Evolutionist Frauds

I do not think anyone here has mentioned it as evolutionist fraud.I'm a bit thunderstuck at this response; it simply does not make sense as a reply to my article, or to Tamara's comments. We all agree with the above obvious points, and the contributions of both Tamara and I have both made similar comments to what you are saying above.It bothers me if people can't deal with even the slightest hint at some criticism of scientists involved, and confuse it with creationist inflations.This can perfectly reasonably be called a fraud perpetuated on evolutionists, which is how Tamara described it. As you and I have pointed out, the objectives of the forgery were probably to enhance market value, not to push any particular scientific model. As I said, it would be churlish to simply put all the blame on the unknown forger given their likely circumstances; but it was certainly a deliberate and skillful forgery.It did fool the scientists who examined it -- some more than others. The story is a useful cautionary tale, and it is legitimate to wonder if there are other cases in which we have been mislead by altered fossils.Here is a discussion, from New Scientist:F is for Fake, by Jeff Hecht (New Scientist, 19 February 2000) that gives legitimate consideration of this serious problem.On the other hand, the very fact that such a forgery is even possible is due to the close relationships of ancient birds and dromaeosaurs. The so called Archaeoraptor fossil remains a valuable find. The two parts are now identified as Yanornis martini, an ancient fish eating bird for which some other fossils also exist; with the dinosaurian tail added from a species now called Microraptor zhaoianus, possibly the smallest known non-avian dinosaur. (See Fossil forgery's front half revealed, from the Nature news service.)Cheers -- Sylas

Particularly as the forger/seller was likely a Chinese farmer committing a serious felony by selling fossils abroad. I gravely doubt that he gave even a half-second's thought as to whether he was aiding or injuring Feduccia's, or anyone else's, viewpoint.

Gasp, Sylas, here I been on a roll as the enemy of all reason and you rush in to ruin my reputation! Nooooo! Hey, thanks. I guess sanity still exists in the crazy ol' world of ours! Will be looking forward to more of your posts. The details of the story are very interesting.The F is for fake article says that concern about fakes is real. Here are a few sentences from it:Many early palaeontologists saw nothing wrong with adding a missing bone or two. Both the American Museum of Natural History and the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh acquired fossil skeletons of Apatosaurus with skulls from different dinosaurs in the 1880s. But the prices that well-preserved Chinese bird fossils fetch have made faking extremely profitable. Over the past twenty years, says Derstler, "adhesives and fake rock have become very easy to make and very difficult to spot.""The whole commercial market for fossils has gotten riddled with fakery," complains Martin.[This message has been edited by Tamara, 02-19-2004]

Which is why the commercial fossil market should be restricted very severly. And why it is fortunate that we are not dependent on that for information.

Larry Martin is right about that; although the commercial market is well recognized as being of limited scientific value. The scientific worth of a fossil drops precipitously when it is removed from its geological context.Unfortunately, the value in the collector's market is not nearly so adversely affected; and scientists have limited budgets. This means that there remains a strong financial incentive to trade in fossils without regard for the negative impact this has on scientific value. It's a serious problem.There is, however, a bit of minor irony in Larry's comments. Larry Martin is one of a very few remaining scientists who still hold on to the BANDwagon (Birds Are Not Dinosaurs). Alan Feduccia is the most vocal, and Larry Martin thinks he has a point but does not say as much about it. The BANDwagon has been becoming more and more marginalized over time as the fossil evidence from China continues to mount. The Microraptor page I cited last time includes comments from Martin deprecating Xu Xing's interpretations of the counter slab fossil. Larry Martin performs a useful service, being the voice of skepticism for the new theory. Martin does not charge that all the evidence for bird dinosaur linkage is fakery; he simply disagrees on interpretations (to the point where he now appears quite idiosyncratic).Larry raises a useful caution on misleading fossils... and the minor irony is that scientific consensus now appears to be that fossils are showing Martin's comments on bird ancestry to be misleading. It's probably just about time for him to throw in the towel and recognize the linkage.Cheers -- Sylas

I recently saw a diagram claiming that the holy 5 of my remembered classification were redone: instead of fish, amphibian, liz, bird, and mammal we now have only 4 with the birds put in with the lizards. Hmm... Does that make sense? I don't want to seem an old fogey holding on to tradition for tradition's sake but somehow this just does not feel right...

That doesn't seem right. As I understand it cladistics puts birds in with crocodiles and dinosaurs - and lizards and snakes in a different branch.Doing a little more rresearch it seems that the order of the divisions is :fish
amphibia
turtles
mammals
lizards & snakes
crocodiles
birds

I think that different levels of taxonomy are getting muddled here
from: http://erms.biol.soton.ac.uk/cgi-bin/hierarchy.pl?rank=su...I don't know if this list is complete or not.This is the old class list and now Aves must move under Reptillia in some way (or a super class must have been created).I presume aves would now be an order of reptillia. Which would not group it with lizards or crocodiles or fish. Does anyone have a difinitive list?12 groups within the subphylum Vertebrata:
class Myxini
class Cephalaspidomorpha
class Chondrichthyes
class Ostichthyes
class Crossopterygii
class Reptilia
class Aves
class Mammalia
class Mixini
class Osteichthyes
class Class
informal Tetrapoda

quote:

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presume aves would now be an order of reptillia. Which would not group it with lizards or crocodiles or fish. Does anyone have a difinitive list?

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Order is a subset of class. Aves and Reptilia are separate classes that share the same phylum (chordata).

I wasn't trying to present formal taxonomy, rather to give a list of the branchings showing where the groupings would be.If I wanted better I would start with the Tree of Life project
Tree of Life Web ProjectThe Reptilia includes the Anapsids (including turtles), and the Romeriida which includes the Diapsids. Under the diapsids we (eventually) come to the Sauria which includes Archosauormorpha under which are the Archosaurs (including crocodiles, birds and dinosaurs),
Also under Sauria are the Lepidosauromorpha including the Lepidosauria under which are the Squamata (lizards and snakes).
Amniota

Aves is now a superorder belonging to the superorder Theropoda, which belongs to the subclass Dinosauria, which belongs to the class Archosauria, which belongs to the superclass Reptilia.

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Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!

Ahh, thanks Cthulu. Darn taxonomists, they keep chaning things on me.

Sylas, feel free to be thunderstruck but you seem to have missed the forest for the trees.In a thread titled Evolutionist Frauds, Tamara writes (bolds are mine):(referring to NosyNed's mention of Nebraska Man in message #1, "Haeckel's embryo drawings is the only other one I know of."(in message #12) "There are also other frauds like the bird/dino fossil found in China recently that was quickly discovered to be a fake." and"But this is more of a fraud perpetrated ON evolutionists.""It just raises the question of... how many other frauds are there undetected?"In these statements over a couple of posts Tamara has agreed that Nebraska Man was a fraud, nominated Haeckel's drawings as frauds, implied that there was still a smell of fraud from the paleontologists involved in the Archaeoraptor saga and speculated about other undetected frauds.

This is surreal... Both Ned and Tamara use the word other, and neither one reads credibly as acknowledging Nebraska Man as a fraud. Ned said, in Message 1: (Do you think Ned's use of the word "other" means that he is calling Nebraska man a fraud?)Tamara's reply, Message 5, which you have quoted, is raising Haeckel's drawings as another point for discussion of what could be frauds.Some more others we could discuss include Java man and Onyate man. Java man is not fraud, and Onyate man is fraud -- a hilarious and deliberate April fools prank aimed at creationists. It worked. Check it out; if you have not heard this story before, you'll love it!Haeckel is a much more serious and legitimate other example to consider. Gould (one of my favourite writers) calls it fraudulent; and Tamara's citation of Gould's article was introducing a high level of scholarship into that issue. I tend to avoid the term fraud in this instance; but that may just be excessive caution. It is not remotely sensible to say Tarama agreed that Nebraska Man was a fraud. She did nominate Haeckel's drawing's as fraud, and good on her for that. Her comments on Archaeoraptor are also right on. This was fraud, but it was more a case of fraud perpetrated on evolutionists than by evolutionists. If you read the details in the articles I have supplied, especially the one by Lewis Simons, you will see that some of the actions by scientists involved were less than satisfactory; they do have a major share in responsibility for the impact of this fraud, and the inflated claims published in National Geographic; though their actions were not fraudulent in isolation.It is entirely right and proper to speculate about other frauds of the same kind as Archaeoraptor, and to be vigilant in testing and finding them. As Tarama has also said: Cheers -- Sylas

That other was not intended that way. I just didn't want to argue Nebraska man right off