Author:
Wade A. Tisthamjmer
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Date Posted: 09/13/04 12:09am
In reply to:
Damoclese
's message, "Harding Place" on 08/15/04 11:56am
>>
>>But this is a tad different. We have direct
>>empirical knowledge of the fossil at hand. My
>>point is that if this were really a hard
>>science, they should have known right away (not
>>decades later) once it was examined that Piltdown man
>>was a hoax (a combination of ape and human parts).
>
>When new discoveries are made, be they genuine or not,
>there is often a considerable time that it takes to
>analyze them and figure them out.
That's no excuse for not realizing that Piltdown man was a hoax for 40+ years. And what kind of scientists touts a fossil as proof when they haven't sufficiently analyzed it?
>Setting up a contingency such as "if this was really
>science then they should have immediately known" is
>not a realistic condition.
When it comes to obvious hoaxes (a mixture of jaw and skullcap of jaw and man), I disagree. If they looked at the fossils, came to their conclusions as "intermediate" they should have been a little more successful if it was a hard science.
>Hard sciences encounter
>things daily that they don't immeadiately recognize as
>true or false.
Not something comparable to the Piltdown man hoax. Cold fusion? Let's test it...didn't work. It didn't exactly take 40+ years to find out. Judging the exact same fossils, coming to conclusions that were decades later found to be wrong, isn't a good indication. These are tangible fossils. Physical chemistry can make tests right away as to mass, volume etc. and be tested immediately. But judging fossils apparently doesn't have that "hardness" into it, else we would have found out a lot earlier.
>It doesn't somehow make it a "weaker"
>science because of that, nor does Piltdown man
>hovering around for many years before finally being
>repudiated make evolutionary science "weak."
It makes the basis for judging human-like fossils weak. Again, if this were really a hard science it should have been exposed right away. Example: this rock has a mass of 10 kilograms. Someone does a test: no it doesn't. The end. Hard science, no subjective opinions or judgments. Not the case with human-like fossils. It has a lot more "intuitiveness" to it, for good or for ill.
>In fact,
>the strength and credit to showing that it is a
>legitimate hard science is admitting to the fact that
>it WASN'T a legitimate finding.
It's a step in the right direction, but given the track record of "oops!", fossil evidence for human evolution doesn't seem particularly compelling. "Fool me once, shame one you, fool me twice..."
Tell me this, how many times must human scientists be "fooled" before fossil evidence for human evolution looses credibility? Ten times? A hundred times? A million? A trillion?
>>You betcha. And I have little doubt that if the
>>research continues, those alleged intermediate forms
>>will eventually be renounced as well.
>
>Because you are not exactly half of your mom in
>features, and half your dad in features, you must not
>be their son.
That's not what I'm arguing on. I'm arguing on the basis of the dismal track record.
>>That's not true at all. It has changed quite a bit.
>
>So what claims has creationism rejected? What exactly
>has changed about it?
Gap theory was replaced with flood geology. Absolute fixity of species has almost completely disappeared as virtually all creationists accept microevolution. The dinosaur tracks in the Paluxy River formation has been repudiated by nearly every major creationist group. The case for creation and against evolution has considerably expanded (compared to the early and end of the twentieth century) incorporating genetics, cellular biology, biochemistry and so forth.
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