Evolution: the Facts.

[Dr Adequate]

[swiki]Chromosome 2[/swiki].

 

[Dr Adequate]

If any of you have any questions about the Chimpanzee Genome Project, I am on friendly terms with one of the authors on the paper. He posts infrequently and lurks quite often at CF.

What's his name?

 

[Dr Adequate]

[swiki]Molecular Clocks[/swiki]. I've reused the argument about chimp and human genomes from the chap off CF.

Also, [swiki]Evolution and Falsification[/swiki], just a quick look at one of the more arrantly foolish creationist claims.

 

[The Atheist]

[swiki]Molecular Clocks[/swiki]. I've reused the argument about chimp and human genomes from the chap off CF.

Also, [swiki]Evolution and Falsification[/swiki], just a quick look at one of the more arrantly foolish creationist claims.

You have gained one Kudo for your work in this thread.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

What's his name?

To the best of my recollection (and a Google Scholar search) - Stephen F. Schaffner

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

I know that many of the people posting in this forum are involved in math/science, but I wanted to share a recent reply I gave to a PRATT list on another forum so that lurkers who, like me, are not biologists, paelontologists or formally trained in science can see how, with a little familiarity and a handful of website, a long Creationist post can be demolished in a relatively short amount of time.

Here's the original post if you want to see it in all its PRATTish glory. It's quite long. Punctuation is virtually absent. He presents over a dozen hominid fossils and claims about them. Since I've become so familiar with Creationist PRATTs, though, it only took me about an hour to craft my response.
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Evolutions' Hoaxes and Retractions
Below is a summary of some famous discoveries and what eventually became of them.

Actually no. This list, whereever you got it from, is full of mistakes, legends and outright lies that you're repeating. Let's test these supposed "hoaxes and retractions" versus reality.

Discovery What was found What it was Java Man 1891-92 by Eugene Dubois in Java on the Solo river. A skull cap, fifty feet away a femur, and, later in another location, three teeth. A hoax. They were the skull of a gibbon and a human leg bone. They were found a year apart but not in the same spot.

Not a hoax and the skull is that of a H. erectus, not a Gibbon. Also one find was by Du Bois, the other was not.

Piltdown Man Eoanthropous 1911-12, England. Named Eoanthropus Dawsoni (Dawson's Dawn Man). A Hoax discovered in 1953. It was believed for 40 years. It was a fraud by a group of scientists. A human skull and the jaw of an ape were stained to look old.

I devoted an entire formal debate to why Creationists should not cite Piltdown. Here's the abbreviated version. There were questions immediately about the legitimacy of the find. American and French scientists were especially dubtful. There weren't that many finds in 1912, only Neanderthal and Java predated it. As the finds in Africa and Asia were unearthed, the doubt continued to grow.

Also, it's a lie that it was a "fraud by a group of scientists". It simply is unknown who the forger was and the British scientists who supported Piltdown were dupes, not perps.

Peking Man China 1920, original bones lost. Found in a cave with thousands of animal bones. The human bones appeared to be cannibalized Bones from a garbage dump. No evidence of transitional forms.

Incorrect. Peking Man was an H. erectus.

Australopithecines The Southern Ape from Africa Most experts say they are all apes.

No they do not.

Evolutionists claim that they are our ancestors Lucy 1974, Ethiopia. Australopithecines. A fossil skeleton 40% complete. Bones found miles apart at different depths. The hip was cut and reglued so that it looked like she walked upright Still in dispute but they are apes that were just as bipedal as other monkeys. A fraud was also committed.

No fraud. Her knee joint is the key indicator to her bipedalism, not just her hip. And the hip was demonstrably compressed during the fossilization process. It's also a myth that her bones were found "miles apart".

Rhodesian Man 1921, declared to be one million years old Modern person with dental problems from a modern diet and a hole in his skull from either a bullet or a crossbow (both modern weapons)

Rhodesia Man has been dated to between 125,000 and 300,000 years old, and probably an H. hidelbergensis. And no, it wasn't a bullet or crossbow bolt that made the injury.

cont. in part 2 (I did it in two posts on the other forum)

Taung African Man South Africa 1924, "Skull" A young ape

Actually a partial skull and an endocast of the brain. The part we have includes something very important the foramen magnum

However, there was one additional feature to the Taung Child that was not easily explained away as a characteristic of an immature ape. The position of the foramen magnum, or the hole through which the spinal chord connects with the brain, was positioned well to the front of the skull, an adaptation of a bipedal creature whose head would rest atop the neck in a relatively balanced position. Conversely, a quadrupedal ape whose head would rest in front of the neck, would need a foramen magnum positioned to the rear of the head to keep its eyes facing forward, and not down, as it moved. If this truly was a chimpanzee, and not an early human, why the forward positioning of the foramen magnum?

Taung child was an early human. Not an chimpanzee.

Nebraska Man Midwest 1922, Single molar tooth, used as evidence in the Scope's Monkey trial Tooth of an extinct pig. Living specimens of the same pig were found in Paraguay in 1972. It used to be in many museums as proof of evolution.

Much like Piltdown, Creationists should stop citing Nebraska Man as it was a case of misidentification and never taken seriously by the scientific community (a human in North America would falsify evolutionary theory). Also it's a myth that Nebraska Man was used in the Scopes trial.

Creationists often claim that Nebraska Man was used as proof of evolution during the Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925, but this claim is apocryphal. No scientific evidence was presented at the trial. (Some evidence was read into the trial record, but even this did not refer to Nebraska Man.)

The last part about Nebraska Man being used in many museums is simply a lie.

Nutcracker Man 1959, set of mismatched bones discovered by Louis Leakey The discoverer conceded that it was the skull of an ape

Wrong on so many levels in such a short sentence.

Skull 1470 1973, 2.8 million year old skull by Richard Leakey A modern person (such as a teen) with a small brain

H. rudolphensis, not a human as can be seen in the skull. Paleontologists are open to reclassification, but into another hominid genus, not H. sapiens.

Ramapithicus 1961. A few teeth and a jawbone. From this they deduced that it walked upright. Ancestor of an orangutan.

And was it Creationists who determined it wasn't a hominid or paleontologists who, looking at other finds, realized it was not?

Neanderthal 1908, France-Germany, described as totally human. Deformed vertebra from arthritis. DNA studies show no link to any human groups.

Your date is off by 50 years, finds range from Spain to Israel and no, they weren't normal humans with arthritis, rickets, or whatever.

Archaeoraptor 1999, China. The missing link between the bird and reptiles Fake. Dinosaur glued to a bird.

Apart from the word fake, all of your commentary is incorrect. Birds evolved from dinosaurs, not from reptiles (mammals split from reptiles). Archeoraptor was perpetrated by a greedy farmer, unscrupulous fossil merchants and succeeded because National Geographic failed to fully vet it. Once it was studied by paleontologists - not Creationists - it was exposed as a fake and National Geographic printed a full retraction.

Archaeopteryx Bones that were thought to be the missing link between the bird and reptiles It is a bird, not a missing link. A complete skeleton and the femur of a bird were later found

Sorry, but this is incorrect.

Similar in size and shape to a European Magpie, Archaeopteryx could grow to about 0.5 metres (1.6 ft) in length. Despite its small size, broad wings, and ability to fly, Archaeopteryx has more in common with small theropod dinosaurs than it does with modern birds. In particular, it shares the following features with the deinonychosaurs (dromaeosaurs and troodontids): jaws with sharp teeth, three fingers with claws, a long bony tail, hyperextensible second toes ("killing claw"), feathers (which also suggest homeothermy), and various skeletal features.

Hobbit (Homo Floresiensis) Flores, Indonesia. Female, 3 feet tall and multiple individuals and animals in a cave. New human species. Lived 18000 years ago. Date of bones ranged from 18000, 37000 and 74000 years A pygmy with a brain shrinking disease. Locals claimed they were short, hairy people called the Abu-Gogo who lived in caves at the time of their grandparents. The 56000 year difference in age suggests an error in our dating methods

Not really.

While it was desperate scientists who perpetrated the hoax, it is still good science that exposed them. However, they have a fatal flaw due to their bias and wishful thinking. There is a distinct lack of credible links between man and ape. They should be all over the place why are there none ?

Apart from the links I've already provided you can look Here, Here, Here, Here or Here and that's just to get you started.

 

[steenkh]

I know that many of the people posting in this forum are involved in math/science, but I wanted to share a recent reply I gave to a PRATT list on another forum

UnrepentantSinner, that just looks great! Would it perhaps be possible for you to work it into the SkepticWiki so that it does not get buried together with this thread?

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

UnrepentantSinner, that just looks great! Would it perhaps be possible for you to work it into the SkepticWiki so that it does not get buried together with this thread?

Thanks. I have a Skeptiwiki ID/login, but have been... hell, might as well admit it, lazy in following up on some of the early articles I suggested. Perhaps I'll start with Piltdown Man since it's the hominid fossil "objection" I've dealth with the most and work out from there.

 

[Dr Adequate]

That would be great.

---

P.S: I added an article about the [swiki]platypus[/swiki].

 

[arthwollipot]

That would be great.

---

P.S: I added an article about the [swiki]platypus[/swiki].

I don't have a SW logon, and my wiki-fu is poor, but I suggest the following change:

These are qualities that the platypus has in common with the other living monotremes, the less famous echidnas, or spiny anteaters.

The phrase "duckbilled platypus" is also a personal bugbear of mine, for the reasons you outline in the article. Whenever I hear someone refer to a "duckbilled platypus" I want to reply "as opposed to the other kind..."

 

[Dr Adequate]

I put in "also known as echidnas" and I took out the bit in the "Anatomy" section where I called it a "duck-billed platypus", because that is one of my bugbears too, I can't think how that got in there.

Thanks.

 

[jimbob]

From the News Quiz:

How do you turn a platypus into a soul singer?

put it in the microwave until its Bill Withers

Sorry

Anyway, thanks Dr A...

 

[arthwollipot]

I put in "also known as echidnas" and I took out the bit in the "Anatomy" section where I called it a "duck-billed platypus", because that is one of my bugbears too, I can't think how that got in there.

Thanks.

Dr A, you're doing a really great job and all, but I have to trip you up here.

They're not spiny anteaters, also known as echidnas. They're echidnas, also known as spiny anteaters. And only outside their native country. No child in Australia will know what you're talking about if you refer to a spiny anteater. Echidna is their correct name.

Sorry to be so anal about it, but you do want to be factually correct, right?

 

[Dr Adequate]

Cheers.

 

[arthwollipot]

 

[Dr Adequate]

[swiki]Lateral Gene Transfer[/swiki].

 

[sphenisc]

[swiki]Lateral Gene Transfer[/swiki].

"We have already given the example of Wolbachia, of Agrobacterium, and of yeast as cases of eukaryotes acquiring genetic material from bacteria. "

This line is confusing - Agrobacterium is the bacterium, not the eukaryote, in the example; and the section on Wolbachia doesn't make it clear what it is.

 

[Dr Adequate]

"We have already given the example of Wolbachia, of Agrobacterium, and of yeast as cases of eukaryotes acquiring genetic material from bacteria. "

This line is confusing - Agrobacterium is the bacterium, not the eukaryote, in the example; and the section on Wolbachia doesn't make it clear what it is.

Thanks, I've rewritten that bit for clarity and mentioned that Wolbachia is a bacterium.

It needs pictures, I'll go and find some.

 

[shadron]

The phrase "duckbilled platypus" is also a personal bugbear of mine, for the reasons you outline in the article. Whenever I hear someone refer to a "duckbilled platypus" I want to reply "as opposed to the other kind..."

Ah, come, duck-billed is just a (loose) translation of ornithorhynthus, or bird-like snout, which is it's genus. The species, anatinus, translates as duck-like. They originally wanted to call it Platypus (flat-bill), but that was already taken by a beetle, and they tried Ornithorhynchus paradoxus, from he fits it gave the European zoologists.

There is no universally agreed upon plural of "platypus" in the English language. Scientists generally use "platypuses" or simply "platypus". Colloquially, "platypi" is also used for the plural, although this is pseudo-Latin;[3] the Greek plural would be "platypodes". Early British settlers called it by many names, such as watermole, duckbill, and duckmole.[3] The name "Platypus" is often prefixed with the adjective "duck-billed" to form Duck-billed Platypus, despite there being only one species of Platypus.[9]

 

[CapelDodger]

The phrase "duckbilled platypus" is also a personal bugbear of mine, for the reasons you outline in the article. Whenever I hear someone refer to a "duckbilled platypus" I want to reply "as opposed to the other kind..."

The other kind being the sparrow- and eagle-billed platypuses, currently out-of-print. As pentameters they were equally appealing, but in real life they just couldn't cut it.