You are hereby appointed Commissioner of the Dept. of Education for Tennessee

Nebraska Man was brought up and discussed recently in another thread here, though I forget which one. Here is an article that goes into the history of that find: The role of Nebraska man in the creation-evolution debate.
The pertinent facts are that:
- the tooth was found.
- it had unusual wear patterns that led to its being misidentified as being from an anthropoid ape.
- there was not much agreement over various interpretations of the tooth
- it was an artist who extrapolated those attempts at interpreting the tooth and had reconstructed "Nebraska Man", patterning him after Java Man (Homo erectus).
- further finds revealed the true nature of the tooth.
- those findings were published and Nebraska Man was no more.That is, he was no more except that creationists keep digging him up and parading him around as a problem for science. Actually, Nebraska Man is an excellent illustration of how science is self-corrective. Contrast how science handled Nebraska Man with how creationism handles a multitude of false claims that it continues to make even though they were soundly refuted decades ago; eg:
- the "shrinking sun claim", including utterly false claims about the effects of the sun's loss of its mass
- the leap-seconds claim, by which they greatly inflate the rate at which the earth's rotation is slowing down
- the moon-dust claims, including the one based on Slusher's work in which he lied about his NASA source and introduced extraneous factors into his calculations that inflated his calculations by a factor of 10,000
- the false claims about protein comparisons between species
- the false claims about the "non-existence" of transitional fossils
- misrepresentations of evolutionary theoryScience makes mistakes and is subject to hoaxes, but because it deals with the evidence and seeks further evidence, it is self-corrective. Mistakes are corrected and hoaxes are exposed and dealt with -- by scientists, not by creationists. Being found to have made serious mistakes is detrimental to a scientist's reputation and to his career. Being exposed as having perpetrated a hoax is fatal to a scientist's career.Creationism makes mistakes and has more than its share of hoaxes, but because it does not deal with the evidence -- except to either ignore it or misrepresent it -- it is not self-corrective. Mistakes are not corrected and hoaxes are not exposed. And when a hoax is exposed (never by a creationist, BTW), that creationist's reputation and career remains unaffected within the creationist community. And if creationists believe that those false claims sound convincing, they will continue to use them even knowing that they are false.

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{When you search for God, y}ou can't go to the people who believe already. They've made up their minds and want to convince you of their own personal heresy.
("The Jehovah Contract", AKA "Der Jehova-Vertrag", by Viktor Koman, 1984)Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world.
(from filk song "Word of God" by Dr. Catherine Faber, No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/WORDGOD.HTML)Of course, if Dr. Mortimer's surmise should be correct and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature, there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one.
(Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles)Gentry's case depends upon his halos remaining a mystery. Once a naturalistic explanation is discovered, his claim of a supernatural origin is washed up. So he will not give aid or support to suggestions that might resolve the mystery. Science works toward an increase in knowledge; creationism depends upon a lack of it. Science promotes the open-ended search; creationism supports giving up and looking no further. It is clear which method Gentry advocates.
("Gentry's Tiny Mystery -- Unsupported by Geology" by J. Richard Wakefield, Creation/Evolution Issue XXII, Winter 1987-1988, pp 31-32)

Sorry. You had posted after I started replying, so I didn't see your warning until I had posted my reply.At least now he has a link to follow and learn the real story of Nebraska Man.Edited by dwise1, : No reason given.