Tell you what, why don't you propose a thread to enumerate frauds, misrepresentations and significant mistakes for evolution versus those for creation, and we'll keep a count of each. In fact, if someone proposes such a thread I'll promote it as quickly as I can, I think it would be illuminating.
Here are some definitions:
GROUND RULES:
it must meet the definitions given above
to be a "scientific hoax\fraud" it needs to be deliberately perpetuated by a scientist, preferably an evolutionary biological scientist (cold fusion does not qualify)
to be a "creationist hoax\fraud" it needs to be deliberately perpetuated by a creationist
Pretty simple criteria.
Here is a starting list:
Nebraska Man - does not qualify, the initial publication was an interpretation of a single tooth, the rest is mostly all newspaper hype (including the (in)famous picture), and the original scientist determined it was a pig on further investigation. No scientist has since claimed it was a hominid fossil.
Piltdown Man - does not qualify: the hoax was perpetuated ON science, not by a scientist. It was exposed by science.
China bird ancestor "fossils" - does not qualify: perpetuated by non-scientific people looking to make money, exposed by science.
Personally I think we'd have to list almost every existing YEC creationist website (I say "almost" for scientific tentativity, as I am not aware of any that stick to the truth, but it is possible ...). Certainly every one that has a false definition of evolution or that portrays evolution incorrectly is a fraud.
Certainly Carl Baugh (his degree is a hoax, it doesn't exist): Glen Rose Man - fraud perpetuated by Carl Baugh, exposed by science. Baugh (a creationist) continues to present it in his "museum" perpetuating his hoax to gullible people, complete with a "footprint" that the original carver admits to making.
Kent Hovind is a shoe-in (convicted of fraud, his degree is a fraud from a paper mill)
The "creation museum" (showing adam and eve and a vegetarian TRex)
Then there is Harun Yahah (a muslim creationist, who also happens to be a convicted extortionist and anal rapist of underage women) - he puts Hovind to shame.
This site is a museum of hoaxes. It has a page on the Peppered Moth where it claims this experiment was a hoax, based on staged photographs! The page contains false nonsense and is clearly written by a creationist.
I claim this as a Creationist Hoax. (The hoax being that the P.M. experiment itself was a hoax based on staged photographs.)
It has a page on the Peppered Moth where it claims this experiment was a hoax, based on staged photographs! The page contains false nonsense and is clearly written by a creationist. I claim this as a Creationist Hoax.
Yes, that the whole "icons of evolution" bit on peppered moths is a false portrayal of the science on peppered moths, and qualifies as a hoax all on its own, has been demonstrated on the Peppered Moths and Natural Selection" thread. I also note that the creationist article (by John Morris) that was cited is still up, still making false statements, still fraudulently representing what the experiment was designed to accomplish.
One of my favorite frauds is creationist websites that argue the radiocarbon method produces incorrect answers, and that all of the dates past about 4,000 years need to be recalibrated to account for the change in C14 levels during the flood!
I checked recently and the first three creationist articles on radiocarbon dating I found each had this fraud.
And then they have the gall to criticize the assumptions upon which the radiocarbon method is based.
Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
I have to include Gish's bullfrog protein for two reasons; the explanation is just too damn funny to pass up, and I was among those shouting "Bullfrog!" at the Kitcher/Gish debate in 1985.Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin Franklin
We see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat
Thank you for that link. It fills in more of that story. My first Creation/Evolution Newsletter from NCSE was the one that broke the "Bullfrog" story.
In the article, Schadewald couldn't quite follow Gish's chicken-lysozyme tap-dance and he bet that few in the audience could either but boy were they impressed! In my own research, I came across a possible source for a chicken lysozyme claim made by Gary Parker (I think Schadewald might have mentioned that Gish's claim sounded like one Parker had made, but memory is dimming after a couple decades). I could only find the 1987 edition of What Is Creation Science? instead of the 1982 edition that was cited -- that section was one that had been rewritten, since I couldn't find the exact wording of the quote, though what I did find still conveyed the same meaning. That led me to Dickerson and Geis' The Structure and Action of Proteins (1969), the misinterpretation/misrepresentation of which had formed the basis of Parker's claim.
Here is how I reported it on my own page about "The Bullfrog Affair" (which, along with the rest of my site, is down pending finding a new host):
quote:However, Gish insisted that the chicken-protein claim was correct and went into a convoluted apologetic about lysozyme and another protein that nobody could follow (but boy was the audience impressed by it!). Afterwards, Gish promised emphatically to send Schadewald written details about this claim, in front of creationist witnesses, no less. Despite three written reminders, Gish has never honored that promise.
The only ICR claim about lysozyme that Schadewald was familiar with had been Gary Parker's claim that chicken lysozyme is more similar to human lysozyme than is chimpanzee lysozyme. However, Awbrey and Thwaites have shown that this is not true, since human and chimpanzee lysozyme are identical and chicken lysozyme differs from both by 51 out of 130 amino acids. Their conclusion was that either Parker was totally ignorant of the facts or he thought that 51 is less than zero.
I personally suspect that Gish may have been repeating Parker's claim about alpha-lactalbumin, a protein involved in the production of lactose in mammals which apparently had evolved from lysozyme:
quote:By comparing lysozyme and lactalbumin, Dickerson was hoping to 'pin down with great precision' where human beings branched off the mammal line. The results are surprising. In this test, it turned out that humans are more closely related to the CHICKEN than to any living mammal tested! (What is Creation Science?, Morris & Parker, Revised, 1987, pg 58)
Here is what Dickerson had actually written:
quote:A simple-minded application of the 'clocks' ideas of Chapter 3 [i.e. assuming constant rates of change for proteins to estimate when they had diverged] to these lysozymes and alpha-lactalbumin leads to an apparent contradiction. If alpha-lactalbumin evolved from a mammalian lysozyme during the course of the development of mammals, then it and human lysozyme should be more similar than either is to hen lysozyme. Conversely, the assumption that rates of change have been constant in all three proteins since divergence leads to the conclusion that the alpha-lactalbumins separated from the lysozymes long before the first appearance of terrestrial vertebrates. Where is the fallacy?
The fallacy, of course, is in the assumption of unchanging rates of accumulation of tolerable mutations. For one particular protein, performing much the same task in a wide spectrum of species, this may be a valid working hypothesis. But when circumstances arise in the environment such that a duplicated gene is being altered, the better to perform a NEW function, selection pressure is unusually severe and changes in sequence will be unusually rapid. (The Structure and Action of Proteins, Richard Dickerson and Irving Geis, 1969, page 78)
So in comparing human alpha-lactalbumin and human lysozyme with chicken lysozyme, we can use Parker's reasoning to show that humans are more closely related to chickens than they are to humans! It's absurd little touches like this that makes creationism more fun than science!
Dickerson clearly indicates that this was a simple-minded application of an idea that was meant to apply only for a protein whose function remained constant. The assumption that the rates at which all three proteins changed would remain constant is unwarranted and inconsistent with the ideas of evolution. Ironically, "creation scientists" traditionally attack any assumption of a constant rate, except of course for their own assumptions.
Now thanks to your link, we have Gish's account and his ironic conclusion (my emphasis):
quote:In this case, then, the "protein clock" notion is deceptive, because the clock is running at different rates in these two different cases. In any case, evolutionists should spend more time straightening up their own house, instead of hurling accusations against creation scientists.
Which is exactly what Dickerson and Geis had clearly stated in the first place and which Parker and Henry Morris (the co-author of that book) had chosen to ignore and to keep their audience ignorant of. The "evolutionist" house is indeed straightened up and is constantly being maintained. It's still the creationists who live in an un-Godly mess and campaign to do the housekeeping for the rest of us.
In my long list of favorite creo hoaxes, I have to say the Lucy knee joint stands as one of my favorites, probably because I got to hear one of its incarnations first hand. An excellent and complete coverage is here: http://www.toarchive.org/faqs/knee-joint.html
There are a number of variations of this story, it has a urban legend feel about it because it allows the story-teller to insert themselves to add 'credibility'. The basic story is that Donald Johanson was speaking about the Lucy find and discussing how he knew she was a human because the knee joint indicated a biped. A brave creationist in the audience spoke up and asked where he found the knee relative to the rest of the skeleton. With some discomfort Johanson admitted it was 2 km away and 70 meters lower.
Obviously (for those who followed the discovery of Australopithecus afarensis) the story is mixing the knee joint found in 1973 (AL-129-1) with the skeleton known as Lucy (AL-288-1). The information on where these fossils were found was published by Johanson et al., was never deceitful or misleading.
The story serves multiple purposes which explains its persistence. First of all it claims to negate the evidence that Austs. were anything other than chimps. It demonstrates that there is an evo conspiracy and that for lack of evidence we will 'make up' or deliberately leave out critical data to support our position. It enables the creationist telling the story to use complex Latin names and funny museum designations which makes it sound like they are intimately familiar with the fossils. Finally, the story has the age-old theme of the egg-head being outsmarted by good old common sense reasoning.
In 2007 I had the opportunity to see Dave Nutting tell a variation of this story. This is 13 years after Jim Foley informed him that the story was false with documentation and Dave Nutting admitted that there were some falsehoods in his version. Obviously not enough to stop him from presenting a virtually identical version in 2007!
At that same presentation I brought in references including reprints of articles to give him to counter his claim that Lucy was the sole representative of A. afarensis, that in fact we have approximately 39 individuals in total. His response was that he was familiar with my information however the most current literature has shown the other specimens to be fragments of other animals, and that I should keep current. Then the q&a abruptly ended.
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"
I had thought that I'd come across Bob Schadewald's write up of the incident before, but can't now find it. I wonder if it might have been on his personal site that might have disappeared after his death. However, this story seems very familiar to me, and I can't find any name associated with the site that it's on, so perhaps it's simply a copy of Schadewald's write up. In any event, an entertaining episode in the on going nonsense.
The '85 debate was a very curious spectacle. There were several hundred folk in the audience, very obviously out of place on a university campus, with bibles in hand, clapping loudly at everything Gish said, and sitting in stony silence when Dr. Kitcher spoke. If memory serves, at that debate, Gish trotted out the creo filling the gaps conundrum, arguing that each transitional fossil found compounded the "evilutionist's" problem since it simply created two gaps to fill where previously there was only one. Of course, it was completely lost on the creo crowd that in the very same debate he was claiming there were no transitional fossils.
And on it goes.
Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin Franklin
We see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat
I have to agree with you here, as most of the claims of "unreliability" can be shown to be outright fraud.
Google {McMurdo Seal carbon date} and you get a list of creationist sites that all list the same basic story in various forms (it seems to be reaching into the category of urban myth). Here is one site:
quote:Archaeologists are Concerned The unreliability of carbon 14 date testing is a great concern to honest archaeologists. They get particularly concerned when C14 testing shows obviously inaccurate results and they are left in uncertainty about the reliability of the dates that they have previously never questioned. ... A freshly killed seal at McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, yielded a death age of 1300 years ago.
Aside from the fact that "honest archaeologists" know about the reservoir effect and how to account for it, this site repeats a number of PRATTs and is obviously an unreliable site for an intelligent open-minded skeptic.
This particular fraud is apparently due to Kent Hovind (what a surprise) misrepresenting a reported instance of the reservoir effect:
quote:A freshly killed seal was carbon-14 dated at 1300 years old.
Source: Hovind, Kent,
Response:
1. This claim derives from Wakefield (1971):
Radiocarbon analysis of specimens obtained from mummified seals in southern Victoria Land has yielded ages ranging from 615 to 4,600 years. However, Antarctica sea water has significantly lower carbon-14 activity than that accepted as the world standard. Therefore, radiocarbon dating of marine organisms yields apparent ages that are older than true ages, but by an unknown and possibly variable amount. Therefore, the several radiocarbon ages determined for the mummified seal carcasses cannot be accepted as correct. For example, the apparent radiocarbon age of the Lake Bonney seal known to have been dead no more than a few weeks was determined to be 615 +/- 100 years. A seal freshly killed at McMurdo had an apparent age of 1,300 years.
This is the well-known reservoir effect that occurs also with mollusks and other animals that live in the water. It happens when "old" carbon is introduced into the water. In the above case of the seal, old carbon dioxide is present within deep ocean bottom water that has been circulating through the ocean for thousands of years before upwelling along the Antarctic coast.
Wakefield, Dort, Jr., 1971. Mummified seals of southern Victoria Land. Antarctic Journal 6(5): 210-211.
This is just another creationist taking something out of context and pretending they know something scientist don't know (or hide).
This is a fraudulent claim for two reasons:
(1) the carbon-14 dating method is based on atmospheric carbon being incorporated into the organic material being tested.
(2) no mention is made of the reservoir effect, a well known and documented effect that recognizes that marine organisms are not incorporating atmospheric carbon.
quote:A Conventional Radiocarbon Age or CRA, does not take into account specific differences between the activity of different carbon reservoirs. A CRA is derived using an age calculation based upon the decay corrected activity of the absolute radiocarbon standard (1890 AD wood) which is in equilibrium with atmospheric radiocarbon levels (as mentioned previously, 1890 wood is no longer used as the primary radiocarbon standard, instead Oxalic Acid standards I and II were correlated with the activity of the original standard). In order to ascertain the ages of samples which were formed in equilibrium with different reservoirs to these materials, it is necessary to provide an age correction. Implicit in the Conventional Radiocarbon Age BP is the fact that it is not adjusted for this correction. In this page, we consider natural reservoir variations and variations brought about by human interaction. ... One of the most commonly referenced reservoir effects concerns the ocean. The average difference between a radiocarbon date of a terrestrial sample such as a tree, and a shell from the marine environment is about 400 radiocarbon years (see Stuiver and Braziunas, 1993). This apparent age of oceanic water is caused both by the delay in exchange rates between atmospheric CO2 and ocean bicarbonate, and the dilution effect caused by the mixing of surface waters with upwelled deep waters which are very old (Mangerud 1972). A reservoir correction must therefore be made to any conventional shell dates to account for this difference. Reservoir corrections for the world oceans can be found at the Marine Reservoir Correction Database, a searchable database online at Queen's University, Belfast and the University of Washington. Human bone may be a problematic medium for dating in some instances due to human consumption of fish, whose C14 label will reflect the ocean reservoir. In such a case, it is very difficult to ascertain the precise reservoir difference and hence apply a correction to the measured radiocarbon age.
(color for emPHAsis)
In other words, reporting the seal age without the reservoir correction, or noting that a reservoir effect is involved, is not reporting the true measured age of the seal.
Here are the listed corrections for locations around McMurdo Sound
MapNo Lon Lat DeltaR DeltaRErr Locality C14age 523 -56.98 -63.40 829 50 Hope Bay 1280 522 -67.28 -67.87 956 40 25-30 m depth 1416 521 -67.00 -68.65 1016 39 25-30 m depth 1476 519 -90.58 -68.78 767 57 120 m depth 1215
You will note, that with these dates for the uncorrected reservoir effect, an 1300 year C-14 age for a seal in that area is completely expected, and not of any concern at all ... for an honest archaeologist ... or an open-minded skeptic.
Meanwhile, Kent Hovind is in jail, convicted of fraud.
Hey, Kapy, you missed my fav Ron Wyatt--the discovery of Mr. and Mrs. Noah`s grave, complete with Mrs. N`s jewellry. When he went back to grave-rob, some dirty rotten scoundrel had nicked the jewellry. Or something like that.
Let`s not forget the discovery of the ossuary of Jesus. Or was it James? I can never keep my hoaxes apart.
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