Posted on 02/19/2005 7:36:30 AM PST by 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.
That claim, coming from you, would make me laugh if it didn't turn my stomach so much.
Accuracy is important. Dimensio came nowhere near proving his smear against creationists.
You didn't ask him to "prove" his statement, you asked him to provide a "few" examples. He did so. Then suddenly you moved the goalposts all over the place -- now it's "proof" you want...
Tell me, just how many examples can you give from the past 30 days of yourself challenging a "smear" from a creationist? Just how much do you actually value "truth"?
Claiming he was right would be a lie.
No, admitting that he MET YOUR SPECIFIC CHALLENGE would be honorable. This is why you have not done it.
Furthermore, you know he's right -- you've seen that behavior on these threads just like the rest of us. Your current lawyering to avoid admitting that fact is just ludicrous, and is the real "lie".
I thought you didn't like lies.
Indeed I do not.
Now you want me to lie?
No -- I want you to be honorable. I wait in vain.
It continues to be as it has been since 1859. The less evidence one has, the more one has to fabricate it, mischaracterize his opponents, and the louder one has to yell.
So you *are* familiar with the behavior of the anti-evolutionists. Nice of you to acknowledge it.
Oh, he's still up there. Sad, too...I used to think he was a pretty decent FReeper, until I read his nonsensical rantings and outright Bravo Sierra here.
You apparently missed the end, where after having to admit two solid examples, he then turned around and dismissed them all with a rhetorical sleight-of-hand.
The only good cat is a dead cat.
Probably a sign that I should pay the electric bill.
Actually their habitat was pools in limestone rock....
Uh..
I thought most ALL fossils are found in limestone.
I have been reading the Bible for decades. I understand the original languages it was written in. I have six years of seminary.
I know that evolution is a fact and the Theory of Evolution has massive amounts of evidence explaining and substantiating that fact.
Sure...
Looks like a creationist!
But most all fossils are not dated using C14 dating...
True (that I missed the end), I was losing the will to live reading his post, so I gave up about 2/3 of the way through.
Truly, no person who continually engages in it can have good intentions, or arrive at good results.
If Jesus the man was omniscient, then how did his omniscience map onto his neural pathways, which would necessarily seem somewhat small for the task?
Actually, strike that question in the 2nd para. It is not relevant. I don't think that you have established that Jesus the man was omniscient even if the Bible is inerrant. You'll need a much clearer statement than you've provided so far.
Matthew 19
3. Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?"
4. "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator `made them male and female,'
5. and said, `For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh' ?
6. So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."
7. "Why then," they asked, "did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?"
8. Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.
Genesis 27. the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground (Not from pre-humans) and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
8. Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.
9. And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground--trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
10. A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters.
11. The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold.
12. (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.)
13. The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush.
14. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
15. The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
16. And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;
17. but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."
18. The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."
19. Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.
20. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found.
21. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh.
22. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
23. The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called `woman, ' for she was taken out of man."
24. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
25. The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
82.3% of all generalizations are false.
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