I've fallen behind a bit, I started this reply yesterday but didn't get a chance to complete it 'til today.
Dont Be a Flea writes:
This story is actually the story of how a good Chinese scientist exposed a fraud by a Chinese farmer as soon as he got a chance to examine the fossil (or fossils, as it was made up of two).
An interesting fraud case, but that's all.
Then why was the banner still hanging in the Museum of Natural History last year?
What makes you think such a banner of
Archaeoraptor Liaoningensis ever existed, let alone hung in the Museum of Natural History last year?
Your position is that scientists as a group cannot be trusted, but scientists are just people, and for that reason they are heir to all the weaknesses and foibles of people everywhere. The proportion of scientists willing to lie or cheat or mislead is no greater than the proportion in any other segment of society.
This is why the most appropriate response to your expressed distrust of scientists is the list of things about which creationists are dishonest, because if you apply the same criteria you used for scientists then you can only conclude that creationists can't be trusted, either.
What science has working in its favor is that it is based upon real world observations. The goal of science is the closest correspondence possible between theory and the real world. Any scientist who misrepresents what the real world says will eventually get caught. Always.
--Percy