Evolutionist Frauds

This is from Skeptick in another thread.It is a shame that he didn't at least refer to one of the multiple sources.I will take up the Nebraska Man issue later. I'm not aware of any other case that could be, even remotely, considered to be an evolutionist fraud.If Skeptick would like to pull something off this lengthy rap sheet I would be interested.

Piltdown Man is about the only possibility - even Archaeoraptor was perpetrated by a fossil seller out for money and was exposed by evolutionists BEFORE the peer review process on the relevant papers were completed. Even in the case of Piltdown man the motives of the hoaxer are unclear - one suggestion was that it was an attempt to discredit Dawson but the hoaxer got cold feet.On the other hand there are fakes and mistakes that creationists have used - the Paluxy tracks include both. One fake is the so-called Burdick track still promoted by creationists here http://www.bible.ca/tracks/burdick-track.htm and debunked here http://members.aol.com/Paluxy2/wilker5.htm

Let's not drift off topic to creationist frauds. If you want to discuss that please start another thread.I'd like to see the 'rap sheet' of scientific fraud here.

bump! You made a claim skeptick. Defend it if you can.

Haeckel's embryo drawings is the only other one I know of.[This message has been edited by Tamara, 02-17-2004]

As Kenneth Miller points out in this NOVA Online debate with Phillip Johnson, you have to be careful about discarding embryological development entirely just because of Haeckel's carelessness:

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Haeckel was wrong, as the Life magazine article carefully points out. But it is an even greater mistake to maintain that development teaches us nothing about evolution.

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The development of any animal is controlled by the unfolding of an internal genetic program. Haeckel believed that changes could only be added at the end of that program, the source of his well-understood mistake. Mutations that affect structure or timing can in fact occur at any part of the program, including the beginning. Because of this, there is no reason to be surprised at the fact that adaptations to the vastly different sizes of mammalian and avian eggs have produced "radically dissimilar" patterns of cell division in the early embryo. The chicken embryo develops on top of a huge store of nutritional yolk, which it gradually surrounds with an egg sac. The human embryo has no such store, and must implant in the uterine wall to obtain nourishment. Once both embryos surmount these early challenges, the rest of their development is remarkably similar, and that's precisely the point.

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So there's a significant difference between admitting Haeckel was mistaken and ignoring the lesson to be learned by embryological similarities.

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The dark nursery of evolution is very dark indeed.
Brad McFall

quote:

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So there's a significant difference between admitting Haeckel was mistaken and ignoring the lesson to be learned by embryological similarities.

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And as significant a difference between admitting Haeckel was mistaken, and calling his work a fraud. (Skeptick's implication having been that evolutionists were conciously faking evidence for a theory they knew to be untrue.)

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"Perhaps you should take your furs and your literal interpretations to the other side of the river."
-Anya

I think this is a real fraud. As I understand it the pictures were literally faked. The same one used for more than one animal.I had, with my biases, forgotten this one.

Ah. Fair deal; my mistake as well.

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"Perhaps you should take your furs and your literal interpretations to the other side of the river."
-Anya

That is not so. I've got a copy of Haeckel's Evolution of Man featuring the famous plates. It includes an interesting preface in which Haeckel defends his drawings from his critics (it's a second or third edition I've got). Haeckel argues that they are diagrams intended to show the salient points and that all diagrams are simplified and therefor inaccurate. I think this is a fair point, open your favourite physics textbook, look up how a CRT works, then take the back off your TV and compare the two. Don't look much alike do they?The features indicated in Haeckel's drawings do exist in real specimens - although they are not so clear or pronounced as he makes them and his drawings omit various complexities that make the features less obvious in real specimens.I'd say they fall more under the category of bad illustrations than actual fraud.

You mean, GASP!, i fell for creationsist lies!!! Damm

I recommend the article Steven Jay Gould wrote on the Haeckel mess.
If Haeckel claimed that he was entitled to "simplify" his drawings in such a crude and misleading way does not make his claim sound.http://www.findarticles.com/...109/60026710/p1/article.jhtml
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There are also other frauds like the bird/dino fossil found in China recently that was quickly discovered to be a fake. Because a scientist happened to purchase the other side of the fossil plate and found the picture rather different. But this is more of a fraud perpetrated ON evolutionists. It just raises the question of... how many other frauds are there undetected? This particular detection was only due to a very fortuitous event.

Oh and another point. Even if the Haeckel drawings were just very bad drawings, purporting to show how ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, then how come they have been foisted on students for nearly 100 years after being recognized so???!!! That in itself is pretty fraudulent in my book.

Tamara,Again, I have no idea what your point is. We're so glad you agree with Stephen Jay Gould that the Haeckel drawings are misleading. We're not surprised that you don't agree with Gould that evolution doesn't require such subterfuge. Above, I posted a quote from cell biologist Kenneth Miller explaining what we should and shouldn't learn from the Haeckel affair, and what we should realize embryology is telling us.It seems you've made up your mind that all evidence for evolution is deceitful, and that all fossils are frauds. Forgive us if our views are a bit more informed and rational.regards,
Esteban "In Fraud We Trust" Hambre

Thought I'd point out the "Why are Haeckel's drawings being taught in school?" topic.AM