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From: dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (Paul DuBois)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Bones as Facts
Message-ID: <1146@uwmacc.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 24-May-85 17:53:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: uwmacc.1146
Posted: Fri May 24 17:53:52 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 26-May-85 20:16:57 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: UW-Madison Primate Center
Lines: 39



>>       18.  Stories claiming that primitive, ape-like  men  have  been
>>            found   are   overstated  [a-c].
>>            [goes on to list Piltdown, Nebraska man (Hesperopithecus
>>            early interpretation of Ramapithecus, Java man, Peking man,
>             skull 1470, "stooped" posture of Neanderthal, etc.]

> Even if all of this is true, it has nothing to do with disproving
> evolution.  It merely indicates that SOME evidence may have been
> misinterpreted.  Owing to the immense amount of evidence for evolution,
> it is no surprise that some of it has been misinterpreted.

The phrase "immense amount of evidence" is a striking example of a
handwave.  It amounts to, in fact, begging the question, because the
gist of the passage is that misinterpretation of the "evidence" is not
an isolated occasional phenomenon confined to insignificant findings,
but that the evidence is *habitually* misinterpreted, and in relation
to what are considered by evolutionists to be major pieces of the
puzzle.  The family tree of man is regularly given substantial
revision.

That makes it tempting to reject the whole mess.  The temptation should
be resisted:  "[S]ome creationists have committed the sad error of
refusing to accept bona fide fossils because they seemed to contradict,
or pose apparently insoluble problems to, the creationists view of man's
origin.  It should be realized that where bones have been found as
fossils they represent facts and must be dealt with as such.  In
addition, because some human paleontologists have been guilty of
misrepresentation as well as honest mistakes, other creaionists have
tended to say, 'A plague on your whole house' and have ignored all the
findings of anthropology."  pp89-90, from Wilbert H Rusch, "Fossil
Evidence", in _A Challenge to Education_, Walter Lang, ed,
Bible-Science Association, Caldwell, Idaho, 1972, 89-96.
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Paul DuBois     {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois        --+--
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