Coccyx - tale of a creationist disinformation post

[USincognito]

Do you mind translating that?

I wrote in clear, concise English.

LOL! I had to look those up. I had never heard of them until you posted them. I guess I need to get out more. None of the creation science websites I frequently visit mention them.

The professional Creationists that are more on the fringe than AIG/CMI/ICR may not have as high a profile or as large a budget, but they are pervasive and influential.

I am surprised you didn't bring up Kent Hovind?

Kent Hovind wrote Big Daddy for Jack Chick.

That said, why were Haeckel's embryo's being promoted by evolutionists as late as 2015? And why were some of the modern darling's of evolution so reluctant to let them go?

I haven't seen any evidence that they are. Do you have any?

 

[Bible Research Tools]

View attachment 230415 This is from the Wikipedia article. The info is accurate. Jonathan Wells is a Moonie.

At least he is not evolutionist. He is also well educated, having earned a PhD in Molecular and Cell Biology from University of California at Berkeley, where he also worked as a postdoctoral research biologist. But I understand he is also a wanted man:

They are known to deliberately use deceit to convince people that their particular sect is the “ Truth” . Which means it isn’t surprising that Wells used misquotes and deceptive edits . Which is also a typical creationist tactic.

I think his books are quite good; and the Icons of Evolutionism most certainly needed a good house-cleaning.

Have you read this review of his book titled, "The Myth of Junk DNA"?

Review wells junk dna - creation.com​

It begins:

"One of the greatest evolutionary frauds of recent times is the myth that eukaryotic genomes, particularly the human genome, are largely composed of meaningless ‘junk’ DNA sequences that serve no biological purpose." [Jeffrey P. Tomkins, "The Junk DNA myth takes a well-deserved hit." Creation Ministries International, 2011] ​

It ends:

"My final suggestion is that I would hope that Dr Wells considers this book an ongoing project. Given the immense amount of research in this field and the new and exciting developments which emerge virtually every week, the book should be regularly revised every couple of years to keep the issue at the forefront in the hotly contested fields of intelligent design and creation science. This is particularly important given the fraudulent rhetoric actively promulgated by theistic evolutionists and popular science authors." [Ibid.] ​

It is any wonder evolutionists dislike Jeffrey Tomkins?

Dan

 

[USincognito]

That is a red-herring.

No it is not. The assertion was made about all these supposed hoaxes by scientists. Yet there are only two that I am aware of, one perpetrated on scientists and uncovered by scientists (Piltdown) and one perpetrated by a greedy fossil seller looking to make money on the editors of a magazine (Archaeoraptor).

Creation scientists do not feed at the government (taxpayer) trough, so research money is scarce.

This complaint is precious given that all of them are "ministries" and thus tax exempt.

... strict doctrine of the evolutionism orthodoxy. ...the gods of science.

Histrionic hyperbole is not your friend.

That said, would you say the claims about peppered moths and whale evolution are on the up-and-up?

As Brightmoon pointed out Kettlewell's observations were recreated by Majerus in the 2000s and finished long after Wells published his propaganda piece.
Michael Majerus - Wikipedia

The cetacean fossil record is one of the best and when combined with genetics, it's a slam dunk at this point. Where did you get the impression it was problematic? Were you going to raise Carl Werner's silly objections?

 

[Bible Research Tools]

I had a formal debate with Mark Kennedy about whether Creationists should continue to mention Piltdown or not 12 years ago.
Forma Debate - Piltdown Man Should Not Be Cited By Creationists

I liked this part:

"The painstaking process of critical peer review and the demand for direct observation and demonstrative proof are supposed to avoid discrepancies in scientific reporting. In the case of Piltdown Man we are looking at a fraud that perpetuated itself in the corridors of academia for nearly half a century. "​

So much for the PAL-review process . . .

Dan

 

[pitabread]

I liked this part:

"The painstaking process of critical peer review and the demand for direct observation and demonstrative proof are supposed to avoid discrepancies in scientific reporting. In the case of Piltdown Man we are looking at a fraud that perpetuated itself in the corridors of academia for nearly half a century. "
So much for the PAL-review process . . .

You should read up on the history of Piltdown Man, since there are a couple things worth noting:

• The original discovery was actually controversial (primarily among American scientists) as it contradicted existing ideas of hominid evolution.
• The acceptance of the discovery was largely based on the reputation of its discoverer and that there were purportedly two finds. Keep in mind this was also in the early 20th century; it wasn't like rapid airline transport, digital photography and the Internet was a thing back then. It was a little harder to verify these sorts of claims given the technological limitations of the time.
• The fossils remained controversial in years to come as other hominid fossils were uncovered which contradicted the evolutionary development suggested by the Piltdown find. In fact, you can find references prior to the uncovering of the fraud that suggested at the very least they may have been misidentified.
• Nobody actually though someone would deliberately perpetuate a fraud and to what end. It certainly wasn't to "prove evolution". Rather it seemed more like a case of seeking personal fame by at least one of the discoverers.

Creationists have since distorted the historical view of Piltdown Man to make it seems like this was a combined effort by the entire scientific community to perpetuate this hoax for the purpose of proving evolution. But the historical account of the discovery is nothing of the sort.

I recommend the book "Unraveling Piltdown" as a good read on the subject. It frames the detective/mystery novel which makes it an interesting account given the subject matter.

 

[Brightmoon]

Speaking of fraud over decades ,creation “science” fits the bill perfectly

 

[Bible Research Tools]

Uh huh, there's no problem with your use of "it" in a scientific context. I suggest you actually take the link I provided and read the content for understanding rather than just looking to attack it.

What was that link again?

1. As I have told you, "evolutionary geology" exists only in your imagination.
2. Again, evolution is biology, geology is earth science.
3. Uniformitarianism, in geology, is not a doctrine as much as it is a proposal, and no modern geologists hold to it strictly. It would be more accurate to state that the modern incarnation holds that "the same processes happening now happened in the past" which would include earthquakes, floods and impact events.

What do you think about this statement?

"Darwin’s theory revolutionized and became the foundation for all of biology, but... it was just as much the foundation for geology as well. The inexorable changes that Lyell wrote of were echoed by Darwin in the Theory of Evolution and, in turn, echoed back to geologists in a coherent sense of how Earth—and the life upon it—changed; when those changes occurred; and, how what we see today, is a product of that long history." [Judith Totman Parrish, "Charles Darwin’s Impact on Geology." National Science Foundation] ​

That sounds like evolutionary geology to me. Just sayin' . . .

I doubt you've even heard of them so how would you know that? And no, there zero evidence geologically or genetically for the Flood.

I'll bite. How do evolutionary geologists explain the extensive lamination of megasequence layering? How do evolutionary geologists explain paleocurrents? How do evolutionary geologists explain how coal seams like these formed?

How do evolutionary geologists explain polystrate fossils in coal seams?

Creationists have a hard time grasping that science is evidence based, not authority or personality based.

No we don't. That is a myth perpetuated by the uninformed.

Whatever Lyell said 200 years ago does not change the fact that numerous early geologists were ministers or had studied theology and standard geology and deep time have been supporter by literally (pun intended) mountains of evidence.

You did well until the last clause. There is no evidence for uniformitarianism. Zero.

Yeah, before we bother delving into the lack of evidence for the Flood, I suggest you read this testimony from Glenn Morton. He was a YEC who had a crisis of faith after he became a geologist in the oil industry and the things he was observing just couldn't be explained by the Flood or a young earth.
Old Earth Creation Science Testimony - Why I Left Young Earth Creationism, by Glenn Morton

This is one of his beliefs that led him down the wrong path:

"This was where I first became exposed to the problems geology presented to the idea of a global flood. I would see extremely thick (30,000 feet) sedimentary layers. One could follow these beds from the surface down to those depths where they were covered by vast thicknesses of sediment. I would see buried mountains which had experienced thousands of feet of erosion, which required time."​

The Great Unconformity was eroded by a single, massive surge of water that also formed the Salk Megasequence as it lost energy.

Ah yes. The AIG statement of faith - don't believe your lying eyes.
Statement of Faith

• By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record. Of primary importance is the fact that evidence is always subject to interpretation by fallible people who do not possess all information.

That sounds reasonable. Replace the words "the scripture record" with the word "Darwinism", and you have the Evolutionism Statement of Faith.

Dan

 

[Bible Research Tools]

​

Out of curiosity, I dug back into the DI's "review" of textbooks where they discuss use of embryological pictures. Quite frankly it seems they are complaining about any suggestion that developmental biology suggests evolutionary history/relationships. But given the latter is generally accepted as evidence for evolution and really has little to do with Haeckel at this point, I'm not sure what the objection is.

Perhaps the embryologists at the Discovery Institute have been unable to find any correlation between the embryos typically depicted in the charts.

If you read the faith statements of major creationist organizations, this is most emphatically not the case. It's about protecting religious dogma.

That is quite a revelation.

None of those things are fraudulent though. The Muller-Urey experiment showed exactly what it set out to: the formation of organic compounds from precursors in specific conditions.

Has it every been taught or implied as proof of the origin of life?

Peppered moths are an example of natural selection and this has been reaffirmed in recent decades.

It is no doubt an example of simple variations within a species. Has it ever been touted as proof of evolution?

Darwin's finches... not sure what the objection is here?

Has it ever been touted as proof of evolution?

Archaeopteryx is a fossil with characteristics of both theropod dinosaurs and more modern birds. It's transitional in that respect. Again, not sure what the objection is.

There is no evidence it is a transitional anything.

None of these are deliberate falsehoods or misrepresentations with respect to biological evolution.

Each is an example of over-representation?

Dan

 

[pitabread]

That is quite a revelation.

Read the faith statements yourself:

Statement of Faith
Foundational Principles

Has it every been taught or implied as proof of the origin of life?

As I said, the Muller-Urey experiment is an example of organic compounds forming via precursors. It's part of the evidence for the origin of life, but it would not be a singular "proof". Science doesn't deal in absolute proofs.

I'm not aware of every instance of how it has been taught, so I certainly can't speak to that and it's silly to even ask.

It is no doubt an example of simple variations within a species. Has it ever been touted as proof of evolution?

It's an example of natural selection, one of the mechanisms of evolution.

There is no evidence it is a transitional anything.

Transitional fossils are defined by fossils as having characteristics of two or more taxa. Archaeopteryx most certainly meets the definition of being transitional in that respect.

Each is an example of over-representation?

Over-representation of what?

 

[Bible Research Tools]

I wrote in clear, concise English.

I thought I had a reasonable grasp of the English language, until I read that gibberish.

The professional Creationists that are more on the fringe than AIG/CMI/ICR may not have as high a profile or as large a budget, but they are pervasive and influential.

If evolutionism wasn't such an easy beast to flog, they wouldn't get away with it.

Kent Hovind wrote Big Daddy for Jack Chick.

Kent Hovind is not a scientist.

I haven't seen any evidence that they are. Do you have any?

Did you not see the lists in the link I provided? Futuyma? Miller? Prothero?

Dan

 

[Bible Research Tools]

No it is not. The assertion was made about all these supposed hoaxes by scientists. Yet there are only two that I am aware of, one perpetrated on scientists and uncovered by scientists (Piltdown) and one perpetrated by a greedy fossil seller looking to make money on the editors of a magazine (Archaeoraptor).

There are far more than those two.

This complaint is precious given that all of them are "ministries" and thus tax exempt.

Tax-exempt donations? Big deal. Evolutionism has a lock on taxpayer funding, enforced by the power of the sword. In other words, I help fund that foolishness with my tax dollars, even though I despise everything it stands for.

Histrionic hyperbole is not your friend.

It is a dear friend.

As Brightmoon pointed out Kettlewell's observations were recreated by Majerus in the 2000s and finished long after Wells published his propaganda piece.
Michael Majerus - Wikipedia

I didn't say anything about Wells in that statement?

The cetacean fossil record is one of the best and when combined with genetics, it's a slam dunk at this point.

If you have a vivid imagination, you can believe it.

Where did you get the impression it was problematic? Were you going to raise Carl Werner's silly objections?

The dentist or the physician? Dr. Carl Werner, the physician, did a masterful job of exposing Gingrich's shenanigans. Don't you agree?

By the way, have you seen these short segments?

Those and more are found in this article by Dr. Don Batten, PhD Univ. of Sydney:

Whale evolution fraud - creation.com​

Dan

 

[Bible Research Tools]

You should read up on the history of Piltdown Man, since there are a couple things worth noting:

• The original discovery was actually controversial (primarily among American scientists) as it contradicted existing ideas of hominid evolution.
• The acceptance of the discovery was largely based on the reputation of its discoverer and that there were purportedly two finds. Keep in mind this was also in the early 20th century; it wasn't like rapid airline transport, digital photography and the Internet was a thing back then. It was a little harder to verify these sorts of claims given the technological limitations of the time.
• The fossils remained controversial in years to come as other hominid fossils were uncovered which contradicted the evolutionary development suggested by the Piltdown find. In fact, you can find references prior to the uncovering of the fraud that suggested at the very least they may have been misidentified.
• Nobody actually though someone would deliberately perpetuate a fraud and to what end. It certainly wasn't to "prove evolution". Rather it seemed more like a case of seeking personal fame by at least one of the discoverers.

Creationists have since distorted the historical view of Piltdown Man to make it seems like this was a combined effort by the entire scientific community to perpetuate this hoax for the purpose of proving evolution. But the historical account of the discovery is nothing of the sort.

I hope you don't mind if I present a different take on the scandal:

"Evolutionists often express irritation when Piltdown Man and other fakes are raised by their opponents. A common attempt to put a ‘positive spin’ on the whole affair is to portray it as a ‘plus’ for science, demonstrating its allegedly ‘self-correcting nature’. After all, we are told, it was evolutionary scientists themselves who discovered the fraud. However, the issue is not the hoax as such; the scandal of Piltdown is that such an amateurish, clumsy and obvious fraud (even showing filemarks on the teeth) went undetected for over 40 years. Generations were indoctrinated into the ‘fact of evolution’ via Piltdown gracing countless textbooks and encyclopedias.

"Many scientists, including people writing doctoral theses, had access to the bones, and they were laboriously studied. No-one saw the hoax at the time, but afterwards, it all seemed obvious; things like the file marks suddenly sprang into view. It was clear that even highly qualified scientists had simply seen what they were looking for and ignored that which did not fit their preconception. It is also no surprise that the hoax was not uncovered until after other ‘plausible candidates’ for man’s evolutionary ancestry were on the horizon." [Monty White, "The Piltdown Man Fraud." Creation Ministries International, 2006] ​

I recommend the book "Unraveling Piltdown" as a good read on the subject. It frames the detective/mystery novel which makes it an interesting account given the subject matter.

I will research it.

Dan

 

[Bible Research Tools]

Speaking of fraud over decades ,creation “science” fits the bill perfectly

Clever.

Dan

 

[USincognito]

Baloney.

Mmm hmm.

Evolution, like all other historical philosophies,

Some folks might fall for misusing words and phrases like that, but the science advocates here actually know what we're talking about. Evolution is science. Period.

cannot be falsified without a time machine.

Heh. There are literally (and I mean literally) millions of potential observations that could be made that would falisfy evolution.
- An Ordovician dinosaur
- A bird with wings and feathers (or any other hexapod vertebrate)
- Human DNA being closer to armadillos than to primates
- Iguanas with mammary glands or lobsters with a backbone
- Plants with melanocytes
etc. etc.

That said, there are far more plausible theories on the origin of the geological column and the fossil record that traditional evolutionism theories.

Since "evolutionism" doesn't exist there are no "evolutionism theories". Evolution also doesn't explain the geological column and you still seem not to understand what a scientific theory is. There are bogus claims made by Creationists that are either simplistic to the point of ridiculousness (billions of dead things buried) or inane (oak trees running faster up hills than theropods).

I believe I asked you if you were aware that mathematics was not falsifiable.

Yeah, it's a dumb question so I didn't see any value in responding to it. It also had nothing to do with what I wrote.

So?

How clever.

Your frequent use of the phrase "non sequitar" is noted.

Awesome. Stop peppering your responses with them and I'll stop pointing them out.

Prove it (there is that "word", again).

care to try again

Frankly, the research of anyone who believes humans and chimpanzees might have a common ancestor should be automatically labeled as suspicious.

Quite humorous given that it's not a "belief", we have evidence, and even more humorous given that those who deny common ancestry usually have no idea what that evidence is. They just know "in their gut" that it's wrong or doesn't actually exist. To them it's just common sense that it's impossible humans and chimpanzees are related.

 

[USincognito]

This is the context listed in the article I linked a while back:

Thus, what follows are examples of textbooks that

(1) Show embryo drawings that are either Haeckel’s originals or highly similar or near-identical versions of Haeckel’s illustrations — drawings that downplay and misrepresent the differences among early stages of vertebrate embryos;

(2) Have used these drawings as evidence for currentevolutionary theory and not simply to provide some kind of historical context for evolutionary thinking;

(3) Have used their Haeckel-based drawings to overstate the actual similarities between early embryos, which is the key misrepresentation made by Haeckel, even if the textbooks do not completely endorse Haeckel’s false “recapitulation” theory. They then cite these overstated similarities as still-valid evidence for common ancestry.​

​

For the record, there are many other misrepresentations currently or previously presented to our children as proof of evolution, such as the Muller-Urey experiment, peppered moths, Darwin’s finches, and Archaeopteryx, to name a few.

Since Miller-Urey was an experiment to test hypotheses about the origin of life it is by definition not evidence (you really need to read this article about "proof" and science )for evolution. Peppered moths, the Darwin's finches and Archaeopteryx are all evidence for evolution.

The author of the 2015 article also made this statement:

The author of that opinion piece is Casey Luskin who, until he was laid off, worked as a shill for the Discovery Institute just like Jonathan Wells.

​

In the fairness of full disclosure, Jonathan Wells is not a creation scientist.

Indeed. He is a Creationist, but he's not a scientist. In fact he doesn't even seem to have a profile on Google Scholar.
Profiles

 

[USincognito]

Answer them and then we shall see how much you know.

I already demonstrated my knowledge by bringing them up. But if you are more interested in playing childish games like this than showing you bring more to the table than vacuous rhetoric I'm going to go something more productive like telling a Star Wars fan site how great The Last Jedi was. At least they'll actually engage in conversation.

 

[Bible Research Tools]

Read the faith statements yourself:

Statement of Faith
Foundational Principles

I was being sarcastic. It is common knowledge that Christians believe the bible above the theories of mere men. But no doubt Christians are also fallible in their interpretations.

My personal rule of interpretations is founded on the belief that it is always a good idea not to add anything to the text, or take anything away from it, unless it is obviously poetic or symbolic. If a passage written in the Old Testament is presented in the New Testament as fact, it is probably a good idea to consider it to be factual, rather than symbolic. For example, Noah and the flood are mentioned five times in the New Testament, in this manner:

"But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." -- Mat 24:37-39 KJV

"And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all." -- Luk 17:26-27 KJV

"By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith." -- Heb 11:7 KJV

"For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water." -- 1Pet 3:18-20 KJV

"For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;" -- 2Pet 2:4-5 KJV​

I would be foolish to believe the flood happened in any way other than the way it is written.

As I said, the Muller-Urey experiment is an example of organic compounds forming via precursors. It's part of the evidence for the origin of life, but it would not be a singular "proof". Science doesn't deal in absolute proofs.

Evidence? You cannot be serious.

I'm not aware of every instance of how it has been taught, so I certainly can't speak to that and it's silly to even ask.

Try this article:

"The assertion in the text that ‘the molecules on which life depends arose as an “organic soup”’ has no basis in any real evidence. Why is it here? The text tries to justify this statement by explaining the Miller and Urey experiments, but these are irrelevant, because their starting assumption about the ‘primitive’ atmosphere has been proven wrong. They have as much to do with evolution as medieval attempts to produce gold from base metals (alchemy), and have about as much chance of success. The statement that these experiments explain ‘how life may have begun on earth’ is misleading and contradicts the book’s own chapter one explanation that ‘life only comes from life’. It is a fairy tale." [Gordon Howard, "Kid Con: how biology texts mislead high school students." Creation Ministries International, 2007]

Kid Con - creation.com​

It's an example of natural selection, one of the mechanisms of evolution.

Are you saying it proves evolution, or just the obvious microevolution part?

Transitional fossils are defined by fossils as having characteristics of two or more taxa. Archaeopteryx most certainly meets the definition of being transitional in that respect.

Should you not first prove that macroevolution has even occurred, before imagining transitional fossils?

Over-representation of what?

Over-representation of being proof of evolutionism.

Dan

 

[USincognito]

This is from the Wikipedia article. The info is accurate. Jonathan Wells is a Moonie. They are known to deliberately use deceit to convince people that their particular sect is the “ Truth” . Which means it isn’t surprising that Wells used misquotes and deceptive edits . Which is also a typical creationist tactic

Icons of Evolution is terrible book. NCSE rips it apart yet we're still seeing it's garbage floating around the Internet. (note the mantra like repetition and laundry list "argumentation" we're seeing - it's all just working through Wells' chapter titles)
Icons of Evolution?

 

[USincognito]

I have never heard of a dentist named Carl Werner. You are not referring to this physician, are you?

I think you know the answer to that question. I mean, unlike many Creationists, I actually know the names of these folks even if I forget their, ahem, "credentials".

​

 

[USincognito]

I hope you don't mind if I present a different take on the scandal:

His spin complaining about the spin of scientists is quite humorous.

The simple fact is Piltdown was questioned as early as 1913 and wasn't accepted as widely by French, German and American scientists as it was by the English who embraced it with a chauvinistic pride. The reason it was revisited and uncovered is because while the skull told a "big brain first" story, the many legitimate finds between 1912 and 1954 we're telling an entirely different story of "bipedalism first".