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Author Topic:   Scientific vs Creationist Frauds and Hoaxes
Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 46 of 220 (518308)
08-05-2009 6:28 AM
Reply to: Message 44 by greentwiga
08-05-2009 1:02 AM


I don't know if anyone has mentioned this hoax that scientists perpetuated on Christians
Scientists perpetuated on Christians? Read the bit you posted again, greentwiga. Mr Hill, who spread the story, appears to have been a lay speaker in evangelical circles: nothing is mentioned about any science background he may have had. And Dr Totten, who originated the idea in 1890, was a professor of Military Science and Tactics who predicted the End of Times before 1899....
Linky

"The wretched world lies now under the tyranny of foolishness; things are believed by Christians of such absurdity as no one ever could aforetime induce the heathen to believe." - Agobard of Lyons, ca. 830 AD

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1024 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 47 of 220 (518310)
08-05-2009 6:38 AM
Reply to: Message 44 by greentwiga
08-05-2009 1:02 AM


Re: Add "the stones of ICA" to the creationist fraud list
What do you mean a hoax perpetrated by scientists? And 'some argument' that Christians perpetrated it on themselves?
As your link explains, this was a hoax perpetrated by a convert to Christianity called Harold Hill, who wrote books and articles about his faith and lied about being a consultant to NASA so as to spread this fiction.
What does this have to do with any scientists?

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1404 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 48 of 220 (518931)
08-09-2009 7:17 PM
Reply to: Message 44 by greentwiga
08-05-2009 1:02 AM


Add
Hi greentwiga, thanks for adding another creationist hoax to the list:
I don't know if anyone has mentioned this hoax that scientists perpetuated on Christians (quite effectively, I might add.)
Loading...
This is about the missing day and hours mentioned in the OT.
As noted by others you have the perp wrong: he was a creationist, not a scientist.
quote:
One problem is that apart from Harold Hill, there is no known source for the NASA story. For many years, whenever anyone wrote to him about it, he sent a form letter which said he had misplaced the source of the information, but would send everybody a copy when he found it. The source never materialized. In his subsequent book, Hill dismissed all skepticism about the story and said that no substantiation was needed. His attitude was that if people believed it and it drew them to spiritual things, it was justified.
This is typical of creationist hoaxes: attribute information to somebody else, and claim you don't need to show the evidence, you just need to believe.
See CE010: Missing day
PRATT CE010:
quote:
NASA scientists, using computers to track planetary motions, discovered that a day of time was missing, corresponding to biblical accounts of the sun's standing still for Joshua for almost a day, plus the sun moving backwards forty minutes for Hezekiah.
Response:
1. The origin of this urban legend goes back to 1890. It is entirely baseless. Indeed, it could not be true. There is no frame of reference to measure against to determine whether a day was missing thousands of years ago.
Note that even AIG recognizes that this is a hoax (but don't say who the perp is, just that creationists should not use this argument as evidence of creationism):
quote:
NASA’s Discovery of the Missing Day
It is an urban legend that NASA computers verified the “long days” recorded in Joshua 10:13 and 2 Kings 20:11. According to this popular story, scientists noticed that today’s positions of the sun and moon were not quite where they belonged, but they can be corrected by making allowance for the biblical events.
This story was never reasonable. Modern astronomers cannot know the exact positions of the sun and moon prior to these biblical events. So it is impossible for computers to calculate changes from such unknown positions.
Enjoy.
Edited by RAZD, : added aig

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
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This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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greentwiga
Member (Idle past 3427 days)
Posts: 213
From: Santa
Joined: 06-05-2009


Message 49 of 220 (518945)
08-10-2009 12:48 AM
Reply to: Message 48 by RAZD
08-09-2009 7:17 PM


Re: Add
I was thoroughly chastised by myself when I read through the site I posted to realize that it was a creationist hoax. Everyone very kindly told me what a dummy I was to believe that scientists originated the hoax. I couldn't respond to this thread till my face stopped flaming red.

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1404 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 50 of 220 (518996)
08-10-2009 9:21 AM
Reply to: Message 49 by greentwiga
08-10-2009 12:48 AM


Re: Adding one from wirkkalaj's list now
Thanks greentwiga, we all make mistakes (I'm guilty as well).
We also have this addition now from wirkkalaj in Message 99 on 101 evidences for a young age...:
And yet none of the dragons or other depictions really look like an actual dinosaur. Please look again - closely - at the depictions you have posted and see if they accurately portray known dinosaurs.
This one is obvious, of course you'll probably just call it a hoax.
Yes it is. The problem is that the picture is altered in the creationist "source":
http://s8int.com/dinolit1.html
http://s8int.com/meso-cylinder.html
quote:
Seal and impression. Located at the Louvre Museum.
Note the points of comparison between the head of the "Mesopotamium sauropod" and the skull of Diplodocus Longus, as highlighted in the graphic below.

Look at the "s8int" blow up of the head again:
Note (a) that the head is out of scale to the body in the seal compared to the dinosaur, and (b) what is apparently shown is a bare bone skull -- no flesh, no eyes, etc. -- complete with holes in the bones through the head, and (c) that the shape is still wrong.
What this would have proven - at best - is that the ancient people could have found fossil bones and assembled them but could not have a clue to what a living head looked like, however it doesn't end there: that would be just misrepresentation or misunderstanding, not really a hoax or a fraud.
But that is only part of the story ... from:
404
One of the markers of a creationist hoax\fraud is that the references are not complete enough to follow up on, and there is no direct link to the actual evidence. I looked at all the search results for "seal" (129) "dinosaur" (none) and "mesopotamia" (146) and finally found it:
quote:
La glyptique l'époque proto-urbaine
Sceau-cylindre
Frise de lions monstrueux et aigles tte de lion
poque d'Uruk
Jaspe vert
Acquisition 1877
Département des Antiquités orientales
Curiously, the heads are more distinct here, showing eyes and ears and lion like snouts.
The picture on "s8int" has been altered, it is a forgery, a hoax, a fraud -- a lie. And another creationist website has been shown to be willingly dishonest and deceitful.
Enjoy.
Edited by RAZD, : /qs
Edited by RAZD, : pic

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.


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Theodoric
Member
Posts: 9076
From: Northwest, WI, USA
Joined: 08-15-2005
Member Rating: 3.7


Message 51 of 220 (518997)
08-10-2009 9:36 AM
Reply to: Message 50 by RAZD
08-10-2009 9:21 AM


Re: Adding one from wirkkalaj's list now
The problem is that the picture is altered in the creationist "source":
great catch.
I guess I am no longer surprised with the levels of deceit the creationists will go to. I guess they think no one will even try to track down the original. Thanks for the effort.

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

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greentwiga
Member (Idle past 3427 days)
Posts: 213
From: Santa
Joined: 06-05-2009


Message 52 of 220 (519010)
08-10-2009 12:51 PM
Reply to: Message 51 by Theodoric
08-10-2009 9:36 AM


Re: Adding one from wirkkalaj's list now
I was curious to examine the bodies and legs. The bottom one had rather camel like bodies. the Middle on showed some changes in the legs. The top one had very dinosaurian like bodies and legs. If it had been that the real carving had skull like heads, I could have excused minor differences, knowing how hard it was to carve seals. The heads were clearly changed. As a Christian, this really burns my toast.

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1404 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 53 of 220 (524706)
09-18-2009 7:43 AM


bump for Archangel
On Message 207 Archangel says:
Since you asked for evidence here, here is where I'll place it. A complete thread isn't needed to debate what is overwhelming evidence of major frauds which have contributed to the acceptance of this false science and even gave it legitimacy where none was deserved. But by the time the frauds were discovered, and the retractions were quietly placed on back pages compared to the fraudulent discoveries releases which were widely disseminated, the damage was done since millions upon millions of people heard about the fraudulent evidence on the evening news everywhere; where as 12 laymen saw the retractions on the back page of the scientific journal that laymen never read. Challenge me on this point and I will give details if you like.
Evolution Fraud and Myths
Do we finally get a creationist ready and willing to defend the creationist frauds and hoaxes?
Enjoy.

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.


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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1404 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 54 of 220 (524831)
09-19-2009 11:43 AM


Another Creationist Hoax Site - thanks Archangel
in EVOLUTION'S FRAUD HAS CONTRIBUTED TO ITS PUBLIC ACCEPTANCE: Archangel cites this website:
Evolution Fraud and Myths
Aside from the usual Piltdown Man and Nebraska Man, this site adds
Orce man: Found in the southern Spanish town of Orce in 1982, and hailed as the oldest fossilized human remains ever found in Europe. One year later officials admitted the skull fragment was not human but probably came from a 4 month old donkey. Scientists had said the skull belonged to a 17 year old man who lived 900,000 to 1.6 million years ago, and even had very detail drawings done to represent what he would have looked like. (source: "Skull fragment may not be human", Knoxville News-Sentinel, 1983)
CC021: Orce Man
quote:
Claim CC021:
A skull fragment from the Andalusia region of Spain, originally hailed in 1983 as the oldest human fossil from Europe, was most likely a skull fragment from a four-month-old donkey.
Source:
Gish, Duane T., 1985. Evolution: The Challenge of the Fossil Record, El Cajon, CA: Creation-Life Publishers, p. 190.
Response:
1. There is not enough of the fossil to make its identity clear. It is still uncertain whether the fragment is hominid or equine. It is a misrepresentation to call it misidentified when there was never a consensus on its identification in the first place. If not for its importance as possibly the oldest European human, the fragment would receive little attention.
This site ALSO claims that Java Man and Neanderthal are frauds? There must be some massive bliss going on there.
Enjoy.
Edited by RAZD, : tid#

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.


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Lithodid-Man
Member (Idle past 2930 days)
Posts: 504
From: Juneau, Alaska, USA
Joined: 03-22-2004


Message 55 of 220 (525087)
09-21-2009 2:30 PM


"Hidden archaeology" and other such nonsense
One of the more entertaining frauds I have dealt with from creationists is really from them, they just have co-opted the information. This is the pseudoscience which claims that great hidden civilizations existed (with or without alien interference), giants roamed the Earth, lost continents, and human civilizations deep into the distant past.
Again, these people are their own kind of interesting and not directly creationist. However, it is quite common to see their sources mined by creationists with the other stuff discreetly ignored. This article by David Hatcher Childress is mined extensively by both the "dinos on the ark crowd" and the "there were giant in dem days" folks. Childress' general premise is that there is a whole world of fantastic archaeology that scientists a furiously trying to keep hidden.
Before I found out that an entire YouTube video was nearly word-for-word plagiarized from the Childress article, I began researching all of claims made for a response video, including obtaining the sources. I will briefly describe two of the frauds contained in this essay that can be found on creationist websites.
The first is a claim that on the island of Shemya (Western Aleutians) during World War 2 an engineer building an airstrip discovered buried skeletons and other artifacts. The human skulls were 22-24 inches tall and all were treppaned. A quick google search revealed the sole source of this claim is a book by Ivan Sanderson called "More things". I happened to have this book, so I read the chapter. What Childress left out of his account was that Sanderson was unable to find any confirmation on the giants and other eyewitnesses remembered only normal sized human skeletons and typical ice age mammal bones. he concluded that without further evidence the claim was untrue (he also showed how a 20' tall human could not not function). Apparently Childress didn't read to the end of the account.
Another claim Childress makes is about the Acambaro finds in Mexico. These, reminiscent of the Ica stones, were 33,000 ceramic sculptures and of which are of dinosaurs. Childress claims that an archaeologist, Charles DiPeso examined the finds and declared them frauds. However, he says that DiPeso claimed to have minutely examined all 30,000 plus pieces in 4 hours which he rightly claims as a ridiculous claim. I was able to obtain DiPeso's original article where he describes spending 4 weeks in Acambaro examining the artifacts as well as observing the 'dig site'. How 4 weeks became 4 hours is something of a mystery. DiPeso describes in detail how the artifacts were clearly buried recently. He described that not one fragment was missing from any of them, even the broken edges were not chipped. He described fresh earth, including a thumbprint, packed into one of the bowls along with mixed soil layers and fragments of the legitimate pottery found at the site. This particular claim I know has been used by Kent Hovind and by David Nutting as proof that humans and dinosaurs co-existed.
Anyway, I thought it was worth mentioning these two cases (I have more material on Childress' other claims as well). It is useful (as TO has done with many) to have these claims and the background research available.

Doctor Bashir: "Of all the stories you told me, which were true and which weren't?"
Elim Garak: "My dear Doctor, they're all true"
Doctor Bashir: "Even the lies?"
Elim Garak: "Especially the lies"

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1404 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 56 of 220 (544537)
01-26-2010 11:46 PM


"detectingdesign" foram hoax
Thanks to Kaichos Man for bringing this to my attention:
The Fossil Record
-- using information from 1978 science and 1988 creationists to misrepresent the truth about forams to the gullible.
See Transitional Fossils Show Evolution in Process Message 40
Enjoy.

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.


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Taq
Member
Posts: 9970
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


Message 57 of 220 (544540)
01-27-2010 12:07 AM


And if I may . . .
The greatest hoax perpetrated BY SCIENTISTS has to be Onyate Man. Well, it was more of an April Fool's joke, but it's still great.
"We found a fossil of a hominid, being eaten by an allosaurus dinosaur. Look at the picture."
Read More Here
NMSR hung out this hoax hoping that creationists would bite. Interestingly, they didn't. Perhaps they knew that only they are the hoaxers so they are immediately skeptical of any REAL evidence coming from geologists that just might support their case.
Anyway, Onyate Man is one of my favorites.
Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 58 of 220 (544625)
01-27-2010 3:22 PM
Reply to: Message 57 by Taq
01-27-2010 12:07 AM


Re: Oate Man
Anyway, Onyate Man is one of my favorites.
I agree and had read it within a year or two after it's release, so I also immediately read NMSR's own exposing and explanation of it. It was meant as an experiment to see how readily creationists would accept and use it and they were pleasantly surprised at the creationists' caution: although creationists were thrilled by the claim, they didn't want to accept it until it had been verified. The only notable exception was Kent Hovind who heard about it just before he was to give a presentation at a church (in Philadelphia, I seem to recall) and he immediately incorporated it into his presentation. The next day he learned that it was a hoax and he reportedly stopped using it, but there was no indication that his previous evening's audience were ever informed.
My own interpretation of the creationists' caution is that in general rank-and-file creationists do basically care about the truth and actually believe that they are serving truth. Rather, it's the creationist "leaders" and writers, such as Hovind, the ICR, etc, as well as over-zealous low-ranking wanna-be's, who create the creationist hoaxes which the rank-and-file then accept uncritically as "the truth" and then proceed to spread unwittingly. The rank-and-file accept the nonsense they're being fed for a handful of reasons, but mainly because they're scientificially illiterate (like most in the general population) and so don't know any better, that nonsense seems to support their religious beliefs, and the creationists feeding them that nonsense are seen by them as religious leaders who therefore must be believed. And the rank-and-file (plus creationists on all levels) have a vested interest to avoid examining their claims critically and to avoid researching to discover the actual truth, because they've been trained to believe that if their claims are wrong and evolution and old-earth are right, then God doesn't exist.
Their cautious approach to this new and exciting discovery could be in part due to their continual conditioning by their creationist leaders to distrust any source but a creationist source. Another reason could be that those were experienced creationists. I've long maintained that honest creationists who start out espousing "creation science" claims (which are by definition YEC) do not last long in open creation/evolution discussions. If they don't actually drop creationism and accept evolution (I've seen several such cases) or at least greatly modify their creationist stance into something far more defensible, then they will most likely suddenly find something very urgent to attend to and disengage as quickly as possible. With experience, the smarter creationists learn to avoid using certain claims. I would suspect that the creationists the NMSR discussed this with had been burned before by such claims and so were understandably cautious about picking up this new claim until it could be checked out.
Now, about where that name came from.
From the hoax page (No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.nmsr.org/Archive.html):
quote:
We were not able to find the foot bones of the hominid, and the Americans started calling it "Onyate Man" after some local politician.
I had found the original hoax page and NMSR's explanation while Google'ing for information on the statue of Don Juan de Oate Salazar, "The Last Conquistador" and colonial governor of New Mexico from 1598 to 1606, when he resigned his post to face charges of cruelty to Indians and colonists alike. The most infamous incident being (Juan de Oate - Wikipedia):
quote:
In October of 1598, a skirmish erupted when Oate's occupying Spanish military demanded supplies from the Acoma tribedemanding things essential to the Acoma surviving the winter. The Acoma resisted and 13 Spaniards were killed, amongst them Don Juan Oate’s nephew. In 1599, Oate retaliated; his soldiers killed 800 villagers. They enslaved the remaining 500 women and children, and by Don Juan’s decree, they amputated the left foot of every Acoma man over the age of twenty-five. Eighty men had their left foot amputated. Other commentators put the figure of those mutilated at 24.
That mass mutilation is an on-going controversy that was especially hot in NM shortly before the hoax and that controversy is how I had heard of it and which had motivated my Google search:
quote:
In the Oate Monument Visitors Center northeast of Espaola is a 1991 bronze statue dedicated to the man. In 1998 New Mexico celebrated the 400th anniversary of his arrival. That same year individuals opposed to the statue or what it was perceived to represent, cut off the statue's right foot and left a note saying, "Fair is fair." The sculptor, Reynaldo Rivera, recast the foot but the seam is still visible. Some commentators suggested leaving the statue maimed as a symbolic reminder of the foot-mutilating incident.
And now we know the rest of the story.
Coincidentally, the page on Juan's father, Cristbal de Oate, says of the family name (Cristbal de Oate - Wikipedia):
quote:
Oate signifies "at the foot of the mountain pass" in the Basque language.

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Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 59 of 220 (544629)
01-27-2010 3:45 PM
Reply to: Message 58 by dwise1
01-27-2010 3:22 PM


Re: Oate Man
From dwise1's link to the original, we have:
The girl in the photo was called Pilar Pendeja, or something like that.
Pendeja is Spanish for, roughly, "dumbass." Or for "pubic hair." My German is far too rusty to parse "Heinschvagel," though.

This message is a reply to:
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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 60 of 220 (544634)
01-27-2010 4:33 PM
Reply to: Message 59 by Coragyps
01-27-2010 3:45 PM


Re: Oate Man
I think with "Heinschvagel" they were trying to go for "horn-swaggle" -- at least that's what I remember from their explanation page. For one thing, that "German" name is very un-German in its spelling: should have ended with "-schwagel". I couldn't find any meaning for a syllable, "Hein-".
And I've always understood "pendejo" to be stronger, like the English misnomer, "asshole" (formed, I believe, from confusing meanings of "ass", causing it to shift from a donkey to an anatomical feature).
At any rate, their use of an obscenity for a name, regardless of how strong or weak, was one of the clues they had dropped to raise suspicions, which it apparently didn't do.
Edited by dwise1, : last paragraph

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