Question 71
Fill in the blank question: Malcom Muggeridge, British philosopher, wrote, “I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it has been applied, will be one of the _________.” Comfort answers “the great jokes in the history books of the future.”(Source: Pascal Lectures, University of Waterloo Research, The Advocate, March 8, 1984, p. 17)
Appeal
to authority
Not a
qualified biologist
Comfort
said in the Introduction of this book he would be quoting
"evolutionary experts" and right here, Comfort provides a
quote from a non-biologist. Muggeridge was a philosopher, not a
scientist.
In-Depth Comment
“When it comes to the Origin of Life there are only two possibilities: creation or spontaneous generation. There is no third way. Spontaneous generation was disproved one hundred years ago, but that leads us to only one other conclusion, that of supernatural creation. We cannot accept that on philosophical grounds; therefore, we choose to believe the impossible: that life arose spontaneously by chance!”(Source: Prominent evolutionist George Wald (Harvard University biochemist and Nobel Laureate), “The Origin of Life,” Scientific American, May 1954)
Quote
Mine/Distorted message of author
It
should be noted that, while Wald uses the term "spontaneous
generation" throughout the article, he is not really concerned
with the historic notion "that life arises regularly from the
nonliving: worms from mud, maggots from decaying meat, mice from
refuse of various kinds" that was shown to be untenable by
Francesco Redi, Lazzaro Spallanzani and Louis Pasteur. Although he
gives an account of Redi's, Spallanzani's and Pasteur's work, his
real concern is "how organisms may have arisen spontaneously
under different conditions [than exist in the present] in some former
period, granted that they do so no longer." In short, he is
speaking about what we would now call “abiogenesis.”
Not
relevant to evolutionary theory or biology
Distortion
of Science
There IS a third option:
abiogenesis. George Wald did not know the depth of research we have
uncovered regarding this field. Wald has a very good excuse, Ray
Comfort on the other hand (who has access to this proof and data) has
no excuse. Rather, Comfort pretends that all the evidence for
abiogenesis is nonexistent and refuses to learn about any of it.Outdated Source
This quote is from the mid 1950's. It
seems there is little surprise that George Wald would not be aware to
include abiogenesis into his list of options.
Question 72
True or False question: the Second law of Thermodynamics says that the amount of usable energy in the universe is becoming less and less. Comfort answers “True” and goes on to say “essentially this means that things will eventually 'wear out.' The universe is not eternal; it had a beginning, and will wear out. Twenty-five hundred years before the birth of modern science, when the brightest thinkers were confident that the universe was eternal, the Bible said that the universe would 'wear out': “...the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You remain; they will all wear out like an old garment”(Psalm 102:25,26, NIV)
Not
relevant to evolutionary theory or biology
This
Question is aimed to combat the position that the universe is
eternal. Whether it is or is not is irrelevant to the science of hos
life diversified (i.e. evolution).
Distortion
of Science
The Second Law of Thermodynamics does
not hint that the universe had a beginning. The First Law of
Thermodynamics claims that matter cannot be created or destroyed.
This was brought up to Ray Comfort at the live debate with the
Rational Response Squad, including Occam's Razor pointing to the
universe not having a creator, to which all Ray Comfort and his
partner Kirk Cameron had to say was silence. When the moderator
pressured them to provide a response, all Cameron had to give was a
low mumble, “I think the people can figure it out.”)
In-Depth Comment
“The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that 'in all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state.' This is also commonly referred to as entropy. A watchspring-driven watch will run until the potential energy in the spring is converted, and not again until energy is reapplied to the spring to rewind it. A car that has run out of gas will not run again until you walk 10 miles to a gas station and refuel the car. Once the potential energy locked in carbohydrates is converted into kinetic energy (energy in use or motion), the organism will get no more until energy is input again. In the process of energy transfer, some energy will dissipate as heat. Entropy is a measure of disorder: cells are not disordered and so have low entropy. The flow of energy maintains order and life. Entropy wins when organisms cease to take in energy and die.” (Source: Michael J. Farabee, Ph.D., Online Biology Book, 2007 www.emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/BIOBK/BioBookEner1.html)
Not
relevant to evolutionary theory or biology
Distortion
of Science
Nowhere in here does it mention that
energy is running out in the universe. Scientists have determined the
total energy in the universe is zero when the negative mass of the
energy stored within gravity is summed with the positive mass of the
universe. In this sense, universes can spring in and out of the
vacuum almost effortlessly.
Question 73
True or False question: the biblical description of creation and the Darwinian theory of evolution are compatible. Comfort answers “False” and goes on to say the following: “the Bible says that man was made in the image of God, that every animal brought forth “according to their kinds” (Genesis 1:21) and that “men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another”(1 Corinthians 15:39)
Not
relevant to evolutionary theory or biology
Even if the two are not compatible (and
many theists would insist that the two are compatible), this does not
refute the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution is an
established fact, and mere belief in a separate myth does not change
reality.
In-Depth Comments
“A variation of the theme of evolution is theistic evolution. It states that God initiated life on earth and allowed evolutionary principles to bring man to where he is--maybe with a little help from God here and there. At least this theory includes God. But this theory was developed in part by Bible believing people who thought that evolution had some merit. In addition, it is an attempt to answer the many problems existing not only in the fossil record but also with how life could somehow randomly form out of nothing. Because of problems like this, some believe they can be explained by simply adding God to the picture: God directed evolution.For those who hold to the Bible as the word of God, theistic evolution should not be a viable option. The Bible says, "Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us..." (Psalm 100:3). The Scriptures state that God created. God said, "Let there be..." and there was. The Scriptures speak of the creative word of God. When God speaks, it occurs. He said "Let there be" and it was so. It does not say, "Let there be a slow development through an evolutionary process."God said in Genesis 1:26, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." The Hebrew word for "make" in this verse, and in verse 25 where God makes the beasts, is "asah." It means to do, work, make, produce. This is not simply the limited Hebrew understanding of evolutionary principles.The land animals were made differently than man. The animals were made from the ground, but man was made directly by God: "the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being" (Gen. 2:7). Evolution states that man evolved from life forms that developed in the ocean. Here, God made man from the dust of the ground--not the water of the ocean.If evolution is true and the Bible is true, then how is the formation of Eve explained? She was created out of one of Adam's ribs (Gen. 2:22). There is no way to explain this if theistic evolution is true; that is, unless you want to say that Eve wasn't made from Adam's side. Then, if you do that, you are doubting the very word of God.Also, Jesus said in Mark 10:6 "But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.'" The beginning was not evolutionary slime; in the beginning of creation there was Adam and Eve.Though this information is brief and far from complete, it should be obvious that theistic evolution and the Scriptures cannot be harmonized.”(Source: Matthew Slick, “Theistic Evolution” www.carm.org/evolution/evtheistic.htm)
Not a
qualified biologist
Comfort said in the Introduction of
this book he would be quoting "evolutionary experts" and
right here, Comfort provides a quote from a non-biologist.
Non-Academic
Source
Matthew Slick is not an “evolutionary
expert,” he is not even a scientist. Slick earned his Bachelors in
Social Science from Concordia University, Irvine, CA in 1988. He
earned his Masters of Divinity from Westminster Theological Seminary,
in Escondido, CA, in 1991. Nothing in any field relevant to
biological evolution or any relevant scientific field regarding
biology, physics, or cosmology.
“The creation account in Genesis and the theory of evolution could not be reconciled. One must be right and the other wrong. The story of the fossils agreed with the account of Genesis. In the oldest rocks we did not find a series of fossils covering the gradual changes from the most primitive creatures to developed forms; but rather, in the oldest rocks, developed species suddenly appeared. Between every species there was a complete absence of intermediate fossils.”(Source: D. B. Gower (biochemist), “Scientists Rejects Evolution,” Kentish Times, England, December 11, 1975, p. 4)
Distortion
of Science
Gower is a British chemist, whose belief in god is centered around
“I don't understand how life formed naturally on Earth, so it must
be god!”Here Gower is speaking about the fossil record, a field (geology and paleontology) he is not trained in.
Question 74
True or False question: If people and dinosaurs were created at the same time, the word “dinosaur” would appear in the Bible. Comfort answers “false” and adds the following, “The King James bible was translated in 1611, and it wasn't until 1841 what the word “dinosaur” (from Greek words meaning “terrible lizard”) was invented. Is there another word for “dinosaur”? The Hebrew word translated “dragon” in the KJV Bible appears in the Old Testament some 30 times (e.g. Jer. 51:34; Mal. 1:3). In many contexts these could refer to what we now call dinosaurs. Even Strong's Concordance lists “dinosaur” as one the meanings of that Hebrew word.(Don Batten, ed., The Answers Book [Green Forrest, AR: Master Books, 2000], p. 243))
Not
relevant to evolutionary theory or biology
Translating the literal words of a
sacred text of any type holds no weight regarding the theory of
evolution or any other scientific field.
In China, fossil bones (of all kinds of
creatures, not just dinosaurs) have long been called dragon bones.
Distortion
of Science
There is absolutely no evidence that
humans and dinosaurs ever lived on earth simultaneously. To argue
otherwise would not only be false, it would be arguing for the
impossible. To imply that the Bible claims that man did live
alongside dinosaurs would only further discredit the Bible further.
In-Depth Comment
“There is a growing body of evidence that dinosaurs and humans were contemporary. In 1970 newspapers reported the discovery of cave paintings in Zimbabwe. The paintings were made by bushmen who ruled that area from about 1500 B.C., until a couple of hundred years ago. Along with accurate representations of the elephant and the giraffe, is a painting of an Apatosaurus (brontosaurus). These art works have greatly puzzled scientists since bushmen are known to have pained from real life. (Source: Bible-Science Newsletter 1970, 2).About seventy years ago, Dr. Samuel Hubbard, curator of archaeology in the Oakland (California) Museum, discovered dinosaur carvings on the cliff walls of the Hava Supai Canyon in Arizona. One remarkable carving resembles a Tyrannosaurus. Nearby, dinosaur tracks were preserved in the rock surface. (For a picture of this carving, see our book, The Mythology of Modern Geology 1990, 31.)When the discovery of what appeared to be human footprints, along with dinosaur tracks (in the Paluxy River bed near Glen Rose, Texas), was reported in the May 1939 issue of Natural History, it created a furor that has not subsided to this very day. For decades it seemed obvious to careful observers that this was clear evidence of human/dinosaur co-habitation.” (Source: Wayne Jackson, “Dinosaurs and the Bible,” August 5, 1999 www.christiancourier.com/articles/read/dinosaurs_and_the_bible)
Not a
qualified biologist
Comfort said in the Introduction of
this book he would be quoting "evolutionary experts" and
right here, Comfort provides a quote from a non-biologist.
Non-Academic
Source
Jackson is not a scientists of any
type. He is a writer and served as a Sunday school teacher in his
church for over 30 years.
Distortion
of Science
The alleged human footprints involve a
number of misidentified and spurious phenomena.
- Most supposed "man tracks" in the riverbed are forms of elongate, metatarsal dinosaur tracks-- made by dinosaurs that at times impressed their metatarsi (soles and heels) as they walked. When the digit impressions of such tracks are subdued by mud-collapse, erosion, infilling, or a combination of factors, the remaining metatarsal portions often superficially resemble human footprints. However, when well cleaned such tracks show definite indications of tridactyl, dinosaurian digit patterns (Kuban, 1986a, 1986b; Hastings, 1987).
- Some of the reputed human prints are erosional features or other natural irregularities. They do not show clear human features without selective highlighting, nor occur in natural striding sequences (Cole et al, 1985).
- A smaller number of alleged "giant man tracks" are carvings on loose blocks of rock (Godfrey, 1985; Kuban and Wilkerson, 1989).
Question 75
True or False question: Ramapithecus, once widely regarded as an ancestor of humans, has now been recognized as merely an extinct type of orangutan. Comfort answers “True”Comfort then adds a bit from the Columbia Encyclopedia: “Ramapithecus: an extinct group of primates that lived from about 12 to 14 million years ago, for a time regarded as a possible ancestor of Australopithecus and, therefore, of modern humans.”(Source: The Columbia Encyclopedia).
Does
not damage evolutionary theory
One fossil does not out rule the dozens of other intermediate fossils discovered in the human lineage, nor does this one fossil falsify genetics (which proves common descent with other primates). In-Depth Comment
“Although it was generally an apelike creature, Ramapithecus was considered a possible human ancestor on the basis of the reconstructed jaw and dental characteristics of fragmentary fossils. A complete jaw discovered in 1976 was clearly nonhominid, however, and Ramapithecus is now regarded by many as a member of Sivapthecus, a genus considered to be an ancestor of the orangutan.”(Source: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, 2007 www.bartleby.com/65/e-/E-Ramapith.html)
Does
not damage evolutionary theory
This does not discredit the theory of
evolution, all it is is an excellent example of science in progress.
We now know the proper identification of Ramapithecus, and once we
did we no longer stated that it was our common ancestor.
Question 76
Who said it question: “To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree possible.” Comfort answers “Charles Darwin”(Source: The Origin of Species).Comfort then says “Darwin later on in his book, explained how he believed it evolved anyway and that the “absurdity” was just an illusion.”
Quote
Mine/Distorted message of author
This is a favorite quote mine of
creationists. Here is the very next line,
“Yet reason tells me, that if
numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very
imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can
be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly,
and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if
any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an
animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of
believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural
selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be
considered real. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly
concerns us more than how life itself first originated; but I may
remark that several facts make me suspect that any sensitive nerve
may be rendered sensitive to light, and likewise to those coarser
vibrations of the air which produce sound.” (Darwin 1872, 143-144)
Darwin continues with three more pages
describing a sequence of plausible intermediate stages between
eyelessness and human eyes, giving examples from existing organisms
to show that the intermediates are viable.
In-Depth Comments
“The human eye is enormously complicated—a perfect and interrelated system of about 40 individual subsystems, including the retina, pupil, iris, cornea, lens and optic nerve. For instance, he retina has approximately 137 million special cell that respond to light and send messages to the brain. About 130 million of these cell look like rods and handle he black and white vision. The other seven million are cone shaped and allow us to see in color. The retina cells receive light impressions, which are translated to electric pulses and sen to the brain via the optic nerve.A special section of the brain called the visual cortex interprets the pulses of color, contrast, depth, etc., which allows us to see 'pictures' of our world. Incredibly, the eye, optic nerve and visual cortex are totally separated and interpret up to 1.5 million pulse messages a millisecond! It would take dozens of Cray supercomputers programmed perfectly and operating together flawlessly to even get close to performing this task.”(Source: Lawrence O. Richards, It Couldn't Just Happen (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1989), pp. 139-140)
Does
not damage evolutionary theory
This reference does not support
Comfort's case as he wishes to believe. All this reference does is
describe the mechanisms of the eye in detail, it does not say
anything regarding that the eye could not evolve via natural
selection.
“The exquisite order displayed by our scientific understanding of the physical world calls for the divine.”(Source: Vera Kistiakowsky, MIT physicist, quoted in Henry Magenau and Roy Verghese, eds., Cosmos, Bios, Theos (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1992), p. 52)
Not
relevant to evolutionary theory or biology
Does
not damage evolutionary theory
Divine of what? Krishna? The Great Unga Bunga?This has no bearing on the theory of evolution. Whether or not there is a god or not, the fact of evolution remains. Just as whether a deity exists or not, gravity remains.
Question 77
Who said it question: "This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. Comfort answers “Sir Isaac Newton” (and adds “the father of science”).(Source: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Book III, Andrew Motte, trans. (London: H. D. Symonds, 1803), pp. 310-314 www.thenagain.info/Classes/Sources/Newton.html.)
Appeal
to authority
First of all, Sir Isaac Newton is not
the “father” of science. Science goes way back to the ancient
Greeks and all throughout antiquity. Second of all, quoting one
brilliant scientist does not give your position any credulity. Sir
Isaac Newton also fully accepted alchemy, but we do not use his
brilliance or huge contribution to science as evidence that alchemy
is true.
Not
relevant to evolutionary theory or biology
In-Depth Comments
“Professor H.E. Huntley in The Divine Proportion - A Study In Mathematical Beauty, poses the evolutionary puzzle of our aesthetic sense thus: ‘we might begin by asking whether the universal human thirst for beauty serves a useful purpose. Physical hunger and thirst ensure our bodily survival. The sex drive takes care of the survival of the race. Fear has survival value. But - to put the question crudely - what is beauty for? What personal or evolutionary end is met by the appreciation of a rainbow, a flower or a symphony? At first sight, none.’ Huntley suggests that: ‘a part of the answer is that [beauty] serves as a lure to induce the mind to embark on creative activity. Beauty is a bait. [However] This view seems to require the existence of ‘absolute’ beauty, to demand that specimens of beauty antedate the human perception of them, although beauty in its subjective sense is called into existence only at the moment of its appreciation.’ And this conclusion is fodder for the objective ontological aesthetic design argument. Of course, if our appreciation of beauty does have an evolutionary (efficient) explanation, this does not exclude the possibility that our appreciation is also the result of (teleological) intelligent design.”(Source: Peter S. Williams, “Intelligent Design, Aesthetics and Design Arguments” http://www.arn.org/docs/williams/pw_idaestheticsanddesignarguments.htm)
Not a
qualified biologist
Comfort said in the Introduction of
this book he would be quoting "evolutionary experts" and
right here, Comfort provides a quote from a non-biologist. Peter S.
Williams is not a biologist or even a scientist. He is a English
philosopher and apologist. Peter S. Williams works with the UK based
Damaris Trust (www.damaris.org), a Christian charity "dedicated
to relating Christianity and contemporary culture." Williams is
also Assistant Professor in Communication and Worldviews at
Gimlekollen School of Journalism and Communication in Norway.
“Big bang cosmology as widely believed as has been any theory of the universe in history of Western civilization. It rests, however, on many untested, and in some cases untestable, assumptions. Indeed, the big bang cosmology has become a bandwagon of thought that reflects faith as much as objective truth.”(Source: Geoffrey Burbidge, “Why Only One Big Bang?” Scientific American, Vol. 266, February 1992, p. 120)
Not
relevant to evolutionary theory or biology
We are discussing the theory of evolution. The Big Bang Theory is a subject for cosmology, not biology.Question 78
True or False question: Darwin stated the following, “Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradation, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined?” Comfort answers “True”(Source: The Origin of Species (London: John Murray, 1872), pp. 133-134)
Does
not damage evolutionary theory
While Darwin did say this, he also
provided possible hypothesis to explain it.
When Charles Darwin published his
landmark observations in 1859, he lamented that the fossil record was
still quite poor at that time. It was only in the last century or so
earlier that anyone had even proposed the possibility that a single
species could completely die out, and the first dinosaur wasn’t
discovered until Darwin was a boy. Fossils were known by previous
generations of course, but extinct and therefore unfamiliar varieties
were often mistaken for the fanciful monsters of mythology –if they
were recognized at all –which usually requires a well-trained
perception of both geology and animal morphology. That’s especially
rare when you’re talking about an organism no one has ever seen
alive.
When something dies, it is usually
disassembled, digested, and decomposed. Only rarely is anything ever
fossilized, and even fewer things are very well-preserved. Because
the conditions required for that process are so particular, the
fossil record can only represent a tiny fraction of everything that
has ever lived. Darwin provided many environmental dynamics
explaining why no single quarry could ever provide a continuous
record of biological events, and why it would be impossible to find
all the fossilized ancestors of every lineage. But despite this, he
predicted that future generations, -having the benefit of better
understanding- would discover a substantial number of fossil species
which he called “intermediate” or “transitional” between what
we see alive today and their taxonomic ancestors at successive levels
in paleontological history.
In fact, in the century-and-a-half
since then, we’ve found millions of evolutionary intermediaries in
the fossil record, much more than Darwin said he could reasonably
hope for. There are three different types of transitional forms and
we have ample examples of each.
In-Depth Comments
Outdated Source“We do not have any available fossil group which can categorically be claimed to be the ancestor of any other group. We do not have in the fossil record any specific point of divergence of one form for another, and generally each of the major life groups has restrained its fundamental structural and physiological characteristics throughout its life history and has been conservative in habitat.”(Source: G. S. Carter (Professor, Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, England), Structure and Habit in Vertebrate Evolution (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1967)
Distortion
of Science
“Paleontologists had long been aware of a seeming contradiction between Darwin's postulate of gradualism...and the actual findings of paleontology. Following phyletic lines through time seemed to reveal only minimal gradual changes but no clear evidence for any change of a species into a different genus or for the gradual origin oh an evolutionary novelty. Anything truly novel always seemed to appear quite abruptly in the fossil record.”(Source: E. Mayr, One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), p. 138)
Quote
Mine/Distorted message of author
Following this piece, Mayr goes on to
say the following, "During the synthesis it became clear that
since new evolutionary departures seem to take place almost
invariably in localized isolated populations, it is not surprising
that the fossil record does not reflect these sequences."
Question 79
Which famous newspaper reported the following: “Piltdown Man Hoax Exposed.” Comfort answers “The New York Times” (November 21, 1953).Comfort goes on to say the article stated, “Part of the skull of the Piltdown man, one of the most famous fossil skulls in the world, has been declared a hoax by authorities at the British Natural History Museum” www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/do53pi.html
Does
not damage evolutionary theory
In-Depth Comment
“Piltdown Man (Eoanthropus Dawsoni) was once thought to be a 'missing link' between man and ape. The first Piltdown fragments were discovered in 1912. Thereafter, over 500 scientific essays were written on the Piltdown Man in a 40-year period. The discovery was proven to be a deliberate hoax in 1953.Piltdown Mann consisted of two human skulls, an orangutan jaw, an elephant molar, hippopotamus tooth, and a canine tooth from a chimpanzee. Sir Kenneth Oakley has determined the human skulls to be approximately 620 years old. They may have belonged to Ona Indians from Patagonia, as the skulls were unusually thick. Thick skulls are a common trait among Ona Indians. The oragnutan jaw is around 500 years old, perhaps from Sarawek. The elephant molaar is thought to have come from Malta or perhaps Sicily. The canine tooth belonged to a Pleistoncene Chimpanzee.The Piltdown remains were purposefully scattered around a quarry in Piltdown, England, so that they could be 'discovered' later as evidence for evolution and the development of man from ape. The skulls had been treated with acid. All of the fossil remains were stained with an iron sulfate solution. The canine tooth was painted brown and patched with bubble gum. The molars were filed down. The portion of the orangutan jaw that connected the jaw to its skull was carefully broken so as not to show evidence that this jaw did not belong to a human skull.”(Source: “Piltdown Man: Test All Data,” All About Creation www.allaboutcreation.org/piltdown-man.htm)
Non-Academic
Source
The British museum touted the “Piltdown
man” as authentic, but the American Museum of Natural History
displayed it only as a “mixture of ape and man fossils”, which is
what it eventually turned out to be.
There was no way to adequately examine
such things back in 1915. Chemical tests –common today- didn’t
yet exist and we didn’t yet have a practical understanding of
radiation. And before the first australopiths were discovered, we
didn’t know exactly what to expect of the links that were then
still missing between humans and the other apes known at that time.
But as we began filling in the gaps in human evolution with thousands
of legitimate fossils, a pattern emerged which left Piltdown an
increasingly obvious anomaly. Consequently it was taken off display
and stored away almost continuously for decades. It lost importance
in most discussions because, in light of everything else we
discovered over the next few decades, it just never fit, and was
eventually dismissed from the list of potential human ancestors for
that reason.
As the years wore on, criticism arose
against everyone who ever promoted the Piltdown collection because
there seemed to be so much wrong with it. Finally, in the 1950s, it
was taken back out of the box and scrutinized via more modern means.
First fluorine dating revealed that it was much too recent, and it
was shown to have been chemically-treated to give a false impression
of its age and mineral composition. Then it was finally determined
that the jaw must have come from an orangutan, and that it had been
deliberately reshaped with modern tools in a well-crafted and
deliberate forgery.
Question 80
Before Piltdown man was discovered to be a hoax, how old was it estimated too be? Comfort answers “500,000 to one million years old.”Comfort goes to to say according to PBS, “At the time, the skullcap was still believed to be about 500,000 years old. In 1959, however, the recently discovered carbon-14 dating technique was used to show that it was between 520 to 720 years old, the jawbone slightly younger!”(Source: “Piltdown man is revealed as a fake” www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/do53pi.hyml)
Does
not damage evolutionary theory
One hoax cannot indicate the inferiority of conventional archeology,
because creationists have several of their own, including Paluxy
footprints, the Calaveras skull, Moab and
Malachite Man, and others. More telling is
how people deal
with these hoaxes. When Piltdown was exposed, it stopped being used as
evidence. The creationist hoaxes, however, can still be found cited as
if they were real. Piltdown has been over and done with for decades,
but the dishonesty of creationist hoaxes continues.In-Depth Comment
“When the blood of a seal, freshly killed at McMurdo Sound in the Antarctic was tested by carbon-14, it showed the seal died 1,300 years ago.”(Source: W. Dort Jr. Ph.D. (Geology Professor, University of Kansas), Antarctic Journal of the United States, 1971)
Does
not damage evolutionary theory
This is the well-known reservoir effect
that occurs with mollusks and other animals that live in the water.
It happens when “old” carbon is introduced into the water. In the
case of the seal, old carbon dioxide is present within deep ocean
bottom water that has been circulating through the ocean for
thousands of years before upwelling along the Antarctic coast. The
seals feed off of the animals that live in a nutrient-rich upwelling
zone. The water that is upwelling has been traveling along the bottom
for a few thousand years before surfacing.
TOTALS FOR THIS SEGMENT (Q 71 - 80) 24 Total Quotes
TOTALS FOR THIS SEGMENT (Q 71 - 80) 24 Total Quotes
| Fallacy | Number of Fallacies |
| Quote Mining | 3 |
| Appeal to Authority | 2 |
| Outdated Source | 2 |
| Non-Academic Source | 3 |
| Not a qualified biologist or scientist | 4 |
| Not Relevant to Evolutionary theory or Biology | 8 |
| Not Damaging to Evolutionary theory | 8 |
| Distortion of Science | 7 |
| Total | 37 |
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