Why Lie? (Re: Evolution frauds and hoaxes)

You and others have already pointed it out: there are some very few) scientists who do try to put forward forgeries as a way to gain prestige or money or any of the other reasons human beings give in to greed.But ask yourself this question:Who exposes forgeries?Do Creationists expose them? Nope.Other scientists do.It's a very large part of the purpose behind the peer review process to uncover faulty or even fraudulent methodology.Of course, several of the "forgeries" you mentioned are not forgeries at all, but are simply fossils that are "inconvenient" for Creationists.But of the ones that were frauds, they were exposed by the scientific community itself.You seem to be claiming that the Theory of Evolution is weak because a few fraudulent fossils have been put forward over the years. This completely ignored the millions of fossils that have been discovered that support the Theory of Evlution, the direct observations in nature and the laboratory that support the Theory of Evolution, the genetic data that supports the Theory of Evolution...I could go on, but hopefully you get the point. Fraud happens, even in science. Nobody is claiming that scientists are all saints. But the scientific method is very good at uncovering fraudulent and inconsistent claims.Do you even realize that fossils like Orce Man would have completely upset evolutionary theory, rather than supporting it? The couple of fraudulent cases you've put forward are not even forgeries designed to support the Theory of Evolution! You're basing your argument on a gigantic red herring - these fossils are not, and never were, the basis of the Theory of Evolution.

You misunderstand. I said that these fossils are not the basis for the Theory of Evolution. The theory does not rest solely on them, or even very greatly on them at all.The fossil record is actually a very small segment of supporting evidence for the Theory of Evolution.Of course, with regards to the "missing link" statement...technically every new species discovered is a "missing link" between its ancestors and its offspring.A-
....>--?---
B-............>F
C---------.....|
....................>?
D--------D....|
..............>-H
E--------E
G--|Let's use this tree as an example. (Please forgive the .'s, I needed spaceholder characters)Let's say that the far-right examples are species that exist today. The ? species are ones we have never uncovered - so-called "missing links." F and H are both currently extinct, but we have found fossilized remains for them. We have directly observed species G branching from species E - we know from observational fact that G is an offshoot species of E.A, B, C, D, E, and G are all still currently living. A and B are very similar, but are very different from G. A and B are both more similar to C than to D, and D is more similar to E than to G. A, B, and C are all similar to F (with C being more similar than A or B), etc.The theory is that the more similar two species are, the more recently they had a common ancestor species. Some of these common ancestor species still exist.Now, does this theory rest on the existence of fossils F or H?The answer is no. F and H support the theory by matching what was expected and fitting into the evolutionary tree, but if they were discovered to be hoaxes or mistakes or anything else, the theory would still stand - the species we do observe still bear physical and genetic similarities that correspond exactly with the tree model.Likewise, the fraudulent claims you have brought up (mentioning once again that not all of your examples were fraudulent) are not the basis for the Theory of Evolution - in fact, Orce Man would have been a gigantic upset to paleontology and evolution, since it should be impossible to find human remains dated 1.6 million years old.The Theory of Evolution is not based on fossil evidence. Every fossil discovered so far supports the theory, but that's not the only reason scientists accept evolution as a highly accurate model of the formation of the diversity seen in life on Earth. Hell, Darwin himself formulated the original basis for evolution by observing birds currently living, and had nothing to do with fossils. If you search textbooks for inaccuracies, you will find many. Schools can often not afford new books, borads of education must go through political processes to change textbooks and are rarely educated in science themselves, textbooks sacrifice accuracy so that children can gain a basic grasp of concepts too complex to go into too much detail about, etc.It's unfortunate that inaccuracies and yes, even forgeries, can be left in school textbooks for years. But none of the forgeries you have mentioned significantly weaken the position of the Theory of Evolution even slightly, and hoaxes and forgeries are eventually revealed by the very same group that you suggest conspire to assemble the Theory of Evolution from the hoaxes.Tell me: if the Theory of Evolution is a giant conspiracy of fraudulent fossils perpetrated by scientists, why would scientists specifically expose frauds as soon as they are detected?! The heated debate over classification of Lucy is precicely because of her similarities to both humans and apes. Of course, nobody actually suggests she was human, but rather that she was much closer to the common ancestor we share with apes.Controversy over the classification of a fossil does not equate to a hoax or forgery. Anthropologists may debate over how specifically to classify her, but they do not dispute that she is an ancient ancestor to humans. All of them. Even those. They aren't "assumption." You believe they are only becasue you have not studied paleontology or anthropology for your entire life like anthropologists and paleontologists have. All of these things you call "assumptions" are logical inferences supported by observed evidence.For example, when we see a tooth, we can ascertain with reasonable certainty whether the owner of the tooth was carnivorous, herbivorous, or omnivorous; we can determine the rough size, and compare it to reptiles, mammals, etc and see which classification the tooth most closely resembles. A lot of information can be gained from nothing more than a tooth. More can be gained from "half a skeleton."Your tone suggests that you believe scientists sit around a bone and say "Oooh, oooh! I'll bet this one was half man, half bear-pig!" You imply that they wildly toss out ideas from nowhere with no supporting evidence in support of some "sacred cow" pet theory. This is not the case, and your suggestion that scientific theories are based wholly around the assumption that the theories are correct is a disservice to all scientists.As for macro-evolution...please start a new thread if you'd like to discuss that topic. If we discuss it here, it will quickly overshadow the existing topic regarding frauds and hoaxes in science.

The opinions of an amateur are irrelevant. Biologists don't base such determinations on the same criteria you or I do - it isn't only a matter of what the teeth "look like" to the casual observer.As bluescat mentioned, fruit bats (and there are several species of fruit bats, by the way) are descended from carnivorous species, which is a large part of the reason amateur opinion cannot be depended upon.To an uneducated person who doesn't know any better, the Earth appears flat and the Sun appears to revolve around the Earth.
There's a reason you want an actual, trained surgeon to operate on you when you need an appendectomy, as opposed to a gas station attendant. Why then would you seriously believe that the opinions of a casual observer like you or I would by of equal or greater value than the conclusions of a trained biologist when it comes to classification of teeth?Your determination of whether the teeth of a fruit bat are carnivorous or herbivorous are based only on your observations, which are extremely limited with regards to the topic at hand. You see a pointy tooth (particularly large pointy teeth) and conclude "carnivore," and in many circumstances you would be correct - but not in all, and there are far more considerations made when making such a determination. For example, most of the teeth are not pointy - the rear molars look like those of an herbivore. Real biologists examine such things far more closely and with a far broader range of previous observations to draw conclusions from.

Irrelevant. The vast, vast majority of fossils are not forgeries and show no signs of being honest mistakes. All of them agree with the Theory of Evolution.Let's use cars as an analogy:Some used car salesmen are crooks. They lie, cheat, and do whatever is necessary to screw the customer out of money.Does this mean that all car salesmen are crooks?More importantly, does this mean that the internal combustion engine does not work?None of the very few fraudulent (and honestly mistaken) fossils you've presented have been the basis for the Theory of Evolution. Your entire position rests on these fossils being even relevant to the Theory of Evolution, and they really aren't.Here's the problem, DBAF:Even if every single fossil in the entire fossil record was shown to be a hoax, the Theory of Evolution would still stand. Evolution is not based on fossil evidence.To disprove the Theory of Evolution with fossils, you would need to find a fossil that specifically violates the predictions and expectations of the Theory of Evolution. None of those have ever been found, though a few of the frauds you presented would ave been such an upset (a 1.6 million year old human would have put significant question to all of our conclusions, for example - good thing that one was a fraud, eh?).Your entire argument is a gigantic red herring. Your point is moot. It took a very long time to assemble various dinosaur fossils into accurate representations, as well. As our knowledge increases, frauds and mistakes are more clearly identified. This takes time. Because it is a tiny representation of the total evidence, and isn't even remotely the evidence that evolution is based on. It never was. None of these examples had anything to do with the beginnings of the Theory of Evolution. Evolution began with the direct observation of various finch species over several years, with specific attention paid to changes in average beak size and shape over various populations depending on food source, etc (among other things). The Theory of Evolution is not based on the fossil record, though the fossil record supports the Theory of Evolution. You mean "objectivity." And people did not "want" to believe in evolution. You are operating from the mistaken idea that the Theory of Evolution is a theory specifically designed to prove that a deity does not exist. This is not the case. Many people believe in God while accepting evolution as an accurate model for explaining the diversity of life on Earth. People who accept the Theory of Evolution as an accurate model for explaining the diversity of life on Earth do so on the weight of evidence, not any silly desire to deny God.DBAF, you haven't even managed to cast the slightest bit of doubt on the Theory of Evolution in this thread. You've reminded us that there are unscrupulous individuals out there who will falsify findings in the hopes of gaining fame and fortune, people who make honest mistakes in their conclusions because thy had insufficient data available at the time, and people who prematurely publish tentative findings before they've been verified to sell magazines. But as we've reminded you, the scientific method is specifically designed to weed out such inaccuracies whether due to fraud or honest mistake, and all of these frauds and mistakes were revealed by other scientists. There is no grand conspiracy here, DBAF. Mistakes are made, dishonest people exist, but you haven't provided a shred of evidence that would lead any reasonable person to conclude that the Theory of Evolution may be inaccurate.