Proved True" headline. One can say, in a sense, that all subsequent "Darwin Proved True" articles evolved from this one, the common ancestor of them all, dated (by carbon dating) to Sept 22, 1912.
This is an important fossil find. You will note the similarities to modern-day "Darwin Proved True!" reports, clearly indicating common descent with little modification. The ingredients of a fine modern "Darwin Proved True" tale are all here, of course - the waffling, the exaggeration, the impressive buzz-words, the fantastical embellishments, the self-contradictions, the fairytales. Such as...
A race of ape-like and speechless man, inhabiting England hundreds of thousands of years ago, when they had for their neighbors the mastodon and other animals now extinct is the missing link in the chain in man's evolution, which leading scientists say they have discovered in what is generally described as "the Sussex skull." To this Dr. Woodward proposes to give the name of "eoanthropus," or "man of dawn."
Yes sir, upon this fairytale, the New York Times put the headline "DARWIN THEORY PROVED TRUE", even though the article ends with the lines
There is, he thinks, a point of doubt as to the jawbone. It was not found in the same place as the skull, and he holds it possible that it does not belong to the skull. It is unquestionable apelike and it is not impossible that further examination may show that it does not fit the skull at all.
In other words, it is all nonsense, but nevertheless, DARWIN PROVED TRUE!! And thus began the classic genre of reporting on evolutionary matters, a trend which continues to this day.
This is an important archeological find, of special interest to participants and spectators of the ever-entertaining Darwin wars. But in case you are not familiar with this news article (you should be), I'll tell you what the punchline is. Scroll down to the end of the article...
And this great discovery, upon which it was announced that "DARWIN THEORY PROVED TRUE"! is also affectionally known as...
PILTDOWN MAN !
Before you reply to this, ponder carefully this quote from Scott "Dilbert" Adams:
I should add that the first person to explain that science continuously revises itself -- and that’s what makes it so great! -- has no free will.
That's the way it works with embryonic stem cell research. California started funding snake oil research as a direct result of the Korean fraud.
Did the money get cut off? Nope. In fact, other states started following suit. What a scam!
I thought the perpetual motion machine was scientifically impossible, but you know how science is. One day, you use the language of metaphysical certainty. The next, it goes into the rubbish bin and the new theory is gospel.
Oh, bravo! You've put your finger on why there's been no scientific progress whatever since the sixteenth century!
How does your internet connection work?
Yep.
This belief gives them justification for establishing their own rules of right and wrong. Their own rules for morality.
Absolutely correct!
It's nice to know that fraud brings progress. That's very useful. I couldn't decide whether I want to promote my work by overstating its effect, like biologists or to threaten people, like climatologists.
But I think that if you stick with fraud, you can't go wrong.
Of course, you make my point by pointing to scientific progress that is inexorably tied to mathematics.
This explains an open and quite bitter hostility to any religion. Then again, not any religion, only the most inconvenient ones.
Math is used in all of science; so what? It's also used in the making of radio commercials.
I strongly disagree. Many make a very good living as trained (or possibly untrained) monkeys, conducting experiments.
Also a great scam: If the experiment works, you get a paper! If the experiment doesn't work, you get a paper!
An inability to fail is possibly the greatest scam of all.
AmishDude: I strongly disagree. Many make a very good living as trained (or possibly untrained) monkeys, conducting experiments.
You mischaracterize my post. Or are you trying to assert that unless everyone everywhere working in the sciences uses math then no one does?
Also a great scam: If the experiment works, you get a paper! If the experiment doesn't work, you get a paper!
I don't know what you mean by this "get a paper" thing. I get mine delivered in the morning; no experiments required.
An inability to fail is possibly the greatest scam of all.
True. How about this one: you pay me money, I tell you how to live your life down to the minutest detail. If you do everything I say, never contradict me, and keep paying me, you get a swell prize after you're dead.
"I'm not saying what you do is useless, I'm saying what you do is easy."
How about this one: you pay me money,
I'd rather have it taken by force, with accounting done every mid-April.
I tell you how to live your life down to the minutest detail.
I keep forgetting, should I eat bran and drink caffiene or both or some combination of them? It's so hard to keep up with "science" these days.
If you do everything I say, never contradict me, and keep paying me, you get a swell prize after you're dead.
One should have something to look forward to after the shuffling of the mortal coil, otherwise they'll realize in their dotage there's nothing left except to take out as many enemies out as possible. In fact, reason would command it.
The Piltdown Man had a long run, 1912-1953. He may have been one of the most persuasive proofs for evolution in those years. I wonder how many people doubted the story, only to be ridiculed as being anti-science.
Scientists get caught up in ruts like other people do.
In the case of the Darwinoids, they have really boxed themselves in...turned theory into ideology and turn despotic when anyone questions their asumptions.
Sad really.
AmishDude: "I'm not saying what you do is useless, I'm saying what you do is easy."
I take it from your non-answer that you know how silly your assertion was.
Gumlegs: How about this one: you pay me money,
AD: I'd rather have it taken by force, with accounting done every mid-April.
That aligns you with William Jennings Bryan in another way.
Gumlegs: I tell you how to live your life down to the minutest detail.
AD: I keep forgetting, should I eat bran and drink caffiene or both or some combination of them? It's so hard to keep up with "science" these days.
No need. Just consult the list of “unclean” foods in your Bible. But don’t wear your linsey-woolsey shirt while doing it.
Gumlegs: If you do everything I say, never contradict me, and keep paying me, you get a swell prize after you're dead.
AD: One should have something to look forward to after the shuffling of the mortal coil, otherwise they'll realize in their dotage there's nothing left except to take out as many enemies out as possible. In fact, reason would command it.
If that’s your idea of what reason is, I’m glad you avoid it.
Agreed--in that way they're encrouching on the territory of the religious, who believe THEIR particular methods do that.
Many researchers recognized early on that Piltdown didn't fit. Friedrichs and Weidenreich had both, by about 1932, published their research suggesting the lower jaws and molars were that of an orang.
The South African fossils which started showing up in 1924 convinced all but a few diehard Brits that Piltdown just did not fit with the emerging evidence, and it was widely ignored until it was finally disproved.
Endorsement from the NY Slimes would make me rethink my position on any issue.
... but suckers are born every minute. Think on that. We're not talking babes from the mother's womb, either.
It took over 40 years for Piltdown man to be proved a fraud. Someone wanted to prove evolution so bad that they were willing to create a fraud to do it. I believe with utmost confidence that it was NOT a creationist.
So here we have a scientist creating a fraud that it took 40 years for *science* to disprove. The only reasonable conclusion is that scientists wanted it to be true so badly that they were not willing to examine it more closely before.
Plus, this was not the only fraud that scientists were duped by. You'd think that the scientific community would have learned its lesson getting burned by Piltdown man, but nooooo, they fell for it again much more recently , no doubt, because they wanted to *prove* the ToE beyond the shadow of a doubt. Archeoraptor was much more recent and took years also.
This demonstrates the validity and beauty of science? I think you need to find a better example.
Probably everyone based on the reaction of evos to skeptics on this forum. An interesting aside is that in the days that the steady state model of the universe was accepted as the latest *scientific* fact, the only ones who had reason to believe the universe had a beginning was what would now be called the *Bible-literalists* and look who was right.
Scientists wanted the steady state to be true so bad, that Einstein messed with his calculations to add a fudge factor to bring them into line with current scientific thinking, instead of trusting his calculations and questioning the current scientific thinking.
Ah, the validity and beauty of science.
"She's a philosopher! Burn Her!" 
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