Coral Ridge Ministries and CSI

[aharvey]

Originally posted by Nineveh

Speaking of "science" news, have you gotten a load of the new reviews of Joan Roughgarden's Book in "Science" and "Nature" on bisexuality?

Alright, Nineveh, I have to ask: did you read these reviews (especially the one in Nature), or are you parroting some creationist site?

 

[Nineveh]

Originally posted by aharvey

Alright, Nineveh, I have to ask: did you read these reviews (especially the one in Nature), or are you parroting some creationist site?

No, I didn't read the reviews of the book, nor have I read the book, why should I?

I don't buy into a theory of sexual selection, nor do I believe a transsexual biologist has anything but an agenda to sell.

Did you? Was it good? What did I miss by using that time instead to dust, brush my teeth and breath?

 

[aharvey]

Originally posted by Nineveh

No, I didn't read the reviews of the book, nor have I read the book, why should I?

I don't buy into a theory of sexual selection, nor do I believe a transsexual biologist has anything but an agenda to sell.

Did you? Was it good? What did I miss by using that time instead to dust, brush my teeth and breath?

Well, I’m genuinely relieved, as this means your posts on Archaeoraptor are uninformed instead of deceptive. The former is an honest mistake I can deal with, the latter is hard to stomach.

You see, the very same issue of Nature that contains the Roughgarden book review (which you did not read before heaping scorn on it; well done!) also contains a news story entitled “Feathered fossils cause a flap in museums.” This story discusses the controversy surrounding a traveling exhibit assembled by Stephen and Sylvia Czerkas (does the name ring a bell?). Here’s an excerpt from the story:

“Stephen Czerkas is an artist who is self-taught in palaeontology, and Sylvia serves as museum curator. Five years ago, the couple were involved in an international controversy after their museum bought a fossil, called Archaeoraptor, for $80,000 at a fossil show in Tucson, Arizona.

The fossil appeared in National Geographic magazine after failed attempts to publish it in both Nature and Science. But it was subsequently found to be a forged composite from two different species (see Nature 410, 539; 2001), put together in China to resemble a ‘missing link’ between dinosaurs and birds. {Nineveh, here’s the important part for you} It was returned there in 2000, and segments later generated scientific papers by Chinese authors and by Stephen Czerkas.”

So your claim that “the archaeoraptor hoax is being promoted to children” is completely incorrect. The specimen is not in the Czerkas’s private museum in Utah, despite what the web site of the San Juan County Community Development group implies. Even if it were, and allow me to reemphasize that it is not, the Czerkases are not professional paleontologists, and their museum is their own private museum, so they have the legal right to include whatever (legal) garbage they please in it, just like any private creationist web site or museum. But please stop thinking that this incident, which you’ve incorrectly characterized from the start, is in any way condoned by professional scientists. It is not.

 

[Stratnerd]

The link has a drawing of a ( "whole cloth" ) Archaeoraptor but does not mention the bones specifically. I guess if you really care, take that $50 and visit a museum that claims to have them on display.

I don't see any musuems that have A'raptor on display so the feathered dinosaurs probably include the others specimens.

 

[Stratnerd]

Jukia -

Your original post on this thread was touting Coral Ridge's 4000 year old mammoth bones from FL. When I spoke with Tom DeRosa it was clear that the scientific investigation they undertook was sadly lacking in method and results. Yet I have not seen anyone suggesting that perhaps Coral Ridge should back off on its claims unless and until they can better substantiate them. Instead we get a list of hoaxes and fabrications put forth by "evolutonists".

I don't think that really is the point. Garbage is garbage whether it comes from creationists or evolutionists and should be exposed for what it is. Those in the main stream scientific community seem to have less difficulty in exposing fraud (or simple mistakes) than creationists.

AMEN!!!! Well said.

 

[Jukia]

aharvey: Nice post. Amazing what a little background checking can uncover.

 

[Stratnerd]

BoB.,

Technically this has nothing to do with ancestry

that is exactly is the point of dispute. But in systematics characters are everything and has all relevence to the idenfication of ancestry.

 

[Stratnerd]

I don't buy into a theory of sexual selection,

for humans or all organisms? It can be shown very easily with other animals.

 

[Dimo]

Nineveh, after considering that I do not have a comprehensive understanding of the genetic mechanisms regarding this subject of "future use", I realize that I cannot make a sound argument that what some call "junk" DNA has anything to do with the phenotype varations I mention.

I do believe, however that this issue is irrelevant to the overall thrust of what I believed to be your argument. If your argument is not that the term "junk" being a misnomer in any way undermines natural philosophy, then we are in agreement.

I am still not quite sure of the relevance of your argument. Are you saying that because some people do not have a comprehensive understanding of DNA, that the entire naturalistic model is incorrect?

Sorry if I seemed pompous, I did not mean to have the effect.

 

[Dimo]

Nineveh posted:

Personally, I find it hard to believe natural selection has a characteristic like precognition.

Dimo:

I have to say that I do not know. Since I am not quite sure that what we term precognition is prerequisite. If there is DNA that carries potential for phenotype changes, it would not neccessarily have to be because of precognition.

Again, I am not quite sure of the relevance of your problem.

 

[Free-Agent Smith]

Originally posted by aharvey

Well, I’m genuinely relieved, as this means your posts on Archaeoraptor are uninformed instead of deceptive. The former is an honest mistake I can deal with, the latter is hard to stomach.

You see, the very same issue of Nature that contains the Roughgarden book review (which you did not read before heaping scorn on it; well done!) also contains a news story entitled “Feathered fossils cause a flap in museums.” This story discusses the controversy surrounding a traveling exhibit assembled by Stephen and Sylvia Czerkas (does the name ring a bell?). Here’s an excerpt from the story:

“Stephen Czerkas is an artist who is self-taught in palaeontology, and Sylvia serves as museum curator. Five years ago, the couple were involved in an international controversy after their museum bought a fossil, called Archaeoraptor, for $80,000 at a fossil show in Tucson, Arizona.

The fossil appeared in National Geographic magazine after failed attempts to publish it in both Nature and Science. But it was subsequently found to be a forged composite from two different species (see Nature 410, 539; 2001), put together in China to resemble a ‘missing link’ between dinosaurs and birds. {Nineveh, here’s the important part for you} It was returned there in 2000, and segments later generated scientific papers by Chinese authors and by Stephen Czerkas.”

So your claim that “the archaeoraptor hoax is being promoted to children” is completely incorrect. The specimen is not in the Czerkas’s private museum in Utah, despite what the web site of the San Juan County Community Development group implies. Even if it were, and allow me to reemphasize that it is not, the Czerkases are not professional paleontologists, and their museum is their own private museum, so they have the legal right to include whatever (legal) garbage they please in it, just like any private creationist web site or museum. But please stop thinking that this incident, which you’ve incorrectly characterized from the start, is in any way condoned by professional scientists. It is not.

Apparently you missed this link on the website?:think:
It appears that Nineveh is right and you are the one that is uninformed or deceptive. Which is it?

San Diego Natural History Museum "Feathered Dinosaurs and the Origin of Flight ".

 

[Free-Agent Smith]

Originally posted by Jukia

aharvey: Nice post. Amazing what a little background checking can uncover.

Yes, amazing isn't it?
:smirk:

 

[Flipper]

Agent Smith:


Here is an image of one of six microraptor fossils from Liaoning that did pass the tomography test: http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_742255.html?menu=news.scienceanddiscovery

Perhaps you creationist folk might spend time better tackling the mounting body of real evidence and less time fussing about one fake that only got airplay because an amateur circumnavigated the scientific process.

 

[Flipper]

Nineveh:

It took 35 years for the truth to come out over Java Ape-Man.

Please explain?

 

[Stratnerd]

Apparently you missed this link on the website?
It appears that Nineveh is right and you are the one that is uninformed or deceptive. Which is it?

San Diego Natural History Museum "Feathered Dinosaurs and the Origin of Flight ".

there are numerous feathered dinosaurs - but I didn't see where Archaeoraptor was presented in any of these links.

 

[Flipper]

I think Archaeoraptor is the crittur portrayed on the dust cover of Czerkas's book. I wondered about that too.

I note that text for the book reads:

Several of the fossils in this volume will be featured in the 2004/05 traveling museum exhibit: Feathered Dinosaurs and the Origin of Flight, organized by The Dinosaur Museum and the Liaoning Fossil Administration Office.

Not sure if Archaeoraptor is actually in the book or not, but I doubt very much that it will be featured in the exhibition. The other page AS linked to didn't show or reference an Archaeoraptor.

 

[Free-Agent Smith]

Originally posted by Stratnerd

there are numerous feathered dinosaurs - but I didn't see where Archaeoraptor was presented in any of these links.

And from the article from SanDiego:

The recent discovery of spectacular fossils from China provides exciting new evidence concerning the on-going debate about the relationships of dinosaurs and birds and the origin of flight.

The traveling exhibition Feathered Dinosaurs and the Origin of Flight, will premiere at the San Diego Natural History Museum on February 7, 2004, and continue through September 7, 2004. This exhibition is the largest display of significant fossils regarding the origins of birds ever shown outside of the People's Republic of China. The San Diego Natural History Museum is the only U.S. venue to display Feathered Dinosaurs.

Now since the Archaeoraptor was proven a hoax and it is supposed to be the missing link, how will the origin of flight be proven?


I won't argue the idea that some dino's had feathers. But I don't think they used them to fly or evovle into birds. The PTEROSAURS
didn't have feathers and they flew. Why would some dinsaurs need feathers to fly when others didn't?

 

[Free-Agent Smith]

Originally posted by Flipper

Nineveh:



Please explain?

I quote this page.
from the article, again:

THE JAVA APE-MAN
In 1891 a Dutch army doctor, Eugene Dubois, stationed in Java, reported finding the "missing link" between man and animals! He discovered the top of a skull, three jaw teeth, and part of a thighbone. But he found them 70 feet apart, among many bones along a creek, over the period of a year! After completing his military service Dubois kept the bones in a trunk at home and sent pencil drawings to various evolutionary leaders and museums of the world who eagerly welcomed his "scientific" proof.

THE PITHECANTHROPUS ERECTUS!
Calling his find the Java Ape-Man or "Pithecanthropus erectus" (the ape-man that walks upright), evolutionists swallowed his "proof" without question and arrogantly declared to the world that the Ape-Man was 750,000 years old! Many leading scientists eagerly went to his Holland home to see for themselves those amazing bones, only for Dubois to turn them away at his door.

Finally, after about 35 years, the scientific world demanded to see and evaluate the bones for themselves. Twenty-four European scientists met and studied the bones. Ten said they were the bones of an ape; seven said they came from a man; and seven said they were not the bones of a "missing link!" No less an authority than H.G. Wells, the agnostic historian known for his two-volume Outline of History, said they were the bones of an ape. Even Dubois himself finally admitted that the bones were probably from an ape. But the Java Ape-Man has been paraded in museums and high school and college text books the world over as the "missing link" between man and animals, proving evolution! Almighty God must have had these worldly wise men in mind when He inspired the Apostle Paul to tell Timothy to "...keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science, falsely so called!" (1 Tim. 6:20).

Since you missed it back on page 3.

 

[Flipper]

Agent Smith:

I'm thinking you may have missed my follow-up post on page 10. Apparently, Nineveh did, even though I wrote it in reply to her.

And, as it turns out, I may have just taken the creationist cant on Java Man as read. It appears that a number of creationists are now accepting that JM is a hominid.

quote:
As mentioned above Lubenow, publishing in 1992, was one of the first major creationists to conclude that the Java Man skullcap did not belong to an ape. Bill Mehlert came to similar conclusion in a paper published in a creationist journal in 1994:

The finding of ER 3733 and WT 15000 therefore appears to strongly reinforce the validity of Java and Peking Man. The clear similarities shared by all four (where skeletal and cranial material available), render untenable any claims that the two Asian specimens are nothing more than exceptionally large apes. (Mehlert 1994)

Following this many of the better-informed creationists decided that the skullcap which had hitherto belonged to an ape was in fact human, such that Carl Wieland, the CEO of Answers in Genesis was able to write in 1998 (in a review of Richard Milton's book Shattering the myths of Darwinism) that [Milton's] statement that the Java Man remains are now thought to be simply those of an extinct, giant gibbon-like creature is simply false. He appears to have been misled by the myth (commenced by evolutionists, and perpetuated in both creationist and evolutionist works since) that Eugene Dubois, the discoverer of Java Man, recanted and called his discovery a 'giant gibbon'. Knowledgable creationists do not make this sort of claim anymore. (Wieland 1998)



http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/a_java.html

Not quite so open and shut now, is it?

So it seems not even the creationists are sure whether these bones are from an ape skull or a hominid skull (I presume most if not all would insist "human"). This sort of dilemma is much less troubling for evolutionary biology; it all sounds pretty transitional.

A review from talk origins of the skull cap fragments; plus Duane Gish still contends the skull cap is from an ape:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/java15000.html

Some more info on Homo Erectus and how Java man may fit into the framework...

http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo/homo_2 .htm

 

[Stratnerd]

AS,

I don't get your point with the bolded text... A'raptor was a hoax but were the others (including Caudipteryx, Sinosauropteryx, Archaeopteryx, Protarchaeopteryx)?

> But I don't think they used them to fly or evovle into birds.

Flight can be inferred from other adaptations and tested with models (same kind of stuff they do with athletes). But the fact that you don't believe in evolution is obvious.

> The PTEROSAURS didn't have feathers and they flew.


they also weren't dinosaurs

> Why would some dinsaurs need feathers to fly when others didn't?

feathers probably didn't evolve for flight....

evolution is a tinkerer and uses whatever works