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What you also fail to take into account is that 1) the disproval of false findings was the result of the scientific methodology of self-correction, not creationists and that 2) the number of fossils we currently have in storage rank in the billions and billions, so just because one was a forgery does not put into questions these billions of fossils. Holocaust deniers do the same thing; they point out inconsistencies in a single eyewitness account and then claim that this overturns the massive amount of converging evidence for the Holocaust. This is not the case.

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There is no comparison here to the holocaust, by the way. Human activities and scientific findings are not comparable.

-------
"God does not play dice" - Albert Einstein
"God does play dice" - Stephen Hawking

Bohica

So wait that makes Human's the offspring of a retarded monkeyfish?

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No, mainly because if you honestly think we evolved from monkeys then what did monkey's evolve from fish?

So wait that makes Human's the offspring of a retarded monkeyfish?

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What I believe is that right now it'll be really hard for anyone to disprove it. Real scientists don't boast as much about "knowing" things as they do proving things wrong. ;)

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She rocks!!!!

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Quote: from Moridin at 6:09 am on June 29, 2009

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What you also fail to take into account is that 1) the disproval of false findings was the result of the scientific methodology of self-correction, not creationists and that 2) the number of fossils we currently have in storage rank in the  billions and billions, so just because one was a forgery does not put into questions these billions of fossils. Holocaust deniers do the same thing; they point out inconsistencies in a single eyewitness account and then claim that this overturns the massive amount of converging evidence for the Holocaust. This is not the case.

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No, I didn't 'fail to take into account' anything. I merely included an example of 'mistaken identity' which took 40 years to get straight, no matter what you want to claim. And, as you said, if it hadn't been shown to be false, it only takes one contrary FACT to collapse that house of cards.  

There is no comparison here to the holocaust, by the way. Human activities and scientific findings are not comparable.

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If you did not fail to take into account those factors I listed such as the fact that 1) no one has used it as scientific evidence for evolution and that 2) it was seen as unreliable almost instantly? What axe are you trying to grind?

The methods of Holocaust deniers is clearly analogous in many respects to that of creationists, so it is certainly relevant.

-------
"The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the
shoreline of wonder" (Ralph W. Sockman)

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No, mainly because if you honestly think we evolved from monkeys then what did monkey's evolve from fish?

So wait that makes Human's the offspring of a retarded monkeyfish?

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If only you knew how utterly idiotic this makes you sound. You're obviously completely uneducated on the subject of Evolution.

It's pretty obvious you don't like evolution because it contradicts your religious beliefs.

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Quote: from Forever Angel at 2:53 am on July 1, 2009

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Quote: from Moridin at 6:09 am on June 29, 2009

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What you also fail to take into account is that 1) the disproval of false findings was the result of the scientific methodology of self-correction, not creationists and that 2) the number of fossils we currently have in storage rank in the billions and billions, so just because one was a forgery does not put into questions these billions of fossils. Holocaust deniers do the same thing; they point out inconsistencies in a single eyewitness account and then claim that this overturns the massive amount of converging evidence for the Holocaust. This is not the case.

---

No, I didn't 'fail to take into account' anything. I merely included an example of 'mistaken identity' which took 40 years to get straight, no matter what you want to claim. And, as you said, if it hadn't been shown to be false, it only takes one contrary FACT to collapse that house of cards.

 There is no comparison here to the holocaust, by the way. Human activities and scientific findings are not comparable.

---

If you did not fail to take into account those factors I listed such as the fact that 1) no one has used it as scientific evidence for evolution and that 2) it was seen as unreliable almost instantly? What axe are you trying to grind?

The methods of Holocaust deniers is clearly analogous in many respects to that of creationists, so it is certainly relevant.

---

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There is a certain vagueness about some of the critical events. Dawson contacted Woodward about the first two skull fragments which were supposedly found by workman "some years prior". Exactly when is unknown. Similarly, the discovery of Piltdown II is shrouded in mystery. Supposedly Dawson and an anonymous friend make the discovery 1915; however the friend and the location of the find are unknown.

The reaction to the finds was mixed. On the whole the British paleontologists were enthusiastic; the French and American paleontologists tended to be skeptical, some objected quite vociferously. The objectors held that the jawbone and the skull were obviously from two different animals and that their discovery together was simply an accident of placement. In the period 1912-1917 there was a great deal of skepticism. The report in 1917 of the discovery of Piltdown II converted many of the skeptics; one accident of placement was plausible -- two were not.

It should be remembered that, at the time of Piltdown finds, there were very few early hominid fossils; Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens were clearly fairly late. It was expected that there was a "missing link" between ape and man. It was an open question as to what that missing link would look like. Piltdown man had the expected mix of features, which lent it plausibility as a human precursor.

This plausibility did not hold up. During the next two decades there were a number of finds of ancient hominids and near hominids, e.g. Dart's discovery of Australopithecus, the Peking man discoveries, and other Homo erectus and australopithecine finds. Piltdown man did not fit in with the new discoveries. None the less, Sir Arthur Keith (a major defender of Piltdown man) wrote in 1931:

   "It is therefore possible that Piltdown man does represent the early pleistocene ancestor of the modern type of man, He may well be the ancestor we have been in search of during all these past years. I am therefore inclined to make the Piltdown type spring from the main ancestral stem of modern humanity..."

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I realize that you revere science and reject any notion that it could ever be mistaken, but as long as humans are involved, mistakes will be made on occasion. Some honestly, some not so honestly. That is my point here. What some of us "think" we know may not be completely correct. Even if "science" says it's so.

-------
"God does not play dice" - Albert Einstein
"God does play dice" - Stephen Hawking

Bohica

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Quote: from Forever Angel at 9:06 pm on June 28, 2009

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My only 'agenda' here is questioning how you can know something that isn't "proven" and may have discrepancies in the evidence that favors it. I'm not trying to discredit it.

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I guess then according to you, it's all up for semantics then: proof, evidence, favors.

I'd like to think scientific inquiry and it's conclusions can be accepted without even a shred of faith. Don't you like to think that?

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Of course I'd like to think that. But I realize that people make mistakes. And we are constantly finding new evidence that modifies those conclusions. It's almost impossible to state "this is the way it is, was and will always be" with any certainty in most fields of scientific inquiry.

-------
"God does not play dice" - Albert Einstein
"God does play dice" - Stephen Hawking

Bohica

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Quote: from Moridin at 3:46 am on July 1, 2009

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Quote: from Forever Angel at 2:53 am on July 1, 2009

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Quote: from Moridin at 6:09 am on June 29, 2009

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What you also fail to take into account is that 1) the disproval of false findings was the result of the scientific methodology of self-correction, not creationists and that 2) the number of fossils we currently have in storage rank in the  billions and billions, so just because one was a forgery does not put into questions these billions of fossils. Holocaust deniers do the same thing; they point out inconsistencies in a single eyewitness account and then claim that this overturns the massive amount of converging evidence for the Holocaust. This is not the case.

---

No, I didn't 'fail to take into account' anything. I merely included an example of 'mistaken identity' which took 40 years to get straight, no matter what you want to claim. And, as you said, if it hadn't been shown to be false, it only takes one contrary FACT to collapse that house of cards.    

  There is no comparison here to the holocaust, by the way. Human activities and scientific findings are not comparable.

---

 

 If you did not fail to take into account those factors I listed such as the fact that 1) no one has used it as scientific evidence for evolution and that 2) it was seen as unreliable almost instantly? What axe are you trying to grind?  

 The methods of Holocaust deniers is clearly analogous in many respects to that of creationists, so it is certainly relevant.

---

I have no axe to grind, I'm not trying to disprove anything about evolution. But according to some reports, the "piltdown man" wasn't 'rejected' or 'dismissed' anywhere close to instantly. And if you'd bothered to read what I said, I was talking about it being determined to be a "purposeful" mistake.

---

There is a certain vagueness about some of the critical events. Dawson contacted Woodward about the first two skull fragments which were supposedly found by workman "some years prior". Exactly when is unknown. Similarly, the discovery of Piltdown II is shrouded in mystery. Supposedly Dawson and an anonymous friend make the discovery 1915; however the friend and the location of the find are unknown.

The reaction to the finds was mixed. On the whole the British paleontologists were enthusiastic; the French and American paleontologists tended to be skeptical, some objected quite vociferously. The objectors held that the jawbone and the skull were obviously from two different animals and that their discovery together was simply an accident of placement. In the period 1912-1917 there was a great deal of skepticism. The report in 1917 of the discovery of Piltdown II converted many of the skeptics; one accident of placement was plausible -- two were not.

It should be remembered that, at the time of Piltdown finds, there were very few early hominid fossils; Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens were clearly fairly late. It was expected that there was a "missing link" between ape and man. It was an open question as to what that missing link would look like. Piltdown man had the expected mix of features, which lent it plausibility as a human precursor.

This plausibility did not hold up. During the next two decades there were a number of finds of ancient hominids and near hominids, e.g. Dart's discovery of Australopithecus, the Peking man discoveries, and other Homo erectus and australopithecine finds. Piltdown man did not fit in with the new discoveries. None the less, Sir Arthur Keith (a major defender of Piltdown man) wrote in 1931:

  "It is therefore possible that Piltdown man does represent the early pleistocene ancestor of the modern type of man, He may well be the ancestor we have been in search of during all these past years. I am therefore inclined to make the Piltdown type spring from the main ancestral stem of modern humanity..."

---

Piltdown

I realize that you revere science and reject any notion that it could ever be mistaken, but as long as humans are involved, mistakes will be made on occasion. Some honestly, some not so honestly. That is my point here. What some of us "think" we know may not be completely correct. Even if "science" says it's so.

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It isn't "science" that say is, it is the mountains of mountains of mutually supporting evidence from many, many independent sources.

Your quote supports by position (see my enlargement). Well done. The points here is still that 1) no one has ever argued that Piltdown man is evidence for evolution and 2) the fact that one 'fossil' was a hoax does not mean that the billions of billions of fossils we have that clearly supports evolution are false and that 3) the refutation of the Piltdown man was an example of the self-correction of science, not of the success of creationism. The fact that you can find a crazed and missguided looney who states otherwise is not impressive to anyone, just like Holocaust deniers pointing to a single historian who agrees with them is evidence that the Holocaust never happened (it isn't).

Because you are explicitly refusing to understand these arguments you force me to conclude that you have an ideological creationist agenda.

-------
"The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the
shoreline of wonder" (Ralph W. Sockman)

And you can rationalize all you want, you're still wrong. I never even intimated that evolution was false. I never said anything about creationism or the failure of science. I dearly love how you misconstrue what I said and interpret it to mean something entirely different. You aren't arguing against what I actually said, you're arguing against your interpretation.

And I hope you do conclude that I have "an ideological creationist agenda". In fact, I hope you gather billions and billions of bits of data backing your conclusion. And then put your scientific method to work proving it. Then I can really laugh at you.

-------
"God does not play dice" - Albert Einstein
"God does play dice" - Stephen Hawking

Bohica

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Of course I'd like to think that. But I realize that people make mistakes. And we are constantly finding new evidence that modifies those conclusions. It's almost impossible to state "this is the way it is, was and will always be" with any certainty in most fields of scientific inquiry.

---

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Quote: from Charolastra at 5:46 pm on June 28, 2009

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Quote: from Forever Angel at 2:56 pm on June 28, 2009

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But it is open to being modified and falsified. I simply accept it because it fits what we now know.

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All scientific theories should be falsifiable. I have no personal attachment to the theory, if it fits it fits, if it doesn't discard. But based on what we know now, there's more than a wealth of evidence in it's favor. It's just good science.

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My objection is to the "I know" statement. You can "believe" and/or "accept" that it's correct or that it's true, but "know" it is? I'm not sure you can go that far.

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Yes, I know evolution is true (read: "supported by massive amount of evidence). That's the only thing you should read into that statement of knowledge. Same goes for cells. I know cells exist, but there is a very, very, very astronomically small chance that someday evidence will disprove this. This does not somehow make it invalid to say that we know that cells exist.

-------
"The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the
shoreline of wonder" (Ralph W. Sockman)

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I have no idea why you keep wanting to inject the Holocaust into this discussion.

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Holocaust deniers and creationists use the same tactics.  

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And you can rationalize all you want, you're still wrong.

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I have conclusively proven my position and refuted yours. That statement above is just your way of trying to rationalize the faliure of your own worldview. When the enormous flaws in your worldview is pointed out to you, to just put your fingers in your ear, run around and shout la-la-la-la-la I can't hear you.

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I never even intimated that evolution was false. I never said anything about creationism or the failure of science.

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You where trying to undermine the evidence from paleontology supporting evolution by citing a forgery that was pretty already inconsistent with other, more credible findings at the same time.

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And I hope you do conclude that I have "an ideological creationist agenda".

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No one but creationists cite the Piltdown man in their attempts to undermine the evolutionary sciences.

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In fact, I hope you gather billions and billions of bits of data backing your conclusion. And then put your scientific method to work proving it. Then I can really laugh at you.

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Yes, all of your posts on livewire represents this data backing my conclusion. I do concede that you have at best an elementary understanding of evolution, but I still think you're a stealthy creationist at heart.

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"The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the
shoreline of wonder" (Ralph W. Sockman)