What is ‘scientifically’ acceptable?

As far as the age of humankind is concerned there seems to be evidence, although very, very controversial, that humans are at least as old as coal (that is according to people like to Ed Conrad (see <http://www.edconrad.com/>).

Human and dinosaur footprints found in Texas (at the Paluxy River, a tributary of the Brazos River, Glen Rose), for example, indicates that humans have co-existed with dinosaurs!

However, is this accepted by science? No, and it is very interesting to read about Ed Conrad’s experiences and troubles with ‘mainstream’ scientists.

Nevertheless, consider the El Toro clay figurines of Mexico.

In 1945, German archaeologist, Waldemar Julsrud discovered clay figurines buried at the foot of the El Toro Mountain on the outskirts of Acambaro, Guanajuato, Mexico. Eventually over 32 thousand figurines and artefacts were found. They were similar to artefacts identified with the Pre-classical Chupicuaro Culture (800 BC to 200 AD) found throughout this area.

The authenticity of the find was rejected because the collection included dinosaurs, since many archaeologists believe dinosaurs have been extinct for the past 65 million years and man’s knowledge of them has been limited to the past 200 years. If this is true , man could not possibly have seen and modelled them 2500 years ago. In 1954, the Mexican government sent four well-known archaeologists to investigate.

A different but nearby site was selected and meticulous excavation was begun. They found numerous examples of similar figurines and concluded that the find was authentic. However, three weeks later their report declared the collection to be a fraud because of the ‘fantastic representation of man and dinosaur together’.

In 1955, Charles Hapgood, Professor of Anthropology at the University of New Hampshire, concluded an elaborate investigation including extensive radiometric dating. Interestingly, his work was supported by Earl Stanley Gardner, former District Attorney of the city of Los Angeles, California and the creator of the television series ‘Perry Mason’.

Hapgood responded to charges that Julsrud manufactured the figurines, by excavation under the house of the Chief of Police, which was built 25 years before the Julsrud arrived. Forty-three more examples of the same type were found, including dinosaurs. Three radiocarbon tests were performed by Isotopes Incorporated of New Jersey resulting in dates of 1640 BC, 4530 BC, and 1110 BC.

Eighteen samples were subjected to thermo-luminescent testing by the University of Pennsylvania, all of which gave dates of approximately 2500 BC. These results were subsequently withdrawn when it was learned that some of the samples were from dinosaurs.

In 1990, an investigation was conducted by Neal Steedy, an archeologist whose livelihood depends on contract work from the Mexican government. He arbitrarily selected an excavation site considerably removed form the Julsrud site. Shards were found but no figurines. He commissioned radiocarbon tests for a few samples from the Julsrud collection that produced a range of dates; 4000 years for a human face and 1500 years for a dinosaur. However, he concluded that the laboratory had not given true dates because he felt the samples were too soft to last more than 20 years. (See <http://www.creationists.org/livedinos01.html>)

I find the following quote from the Official Graham Hancock Site (<www.grahamhancock.com>) particularly interesting: ‘At grahamhancock.com, writes Graham Hancock (1951- ) British writer and journalist, we are used to being at the receiving end of vile and intemperate attacks by archaeologists accusing us of being ‘pseudo-archaeologists’, pseudo-scientists, etc., and of advocating ‘fringe’, ‘cult’ or ‘fantastic’ ideas about history and prehistory.

It is refreshing to discover, however, that not all archaeologists share this knee-jerk hostility towards alternative ideas about the past. Assistant Professor Cornelius Holtorf (1968- ) of the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Lund, criticises some influential figures within mainstream archaeology for attempting to form ‘a special state police force dedicated to eradicating interpretations that are considered false or inappropriate by a self-selected jury’.

Holtorf goes on to argue that ‘modern society might benefit more from inquiring minds than from passive students to whom factual knowledge is taught, however much that knowledge consists of ‘pure truth’.’

Nevertheless, the cases above will never be readily accepted because they are completely outside the accepted ‘scientific’ paradigm.

Richard Leakey (1944- ), the son of the famous Louis and Mary Leakey, is a renowned Kenyan palaeontologist, conservationist, and archaeologist. In his book Origins (1979), he examines a lot of extremely old, human bones and then makes some very irrelevant, and strange, conclusions about race. This obviously has nothing to do with science, but rather seems like politics, propaganda, or something else. However, his conclusions were accepted without any reservations because it was within the accepted ‘scientific’ paradigm.

Piltdown man should have taught scientist something, but it did not. Also called Dawson’s dawn man (Eoanthropus dawsoni), this proposed species of extinct hominid whose fossil remains, discovered in England from 1910 to 1912, were immediately accepted and only later proved to be fraudulent.

Piltdown man, whose fossils were sufficiently convincing to generate a scholarly controversy lasting more than 40 years, was one of the most successful hoaxes in the history of science. Piltdown man was accepted without any reservations because it was again within the accepted ‘scientific’ paradigm.

On the 15^th of October 1999, the National Geographic Society cranked its publicity machine into high gear to announce the amazing discovery in north-eastern China of a 125 million year old (125 x 10⁶) fossil that appeared to be the long-sought missing link between dinosaurs and birds. The story began in July 1997, when a farmer digging in a shale pit in Xiasanjiazi, in China’s North-eastern Liaoning Province, hacked out a thin, rock slab measuring roughly 900 square centimetres. For over twenty years, palaeontologists had debated whether birds were descended from dinosaurs. This fossil seemed to provide conclusive proof of that connection. It obviously was within the accepted ‘scientific’ paradigm.

The ‘Piltdown Chicken’ in question dubbed Archaeoraptor Liaoningensis was unveiled for reporters at a press conference held at the National Geographic’s corporate headquarters in Washington, DC. The Society simultaneously published a glossy article about the find in its well-known magazine.

The fossil bird, when living, would have been about the size of a large chicken. However, strange as it seems, it would have been a chicken that sported a long dinosaur tail. It was this mixture of dinosaur and bird parts that made researchers believe they had found the dinosaur-bird missing link. Christopher Sloan, author of the National Geographic article, enthusiastically wrote, ‘Its long arms and small body scream ‘bird!’ Its long, stiff tail screams ‘dinosaur’!’ What Sloan did not realise at the time, was that the body and tail together should have screamed ‘fake’! Look, National Geographic is really a dupe for the Theory of Evolution!

Xu Xing, a Chinese scientist who had initially helped to identify the fossil, was the one who eventually blew the whistle on it. He announced that he had found a second fossil containing an exact, mirror-image duplicate of the Archaeoraptor’s tail, but attached to a different body.

Fossil stones, when taken from the ground, often cleave in two, producing two mirror-image sets of fossil slabs. Evidently, someone had taken one of the slabs bearing the tail fossil and affixed it to a fossil of a bird, thereby producing a hybrid dinosaur-bird creature.

National Geographic published an admission of its mistake in March 2000 and a fuller analysis of how it had been duped in October the previous year. It admitted that red flags had been raised about the discovery at various points, but that they had failed to notice them. I wonder why?

More seriously. though, they acknowledged rushing their find into publication before more scholarly journals had the chance to peer-review the data. National Geographic will do anything possible to prove evolution – they will even lie, beg, steal, or borrow! It is within the accepted ‘scientific’ paradigm.

US News & World Report was the first to refer to the Archaeoraptor Liaoningensis forgery as the case of the ‘Piltdown Chicken’. Why was it so easily accepted then? Well, it was again within the ….

Thomas Samuel Kuhn (1922-1996) was an American historian of science noted for his Structure of Scientific Revolutions published in 1962, and claimed as one of the most influential and controversial works of history and philosophy written in the 20^th century.

Kuhn argued that scientific research and thought are defined by ‘paradigms’, or conceptual worldviews, that consist of formal theories, classic experiments, and trusted methods. According to Kuhn, scientists typically accept a prevailing paradigm and try to extend its scope by refining theories, explaining puzzling data, and then establishing more, precise measures of standards and phenomena within existing paradigms.

Makes you think! Not?