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Author | Topic: Examples of Dishonesty | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Syamsu  Suspended Member (Idle past 5616 days) Posts: 1914 From: amsterdam Joined: |
I looked this up because you were blatantly wrong in answering Redwolf about Sir Keith before, as far as I can tell.
Page not found | The Indian Express They might not say it in a journal, but scientists certainly do say "ridiculous" things like that, especially evolutionary scientists are far more liberal in wordusage and theoretical constructs then people in other sciences as far as I can tell. Do you really believe the reporter made up this saying all on his own, without any help from Stringer? Apart from that I don't understand your problem with the phrase. It seems that you don't think it is appropiate to talk in terms of; the dna being half as different from modern humans as the dna from chimpanzees is, how come? Evolutionists get some finding they don't like, neanderthals are apparently not the ancestors of human beings which many said they were, then they begin nitpicking at not giving a full reference to a quote which says what they don't like to hear, a quote which is basically true, and try to attack the character of the person who pointed out what they didn't like to hear. regards,Mohammad Nor Syamsu
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wj Inactive Member |
My favourite example of dishonesty or careless disregard for the truth is the claim from the AIG clowns about the missing Ambulocetus pelvis.
A full explanation can be found in this article. As a summary:In 2002 or 2003 PBS aired their series Evolution. In episode 2 mention was made of the evolution of whales from terrestrial to aquatic mammals and the transitional fossils which evidence this process, including the change in method of locomotion. Johnathon Sarfati of AIG wrote a rebuttal (2002 or 2003) claiming that one of the source scientists for the Evolution series, Kenneth Miller, was being deceitful and unreliable because for the Ambulocetus fossil "the all-important pelvic girdle was not found ..". Sarfati was relying on in-house material produced by Ken Ham and Carl Weiland called A Whale of a Tale circa 2001 and Don Batten called A Whale of a Tale? (Ambulocetus) 1994. The latter article was in response to Thewissen et al paper in Science 1994. What a pity for the AIG clowns that further fossils have been found since 1994 which they choose to ignore. Thewissen uncovered the spine and pelvis of Ambulocetus in 1996, the discoveries were mentioned in scientific literature in 1998, photos were available on his website in 1999, and the paper published in Nature in 2001. Despite this, Batten bleats in an Addendum (dated 4/1/2002) to his 1994 article that the additional fossils have not been peer reviewed. Another 2 years have passed and Batton's erroneous article is still on the AIG website. Sarfati seems aware of Thewitten's 2001 Nature paper because he cites it in his article. But he chooses not to ignore the material which contradicts his, and his colleagues', assertion of the missing Ambulocetus pelvis fossil. Deceitful and unreliable? It's obvious whom this more accurately describes.
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Sylas Member (Idle past 5286 days) Posts: 766 From: Newcastle, Australia Joined: |
Syamsu writes: I looked this up because you were blatantly wrong in answering Redwolf about Sir Keith before, as far as I can tell. I stand by everything I wrote about Sir Arthur Keith in Message 19; and refer you to the complete text of his essay Evolution and Ethics, which I cited in the other thread. I don't agree with all of Keith's views, but I have nothing but contempt for redwolf's sleazy distortions.
Page not found | The Indian Express They might not say it in a journal, but scientists certainly do say "ridiculous" things like that, especially evolutionary scientists are far more liberal in wordusage and theoretical constructs then people in other sciences as far as I can tell. Do you really believe the reporter made up this saying all on his own, without any help from Stringer? It is emphatically not credible for Stringer to make the cited comment. The statement from the reporter is incorrect. This is common in journalism, and I would not be too criticial of the reporter for this. He is plainly not an expert, and it is an easy mistake for an amateur to make. Such errors in reporting of scientific results are common. They are not malicious or dishonest, and occur becuase the reporters don't have the background to identify the errors, and because the final proof reading of their copy is reviewed by other journalists or by newpapers editors; not by scientists. Scientists don't have time to review everything which is written on their research. If you know of any ridiculous statements by evolutionists; start a thread. If you know of dishonest statements by evolutionists, then they can be introduced here. I can think of some instances of errors of various kinds by evolutionists, but the claims that evolutionists are any different to other scientists in this regard are invariably hot air.
Apart from that I don't understand your problem with the phrase. It seems that you don't think it is appropiate to talk in terms of; the dna being half as different from modern humans as the dna from chimpanzees is, how come? No, my objection was not to that phrase, which is about correct. My objection was to the erroneous statement made by Ted, which he gave without attribution and in spite of being shown that it was wrong. In the newspaper article, the reporter said:
Comparisons with the DNA of modern humans and of apes showed the Neanderthal was about halfway between a modern human and a chimpanzee. Your phrasing is much better as a description of the results. I'd word it as follows:
Comparisons with the DNA of modern humans, modern apes, and Neanderthals, have showed the difference between Neanderthal and human was about half the difference between apes and humans, or between apes and Neanderthals. Even that is not strictly true; the difference between modern human and Neanderthal is substantially less than half the difference between apes and modern humans, or between apes and Neanderthals. I took the actual data from the primary literature, and reported it in my usenet article. The original source is
DNA sequence of the mitochondrial hypervariable region II from the Neandertal type specimen by M Krings et. al, in PNAS Vol. 96, Issue 10, 5581-5585, May 11, 1999 The data, rendered by me for Usenet in an ASCII fixed width font representation, is
[size=2]There were 663 humans sequences, 1 Neandertal sequence, and 9 chimpanzee sequences in the study. I reproduce table 1. (view in fixed width font)[/size] [size=2]------------------------------------------------------------- | Pairwise | Human Neandertal Chimpanzees | | Differences | and Bonobos | |---------------+-------------------------------------------| | | | |Human (663) | 10.9 +- 5.1 35.3 +- 2.3 93.4 +- 7.1 | | | (1-35) (29-43) (78-113) | | | | |Neandertal (1) | 94.1 +- 5.7 | | | (84-103) | | | | |Chimpanzee (9) | 54.8 +- 24 | |and Bonobos | (1-81) | -------------------------------------------------------------[/size] [size=2]For each pairs of sequences, the number of pairwise differences was found. In each of the categories, the differences are quoted as[/size] [size=2] mean +- sd (min-max) [/size] Evolutionists get some finding they don't like, neanderthals are apparently not the ancestors of human beings which many said they were, then they begin nitpicking at not giving a full reference to a quote which says what they don't like to hear, a quote which is basically true, and try to attack the character of the person who pointed out what they didn't like to hear. If you think that is a good description of matters, then you are very stupid. If you don't, then you are dishonest. Sheesh -- Sylas [This message has been edited by Sylas, 04-29-2004]
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Syamsu  Suspended Member (Idle past 5616 days) Posts: 1914 From: amsterdam Joined: |
If the phrase is wrongly understood, then the wrong understanding would tend to support evolution. I can read it like saying modern humans evolved from chimps, and halfway through this evolution were neanderthals. So you could make some case for redwolf dishonestly representing some results if he were an evolutionist, but he's not. What other fault are you possibly alluding to, the substantially less then half? What is the correct number then?
As far I can tell, you have no case, as also with Sir Keith I'm left totally guessing at what your problem with the quote is. Sylas:"The behaviour is not a result of accepting evolutionary explanations; and that is not Keith's position." A double negative, not very clear. According the quotes including your own, it is Sir Keith's position that the behaviour of the nazi's is a result of conforming policy to evolutionary theory. It's true that it's not Sir Keith's position that it's not a result of conforming policy to evolutionary theory. I see that you, or someone else debated this on talk.origins. I've been posting on talk.origins for a long time before, I know the kind of tactics and groupdynamics that go on there. I think my reading of events is entirely reasonable, considering you don't actually seem to have any valid argumentation, or at the very least your argumentation is not expressed well, yet you go on *pretending* that this is all just clearcut dishonesty. regards,Mohammad Nor Syamsu
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Sylas Member (Idle past 5286 days) Posts: 766 From: Newcastle, Australia Joined: |
Syamsu writes: If the phrase is wrongly understood, then the wrong understanding would tend to support evolution. I can read it like saying modern humans evolved from chimps, and halfway through this evolution were neanderthals. So you could make some case for redwolf dishonestly representing some results if he were an evolutionist, but he's not. What other fault are you possibly alluding to, the substantially less then half? What is the correct number then? We are going off topic; but here are some quick corrections.
As far I can tell, you have no case, as also with Sir Keith I'm left totally guessing at what your problem with the quote is. Sylas:"The behaviour is not a result of accepting evolutionary explanations; and that is not Keith's position." A double negative, not very clear. According the quotes including your own, it is Sir Keith's position that the behaviour of the nazi's is a result of conforming policy to evolutionary theory. It's true that it's not Sir Keith's position that it's not a result of conforming policy to evolutionary theory. My phrasing is indeed terrible in the quote you give. ("That sentence should be taken out and shot.") Keith's position is that Hitler applied the ideas of evolution to further his evil aims for racial domination. This is analogous to applying the ideas of physics to obliterate Hiroshima. He also suggests that a human propensity for evil is an evolved propensity. Keith is not saying that evolutionary biology justifies such behaviour. Keith is arguing against the use of evolution as a scientific basis for ethics. The really revolting dishonesty of the invocation of Keith is in Message 17, concluding in this extract quoted from chapter 3 of Keith's essay:
...We must not lose sight of the purpose of our visit to Germany; it was to see how far modern evolutionary practice can provide us with a scientific basis for ethical or moral behavior.... In the context of redwolf's post, especially with preceding quotes from the same essay by Keith on how Hitler was an evolutionist, redwolf is plainly suggesting that Keith proposes evolutionary theory as giving a scientific basis for ethical or moral behaviour. I showed that this is a gross misrepresentation by quoting the conclusion of the chapter 3:
It must not be thought that in seeking to explain Hitler's actions I am seeking to justify them. The opposite is the case. I have made this brief survey of public policy in modern Germany with a definite object: to show that Dr. Waddington is in error when he seeks to place ethics on a scientific basis by a knowledge of evolutionary tendencies and practice.
I could also have quoted from the forward:
... in the autumn of 1942 the scientific journal Nature was giving prominence to a claim made by Dr. C. H. Waddington-viz., that science was in a position to provide mankind with a true system of ethics. This system is to be based on a knowledge of evolution a knowledge of the direction in which mankind is now evolving. Any circumstance or condition which helps man along his evolutionary course is to be counted morally good or ethical; anything which hinders man's evolutionary course is to be regarded as morally bad or evil. Now this idea of finding guidance to right behavior in a knowledge of human evolution had engaged my attention for a number of years, and I had found that the evolutionary finger posts were often not only ambiguous, but gave no guidance to what most men count civilized behavior. So much was I in disagreement with Dr. Waddington's thesis that I resolved to reverse my plan, and deal first with the origin of human morality, of human ethics, of human behavior, and in particular with that most unethical of all forms of human behavior war. You have made a legitimate criticism of my prose, and the double negative. Keith's prose is also rather awkward, and it is very easy to quote extracts that reverse his meaning. But if you read the essay complete, the meaning is clear; and for redwolf to quote the question Keith sought to answer, without any hint of his plain answer, bespeaks a malignant dishonesty that is despicable. Cheers -- Sylas
(Edited to add the sentence on propensity for evil) [This message has been edited by Sylas, 04-29-2004]
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Syamsu  Suspended Member (Idle past 5616 days) Posts: 1914 From: amsterdam Joined: |
But it can't reasonably be misunderstood because the misunderstanding would lead people to conclude that redwolf is an evolutionist, which is obviously not the case. It would be understood, just as I understood it, that the DNA is half as different.
redwolf:"Keith...an atheistic evolutionist and an anti-Nazi" Same here, you can't conclude that redwolf makes it out as though Keith proposes evolutionary theory as giving a scientific basis for ethical or moral behaviour, because he says in the opening that Keith is an anti-nazi. You are clearly wrong, I am not incredibly stupid, redwolf was not dishonest. This is on topic in so far as claims of dishonesty are all to readily bandied about by people who then *invite everyone* to repeat that false claim of dishonesty. This is simply a tactic, sooner or later you're going to catch that person in an actual dishonesty, in which case *character assassination* can begin in full swing. There's obviously no possible response like: "yes sorry I was being dishonest", it is like it is unforgivable. regards,Mohammad Nor Syamsu
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Loudmouth Inactive Member |
quote: If I were to venture a guess, the misrepresentation on the part of the reporter may have stemmed from the graph below:
The chimp mitDNA was used for a comparison, or more accurately as an outgroup. This graph is not trying to show that neanderthals are "half way between chimps and humans", only that the number of differences between neader and human DNA is less than that between humans and chimps. I have often wondered why people insist on taking the general media's conclusions over those of the scientists doing the actual work. Perhaps it is dishonest to take the media's opinion over that of the actual scientist who better understand's the data?
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Sylas Member (Idle past 5286 days) Posts: 766 From: Newcastle, Australia Joined: |
Loudmouth writes: If I were to venture a guess, the misrepresentation on the part of the reporter may have stemmed from the graph below: [..snipped..] The chimp mitDNA was used for a comparison, or more accurately as an outgroup. This graph is not trying to show that neanderthals are "half way between chimps and humans", only that the number of differences between neader and human DNA is less than that between humans and chimps. I have often wondered why people insist on taking the general media's conclusions over those of the scientists doing the actual work. Perhaps it is dishonest to take the media's opinion over that of the actual scientist who better understand's the data? This is a very plausible speculative guess at the source of the error. The graph you give is from the same Cell paper that the Indian newspaper article refers to. It is a natural mistake, and there is no dishonesty involved in making this mistake, nor in Ted failing to pick up the error. However, the error is immediately obvious to anyone with a bit of background on the nature of DNA differences. When Ted raised this in Usenet some years ago, the error was swiftly identified and explained. The source of his quote was identified as a reporter, and the research papers involved located and perused. The error does not appear in the scientific papers, only in the newspaper report. This is completely normal; no-one should expect newspaper reports to be fully accurate in their comments on technical scientific papers. The newspaper report is a good one, despite this isolated howler. It is a bit naive to rely on second hand newspaper reports for descriptions of such research; but not dishonest. What is less excusable is continuing to promulgate the error after it has been pointed out; but I don't think it is a major problem. It could be laziness, or in this case a kind of bloody minded refusal to admit that your errors have any significance. The Cell paper does not give a table of differences, and it does not even quote numbers for Neanderthal-chimp differences. If these had been included in the plot, the error would have been much less likely. I will show what I mean, with a diagram, in a new thread, as soon as I can get the diagram uploaded somewhere. (Edited to remove off-topic discussion, which will be in the new thread. Thanks for the heads up Nosy.) [This message has been edited by Sylas, 04-29-2004]
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NosyNed Member Posts: 9003 From: Canada Joined: |
Perhaps to keep this thread a little under control (and leave room for any creationists who think they have something) we could spin such details off to another thread?
If you want I'll do the setting up.
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Mammuthus Member (Idle past 6501 days) Posts: 3085 From: Munich, Germany Joined: |
Heh heh,
You keep bringing up topics I am rather familiar with Part of the problem i.e. misrepresentation, is that the cover of the Cell issue containing the paper claims neandertals were not our ancestors although this is NOT a conclusion of the paper since at the time it represented a single nea sequence which was compared to thousands of human sequences and multiple chimps. Where anyone would get the idea that neandertals were "half way" between humans and chimps, even from the pairwise sequence analysis is beyond me. Note in the figure that Sylas posted, there is a slight overlap of the neandertal and human distributions. Note also, the human pairwise distribution consists of thousands of human sequences whereas the neandertal is represented by a single sequence. Note also, this is mtDNA and says nothing about nuclear gene contributions. Anyway...a view of neandertal genetic diversity can be found herewith a comparison of relative genetic diversity of neandertals, humans, chimps, and gorillas which demonstrates (tentatively) that like H. sapiens and completely in contrast to other apes, neandertals were genetically relatively homogenous. If anything, it shows they were in all ways more like us than like P. troglodytes or P. paniscus. Krings M, Capelli C, Tschentscher F, Geisert H, Meyer S, von Haeseler A, Grossschmidt K, Possnert G, Paunovic M, Paabo S. A view of Neandertal genetic diversity.Nat Genet. 2000 Oct;26(2):144-6. All in all, the neandertal work has been badly misrepresented by the press and overhyped as well. [This message has been edited by Mammuthus, 04-30-2004]
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Syamsu  Suspended Member (Idle past 5616 days) Posts: 1914 From: amsterdam Joined: |
It is not wrong, there is actually no error whatsoever.
It is perhaps a little vague, but since it is explicitely denied in the newspaper as well as by redwolf that neanderthals are the ancestors of modern humans, it can't reasonably be misunderstood. I'm sure that scientists measuring dna differences will say things like "oh, the neanderthals are about halfway between chimps and modern human beings" and if they had some other group in it they might say meaning they are half as different. All these page after page of posts is about absolutely nothing whatsoever. It's about a bit loose wordusage in a science where they employ words such vauge terms as goodness, and selfishness, and talk about struggle for existence. A useless exercise in nitpicking. regards,Mohammad Nor Syamsu
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Wounded King Member Posts: 4149 From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA Joined: |
Syamsu writes: All these page after page of posts is about absolutely nothing whatsoever...*SNIP*... A useless exercise in nitpicking. Honestly Syamsu, you would think you had never seen a web forum before [This message has been edited by Wounded King, 04-30-2004]
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FliesOnly Member (Idle past 4171 days) Posts: 797 From: Michigan Joined: |
NosyNed:
I too agree that it is only fair to separate dishonest behavior from those that simply make a mistake. Some people just don’t know that what they’re saying may not be entirely true. I guess my question would be how do we know when it is just a mistake? Would the level of education make a difference? I recently attended a talk that was supposed to provide us with the scientific merits of a creation world view. Two individuals with PhDs (one with his in Organic Chemistry and the other with his in Biology (not sure of the field)), and one individual with an MS (Biochemistry) presented their views. Now, if a PhD biologist tells me with a straight face that all the dinosaurs were on the ark AND they were herbivores, can I conclude that he is being dishonest or should I chalk it up to a simple mistake? Or if he tells me that radiometric dating can’t be trusted because the decay rates of the isotopes may not be consistent, can I conclude he has made a mistake or can I call him dishonest? I guess what I’m trying to get at is that if someone with an advanced degree (MS or PhD) in a scientific discipline tells me nonsense like the stuff I mentioned above, can I conclude that they know what their saying is dishonest? I mean they do, after all, know about scientific literature and the scientific method. Personally, I view these individuals as dishonest, but I guess I could see how some people may think that they are making honest mistakes.
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jar Member (Idle past 420 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
NO!
You can not base it on degrees or level of education. That would be simply attributing it to Authority. It is necessary to decide the merits based on the evidence and facts available and not on the Authority of some individual or GOD. Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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jar Member (Idle past 420 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
It is perhaps a little vague, but since it is explicitely denied in the newspaper as well as by redwolf that neanderthals are the ancestors of modern humans, it can't reasonably be misunderstood. Correct. Neaderthal is not the ancestor of modern Humans. It is one of the HOMO species and there was a common ancestor of both Neaderthal and Homo Sapiens (and Chimps). Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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