Coral Ridge Ministries and CSI

[Free-Agent Smith]

Originally posted by Stratnerd

AS,



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.

I don't always equate adaptation with evolution.
They are using the hoax as an example. The reason I believe this is because I have seen the visuals they are using and atleast one of them has been used to show what the A'raptor was supposed to have looked like.

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

they also weren't dinosaurs

I have seen websites and exhibits that do say they are. Chicago's Museum of Natural History/Field Museum has suggested just the opposite of what you have.

 

[Nineveh]

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.

Because I didn't read an unrelated book review but instead posted the link the the museum proclaiming the "Archaeoraptor" as the "missing link", I am "uninformed" or "deceptive"?
Where did you get your logic, Sears?

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.

Check the links, I didn't make their website.

"Alright, aharvey , I have to ask: did you see these fossils weren't on display (especially the one at that museum), or are you parroting some evo site?"

Will the other musuems that happen to display these fossils also be let off the hook so easily?

 

[Nineveh]

Originally posted by 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, really now. The reason you can't come up with evo-science backing your claim "junk DNA" has a "future use" is because it doesn't.

You wanted to appear to have an understanding of something you didn't, so you told a "little white lie" out of your ignorance. Sort of like what evo did when it named DNA it didn't understand as "junk". And that in a nut shell was my point: the world view of evo functions by the rule: "if you can't blind them with brilliance, baffle them with BS". Thank you for illustrating my point.

 

[Nineveh]

Originally posted by Stratnerd

N -

Perhaps you can provide a recent example where scientist knew the truth but presented lies.... and was uncovered by creationists and not fellow scientists.

Well, I think what has happened here in this thread illustrates what happens on a larger scale. Museums (thank you for pointing out San Diego, Mr. Smith) are knowingly promoting a hoax. A couple of people who believe the creation account are drawing the evos attention to that fact and what is the outcome? Shoot the messenger.

The book is written by the hoax perps* yet their ideas on the "origin" of flight is being accepted at least in San Diego so far, and where else might this traveling show wind up? With or without their "missing link" I didn't see where this "origin of flight" is being displayed as a theory. Which is what "dinos to birds" is, another theory.


*Feathered Dinosaurs and the Origin of Flight was organized by the Dinosaur Museum of Blanding, Utah, and the Fossil Administration Office of Liaoning, China in collaboration with the Geological Institute, the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences. All photos copyright of Dinosaur Museum of Blanding, Utah.
cite

 

[Free-Agent Smith]

I edited my last reply incase it might have been missed.

 

[aharvey]

Originally posted by Agent Smith

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 ".

Which is it? Option 3: Nineveh is as wrong as ever and you both are misinformed. The hoaxed fossil is not in the United States, it's not part of the Feather Dinosaurs exhibit, and never was. Ninevah's original link was from a Utah county tourist bureau; the link you provided, in case you weren't aware of this, is from the private museum of the Czerkases, and the book being touted is their own book. The Nature article to which I referred is primarily about the Feathered Dinosaurs exhibit (which, again, does not and never did include Archaeoraptor). This is a private, traveling exhibit, again put together and "rented out" by the Czerkases; although it is currently showing at the San Diego Museum of Natural History, but it has run into trouble because it appears to contain at least a dozen illegally acquired fossils, which is an extremely serioius charge.

You guys need to consider your sources a little more carefully. Most people would consider Nature to be a more reliable source of scientific information than either a local tourist board web site or a self-promoting artist-fossil hunter who's repeatedly run into major problems in his fossil endeavors.

 

[aharvey]

Originally posted by Agent Smith

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?

Science doesn't prove anything; it provides evidence. And there is a whole suite of fossil evidence providing a fairly beautiful series of dinosaur-bird intermediates. I have no idea how many of these are in the Czerkases exhibit, though.

Originally posted by Agent Smith

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?

1. Pterosaurs weren't dinosaurs.
2. Regardless, we can modernize your question a bit, from which perhaps you can answer it on your own:

"BATS don't have feathers and they fly. Why would some vertebrates need feathers to fly when others don't?"

Or, alternatively:

"OSTRICHES have feathers and they don't fly. Why would some birds need feathers when they don't even fly?"

 

[Jukia]

A question. Coral Ridge and CSI claim to have done some studies that show the mammoth bones only 1% fossilized and therefore only 4000 years old. Now, ignoring the question of whether or not this is a legitimate method of dating (and at first blush it would appear to be), if the earth is only 6000 years old and if we had a world wide flood 4000 years ago, should not all fossils be only 1% or thereabout fossilized?

 

[aharvey]

Originally posted by Nineveh

Because I didn't read an unrelated book review but instead posted the link the the museum proclaiming the "Archaeoraptor" as the "missing link", I am "uninformed" or "deceptive"?
Where did you get your logic, Sears?

You didn't read my post very carefully. If you had read the Nature review of the Roughgarden article, this would have meant that you also would have had access to the article about the Czerkases exhibit. Since you've been making all these posts lately about this very issue (i.e., the Archaeoraptor hoax), I doubt very much that you would have overlooked this article on your way to the Roughgarden book review, which would have at least strongly suggested that you were describing a situation (i.e., a hoax that scientists fell for and that is still being shown to schoolchildren today) that you knew was false. That would have been deceptive. Since you didn't have access to the journal, I was therefore genuinely relieved that you were not being deceptive. Does this clarify the logic (and what I was not saying?)

Originally posted by Nineveh

Check the links, I didn't make their website.

I absolutely understand. However, don't you think you have some responsibility, at least to yourself, to at least consider the reliability of the source? After all, anyone can post anything on the web. You based your entire position on web sites from a Utah county tourist bureau trying to get people to come there and spend money and from someone promoting their own private museum and book for the same reason. This doesn't mean they're automatically wrong, but it should at least alert you to the possibility that they're not the most up-to-date, scientifically accurate, objective, or just generally reliable source of information, and that maybe you should look elsewhere for corroboration.

Originally posted by Nineveh

"Alright, aharvey , I have to ask: did you see these fossils weren't on display (especially the one at that museum), or are you parroting some evo site?"

I already provided my source of information: the top-tier scientific journal Nature. I can't check everything myself, but I do try to consider the source.

Originally posted by Nineveh

Will the other musuems that happen to display these fossils also be let off the hook so easily?

Off the hook for what? For showing a hoax? They're not. For showing illegally acquired fossils? That's what the Nature story was about, and if it turns out to be true, yes, there will be consequences. That's why most museums have declined to show the exhibit until the charges have been sorted out.

 

[aharvey]

Originally posted by Agent Smith

I have seen websites and exhibits that do say they are. Chicago's Museum of Natural History/Field Museum has suggested just the opposite of what you have.

I'd be interested in where they said that. If you go to the Field Museum web site and do a search on "pterosaurs," you get these results: three different articles that clearly refer to dinosaurs and pterosaurs as distinct entities.

 

[Nineveh]

Originally posted by aharvey

You didn't read my post very carefully. If you had read the Nature review of the Roughgarden article, this would have meant that you also would have had access to the article about the Czerkases exhibit. Since you've been making all these posts lately about this very issue (i.e., the Archaeoraptor hoax), I doubt very much that you would have overlooked this article on your way to the Roughgarden book review, which would have at least strongly suggested that you were describing a situation (i.e., a hoax that scientists fell for and that is still being shown to schoolchildren today) that you knew was false. That would have been deceptive. Since you didn't have access to the journal, I was therefore genuinely relieved that you were not being deceptive. Does this clarify the logic (and what I was not saying?)

Well, if you want to claim the NEWS is only the NEWS if it comes from Nature, you might have a point.

I absolutely understand. However, don't you think you have some responsibility, at least to yourself, to at least consider the reliability of the source? After all, anyone can post anything on the web. You based your entire position on web sites from a Utah county tourist bureau trying to get people to come there and spend money and from someone promoting their own private museum and book for the same reason. This doesn't mean they're automatically wrong, but it should at least alert you to the possibility that they're not the most up-to-date, scientifically accurate, objective, or just generally reliable source of information, and that maybe you should look elsewhere for corroboration.

Why not read this paragraph to the San Diego Natural History Museum?

I already provided my source of information: the top-tier scientific journal Nature. I can't check everything myself, but I do try to consider the source.

So your arguments will best fulfill a need with the San Diego museum and others who put the hoaxter's exibit up on display.

Off the hook for what? For showing a hoax? They're not. For showing illegally acquired fossils? That's what the Nature story was about, and if it turns out to be true, yes, there will be consequences. That's why most museums have declined to show the exhibit until the charges have been sorted out.

San Diego is putting the hoaxter's display on exibit, or do you not see this as a problem?

 

[Jukia]

Originally posted by Nineveh


San Diego is putting the hoaxter's display on exibit, or do you not see this as a problem?

I got the impression that aharvey was concerned about this. Didn't sound to me like he was too happy about any museum knowingly putting out misinformation.

But what about the Coral Ridge/CSI press release? Is that OK because it is from a creationist organization despite the sloppy (at best) science?

 

[aharvey]

Originally posted by Nineveh

Well, if you want to claim the NEWS is only the NEWS if it comes from Nature, you might have a point.

This makes no sense. Not only does it not have anything to do with my response to your original "deceptive and uninformed" complaint, but it doesn't make any sense in any context. Surely you consider some sources of information more reliable than others, don't you? Do you think the stories in the National Enquirer and those other supermarket tabloids are every bit as trustworthy as the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal? It's not an issue of whether the Times is always right (it's not) or the Enquirer is always wrong (it's not). But if they disagree with each other on something, wouldn't you be more inclined to favor the NYTimes over the Enquirer?

Inquiring minds want to know!

Originally posted by Nineveh


Why not read this paragraph to the San Diego Natural History Museum?

If you would read the Nature article, you would rest assured that they have heard all about this by now!

Originally posted by Nineveh


So your arguments will best fulfill a need with the San Diego museum and others who put the hoaxter's exibit up on display.



San Diego is putting the hoaxter's display on exibit, or do you not see this as a problem?

First of all, although I'm no fan of the Czerkases, as far as I know they were victims, not intentional perpetrators, of the hoax (but if they in fact knowingly perpetrated the fraud after they had been made aware of it, then they should be nailed to the wall for it!), so you shouldn't really be calling them 'hoaxters.' Nonetheless, yes, I do think museums should be careful when considering exhibits the Czerkases market, because they've been shown to be careless and uncritical when it matters most, and most museums have. I think SDNHM will come to regret taking this exhibit on, and deservedly so, especially if it turns out that some of the fossils in the exhibit were illegally acquired. What else do you want me to say?

 

[Free-Agent Smith]

Originally posted by aharvey

Which is it? Option 3: Nineveh is as wrong as ever and you both are misinformed. The hoaxed fossil is not in the United States, it's not part of the Feather Dinosaurs exhibit, and never was. Ninevah's original link was from a Utah county tourist bureau; the link you provided, in case you weren't aware of this, is from the private museum of the Czerkases, and the book being touted is their own book. The Nature article to which I referred is primarily about the Feathered Dinosaurs exhibit (which, again, does not and never did include Archaeoraptor). This is a private, traveling exhibit, again put together and "rented out" by the Czerkases; although it is currently showing at the San Diego Museum of Natural History, but it has run into trouble because it appears to contain at least a dozen illegally acquired fossils, which is an extremely serioius charge.

You guys need to consider your sources a little more carefully. Most people would consider Nature to be a more reliable source of scientific information than either a local tourist board web site or a self-promoting artist-fossil hunter who's repeatedly run into major problems in his fossil endeavors.

Whether or not the exhibit is private, it's put on public display and put out as fact anf fed to the public that dinosaurs flew.

So a pterosaur isn't classified as a dinosaur? If this flying reptile isn't a dinosaur, I have been mislead by the The Field Museum, the Smithsonian Institute of Natural History and public education. Yes I have been to those museums, among others, and they seem to disagree with you. Some day I will get to go to the San Diego Museum and see for myself if they parade lies on display also.

And there is a whole suite of fossil evidence providing a fairly beautiful series of dinosaur-bird intermediates.

You mean there is a whole set of missing links?

we can modernize your question a bit,

If you choose to change my questions don't bother replying.

 

[Jukia]

But again, Coral Ridge and CSI, the original topic of this thread, can put forth their information without anyone calling them to task on it?

 

[aharvey]

Originally posted by Agent Smith

Whether or not the exhibit is private, it's put on public display and put out as fact anf fed to the public that dinosaurs flew.

...and your point is...? The hoaxed fossil is not in this exhibit; if the fossils on display support the idea that birds evolved from dinosaurs, then yes, that may in fact be what's being "fed to the public." But it won't be based on the hoaxed fossil.

Originally posted by Agent Smith

So a pterosaur isn't classified as a dinosaur? If this flying reptile isn't a dinosaur, I have been mislead by the The Field Museum, the Smithsonian Institute of Natural History and public education. Yes I have been to those museums, among others, and they seem to disagree with you. Some day I will get to go to the San Diego Museum and see for myself if they parade lies on display also.

Nope, a pterosaur isn't classified as a dinosaur. I'm not sure it ever was, but if so, that's been corrected for a long, long time. I can't vouch for your public education, but I know most of the curators at the Field Museum and the Smithsonian and am very confident that they would not knowingly allow you to leave their museums with the impression that pterosaurs were dinosaurs. People stubbornly cling to their preconceptions, though. Here at the Georgia Southern Museum we have a world-class specimen of a mosasaur, which is also not a dinosaur, and pretty much every visitor, even repeat visitors, thinks it's a dinosaur, despite big signs to the contrary. Did you click the Field Museum link I provided? This one will give you an idea of the relationships of these two groups.

Originally posted by Agent Smith

You mean there is a whole set of missing links?

See my earlier post on why 'missing links' are red herrings. But in any case, there is considerable evidence that birds evolved from dinosaurs.

Originally posted by Agent Smith

If you choose to change my questions don't bother replying.

Why not? It's not like I didn't tell you I was going to do it. It's not like I didn't tell you why I did it. The answer to your original question is the same as the answer to my modified versions. Exactly the same. I thought it would make more sense to you coming from you than from me.

 

[Nineveh]

Originally posted by aharvey

This makes no sense. Not only does it not have anything to do with my response to your original "deceptive and uninformed" complaint, but it doesn't make any sense in any context. Surely you consider some sources of information more reliable than others, don't you? Do you think the stories in the National Enquirer and those other supermarket tabloids are every bit as trustworthy as the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal? It's not an issue of whether the Times is always right (it's not) or the Enquirer is always wrong (it's not). But if they disagree with each other on something, wouldn't you be more inclined to favor the NYTimes over the Enquirer?

Inquiring minds want to know!

Come down off your high horse for a sec. You wanted to blast me for not reading the NEWS out of Nature. Were I read about the hoax doesn't change the facts about it. But go ahead and try to salvage this pointless argument anyway...

If you would read the Nature article, you would rest assured that they have heard all about this by now!

First of all, although I'm no fan of the Czerkases, as far as I know they were victims, not intentional perpetrators, of the hoax (but if they in fact knowingly perpetrated the fraud after they had been made aware of it, then they should be nailed to the wall for it!), so you shouldn't really be calling them 'hoaxters.' Nonetheless, yes, I do think museums should be careful when considering exhibits the Czerkases market, because they've been shown to be careless and uncritical when it matters most, and most museums have. I think SDNHM will come to regret taking this exhibit on, and deservedly so, especially if it turns out that some of the fossils in the exhibit were illegally acquired. What else do you want me to say?

So really, you don't know what the intent of the hoaxters who are selling a $35 book (with a pic of an "archeoraptor" on the cover ) might have been, you are just guessing. Looks to me like they found some "timely" "evidence" to support their "theory" of the "origin of flight". But yes, I have to agree San Diego (and any other museum who takes the hoaxters exibit to heart) will be red faced just like National Geographic.

I don't know what you want to say. You wanted to accuse me of ignorance for not getting my NEWS out of Nature. You started this dialog.

 

[Nineveh]

Originally posted by Jukia

But again, Coral Ridge and CSI, the original topic of this thread, can put forth their information without anyone calling them to task on it?

Jukia, you had the man on the phone. Why don't you use that handy 1-800 again and ask him your questions? You might even talk over some of the arguments you've leveled against the guy as well. I doubt anything he would say to you would stop your whining about any of it, but you could at least get the answers straight from the horses mouth.

 

[Stratnerd]

Originally posted by Agent Smith

I don't always equate adaptation with evolution.

but it is why some organisms evolve [?]

I have seen websites and exhibits that do say they are. Chicago's Museum of Natural History/Field Museum has suggested just the opposite of what you have.

pterosaurs are archosaurs - the group that contains dinosaurs, birds, crocs, but pterosaurs are usually not nested within dinosaurs (which means they are not considered dinosaurs)

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/help/taxaform.html

Usually pterosaurs are presented with dinosaurs but not as dinosaurs. Probably because they are big mesozoic creatures.

 

[Stratnerd]

I doubt anything he would say to you would stop your whining about any of it,

of course, 90% of these post have been about creationists whining about an "evolution hoax". one that was put forth by non-scientists and, thankfully, real scientist have uncovered and moved on.

so what makes Juke's posts whining and your's something else?