Archaeology Without the Bible

[FreeThinker]

Piltdown man is a favorite of creationist to trot out of the closet as proof of something or another about the modern understanding of the origin of humanity. Yes, it was a hoax perpetrated at the very begining of the search for the ancestors of man. It is to this day unclear who was responsible for this hoax or the reasoning behind it. It was a definate embarrasment to the investigators who were taken in by the hoax and the fraud stood undetected for some few years. But again, that was in the early days of the field. At that time it was postulated that man evolved in Europe and that it was the brain that became larger and more modern first and the body evolved to a more modern state later. There is all manner of conjecture as to why the early researchers held these two views ranging from simple ignorance to eurocentric/racist ideology. I bet it was a combination of these things myself but that is getting off the point. The important point here is that the Piltdown fraud was exposed as a fraud and totally abandoned by science. This is what science does. When informatoin is found to be incorrect (be it from sloppy experimentation, fraud, or whatever) that information is then known to be incorrect and is abandoned as such. Piltdown man was abandoned long ago as a fraud and has no bearing on any of the legitimate finds in the field of human evolution since. To continue harping on Piltdown is to set up a straw man at this point and adds nothing to the debate.

[Guest]

the article ' is the spirit of piltdown man alive and well' does not deal with the piltdown hoax but deals with what i alluded to earlier about outside influences tainting studies, fraud in the science lab and so on. it is an interesting read and hopefully it is still saved by that source i gave you. my copy is on paper so i can't paste it for you.

you might be able to find it at www.telegraph.co.uk with a little searching.

[FreeThinker]

Well hmmm...lets see here archeologist, in both posts where you answered my posts (in different threads) you direct me to read other stuff but do not answer my questions or address my points. Here is an idea: you post a synopsis of the book or article in answer to my questions, not just tell me to go read a book or an article. That does not add to the debate. Feel free to add a link to the book or article or whatever but in your post please address the questions and issues directly yourself.

[Guest]

Here is an idea

patience is a virtue and if you read my post, you will see that i had mentioned that i haven't had time to read the whole thing. i suggested the book because time and space limitations are in play. it does a very good job going into the detail you would need.

i am old fashioned and tend to print out things or have copies on hand with no computer links. i think that computer dependency is not a good thing.

Piltdown man was abandoned long ago as a fraud and has no bearing on any of the legitimate finds in the field of human evolution since

sure it does, as it displays the lack of character that scientists are not immune. people like to hold scientists up as champions of virtue yet they are as dishonest and weak as the next man. science is not infallible nor are those who use it so their work needs to be held to the toughest scrutiny.

[Guest]

You still didn't answer any of his questions or address his explanation of evolution at all, arch. What? No answers? Better go study your scripture. Maybe you can find the answers there.

[Rokcet Scientist]

You still didn't answer any of his questions or address his explanation of evolution at all, arch. What? No answers? Better go study your scripture. Maybe you can find the answers there.

No, I would rather recommend Marvel Comics, Anon.
They have pictures too...

[Guest]

even though this topic is about archeology without the bible, not proof of evolution or the structures of pyramids, I will offer some solid evidence of evolution

there is the reason why i did not answer any question he posed. this is not the topic for that subject and the rules are quite clear concerning going off topic. if he places them in the proper topic, then i will be happy to answer them.

Better go study your scripture. Maybe you can find the answers there

you should keep in mind that before you ask me to answer questions, you should answer mine from my original post. it has been over a week now and not one evolutionist has even attempted to satisfy my inquiries. so instead of attacking me, i would clean up your own act first.

p.s. guest-- what do you have to hide that you can not identify yourself. i see many people asking realist to reveal his identity, so why don't you. hiding is a great tactic of those who can not follow the rules and who have nothing constructive to add to the discussion.

[FreeThinker]

Actually a discussion of evolution is perfect for a thread that is about archaeology without the bible. Evolution is one of the topics that is the opposite of bibical thinking and that is fully outside and seperate from the bible and key to the disclipine of archaeology. Thus it is OK to talk about in this thread in my opinion.

[Minimalist]

Yes, it was a hoax perpetrated at the very begining of the search for the ancestors of man. It is to this day unclear who was responsible for this hoax or the reasoning behind it.

Actually, superb hoaxes are still being done. Israeli authorities arrested the forgers who came up with two of the best hoaxes ever: The James Ossuary and Jehoash Inscription. Both initially fooled museum curators until advanced scientific testing proved they were fakes.

2001

• Purveyors of the Jewish & Christian religions are always eager for historical proof to support the largely mythical stories in the Bible. So when a 3,000-year-old stone tablet describing repairs to King Solomon's temple turned up in 2001, the Bible scholars went wild with excitement. There is no archaeological evidence that this temple ever existed and it is known only from Old Testament accounts.
Months of tests showed that the tablet's surface patina contained charcoal flecks which were radio-carbon dated to 2,300 years ago. The stone was offered to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem for $8 million. But when the museum asked if it could carry out more tests, the stone and its agent dropped out of sight.
The Israeli Antiquities Authority eventually tracked down the agent, and he turned out to be a private investigator working for Oded Golan, Israel's best known collector of antiquities. Only he said he wasn't the stone's owner; he had been acting for a Palestinian dealer, who had died.
The following year, an ossuary gave the Bible scholars another thrill because the inscription on it said that it had contained the bones of James, the brother of Jesus (who is supposed to have been an only child, according to the Catholic Church). Alarm bells went off when the owner of the ossuary was found to be Mr. Golan. And when police raided him, they found the missing Temple Tablet as well as the ossuary.
More experts examined the Temple Tablet and found a curious phrase in the text. In modern Hebrew, it read: "I made repairs to the temple." In ancient Hebrew, it had the opposite meaning: "I damaged the temple." Which made no sense in the context of King Jehoash bragging about repairing Solomon's temple. Worse, the stone had a natural patina on the back but the lettering on the front looked freshly cut, possibly by an electric tool, and the front patina was loose and artificial. Flecks of gold and Iron Age charcoal had been added by hand.
Similarly, the James Ossuary was found to have a freshly cut inscription beneath an artificial patina. Both the tablet and the ossuary were declared forgeries in June 2003.
Oded Golan was arrested and charged with forgery and fraud. His apartment was searched and found to contain a hidden workshop full of half-made artefacts. Museums and private collectors around the world had had a narrow escape. But the case left lingering doubts about the authenticity of other Bible artefacts. Golan was caught but other forgers might have been a lot more cunning in their dealings with scholars eager for proof that they are right and everyone else is wrong.

http://website.lineone.net/~farrago2/rl ... f/cott.htm


Of course, it is easy to see the motivation for creating fake relics for the gullible - it has been a cottage industry in the Middle East for millenia - but Piltdown Man seems to have been fun for the sake of fun. A rare commodity in these mercenary times.

[Guest]

What genetics reveals of course is a close correlation of similar species (example: chimp and human DNA having a 94% match

to me that only proves a common designer or creator. just because there are similarities does not mean that they evolved from the same ancestor. case in point-- the jelly fish is 98% water and the watermelon is 97% water. does that mean they have the same common ancestor. i think not.

let me throw a couple quotes at you:
1."the evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches: the rest is inference. however reasonable not the evidence of fossils."
stephan jay gould, 1977

2."even with DNA sequence data, we have no direct access tothe process of evolution so objective reconstruction of the vanished past can be achieved only by creative imagination."
N. Takahata, 1995

you can bend the evidence any way you want to but you will still come up with no proof. i am also told that less than 5% of human DNA has been analyzed, pretty hard to come to a conclusion when the work is not done, more like wishful thinking.

superb hoaxes are still being done.

yep, just what i thought sweep away the problem when it is on your end so you can justify your own theory. the problem is, you hold up science as infallible when it is as corrupt as an any secular organization.

[FreeThinker]

Ok, lets see here...

archaeolgist said:

"the jelly fish is 98% water and the watermelon is 97% water. does that mean they have the same common ancestor. i think not."

This comparison makes no sense and in no way undermines the evolutionary relations as revealed by DNA comparisons. Why? Because water is not the the medium of genetic transfer, DNA is, as we all know. However it is true that jellyfish and watermelons DO have a common ancestor, though I am sure it was WAAAYYYY back before life split into plants, animals, fungus, etc. It would be interesting to know what percentage of DNA a comparison of those two named organisms have in common.

You also bring up that science is vulnerable to hoaxes. True. All human endeavours are. Even religions. Your inference is that this undermines the credibility of science. This is not true. The beauty and strength of science is that these hoaxes generally are found quickly and corrected. It is the experimental data found through the scientific method that defines science, not the work of individuals. If one researcher falsifies his or her data or even just did sloppy labwork and came up with incorrect results the error will be picked up by subsequent research and the error corrected. Piltdown man is an example of just this. Another example is current, the Korean researcher who falsified his data into stem cell research. He was caught, discredited, and the science corrected. Did science drop all research into human evolution or stem cell research? Were these entire fields thrown out because of hoaxes by individual researchers? Of course not. All the legitimate work of course still stands and research into these fields continues. To imply that the whole all of science is corrupt because a small handful of corrupt researchers out of millions of scientists is totally absurd. Science's total reliance on data makes it self correcting. Religion has no such mechanism.

I would like to point out here that it is religion that is rigid and suspect. When evidence comes to light that dogma is found to be in conflict with observable reality the followers of religion rally around the dogma. They steadfastly refuse to put the question to the test, or if it is put to the test they will argue against the results because the results don't support the dogma. Noah's flood is a prime example of just this. There is no evidence outside of dogma that a worldwide flood ever occured and mountains of evidence that no such event happened. Yet the followers of religious dogma still cling to the discredited idea. It is "my religion right or wrong". Sadly, it is wrong.

BTW, both of the researchers you quoted are firm believers in evolution.

[Guest]

This comparison makes no sense

sure it does as it illustrates how foundationless your argument is concerning similarities between apes and humans. all similarities point to is a common designer or engineer not common ancestor.

i.e. pontiac and chevrolet cars have interchangeable parts does that mean it just happened from a common ancestor or that they had a common engineer as designer?

that may be a simple example but it brings home the point that non-believers will look to any other solution before looking to the Bible as they do not want to believe the Bible. if they do,then they will realize it is true and that if they donot change, then hell awaits. so any other theory is more attractive than what the Bible says.

To imply that the whole all of science is corrupt

i am implying that science can not be trusted as implicity as everyone wants it to be. it is not as objective as you would like nor is it as truthful as you would want. i do not throw out all science, it is needed but i question the results due to the imperfect situation under which it operates.

Sadly, it is wrong

that is your opinion but you choose to ignore the evidence that is there, so you come to the wrong conclusion. why did all the fossils appear at one point in time? i have an article that calls it 'the great dying', yet the author looks for any other explanation rather than to the flood. the evidence is there, you are not accepting it.

what did arthur conan doyle say through his character sherlock holmes? "you look at all the options, removing those that do not belong and that which remains no matter how implausible, no matter how absurd it is the correct solution. apply that to the Bible, no matter how absurd it sounds it is the only correct solution because nothing else fits.

both of the researchers you quoted are firm believers in evolution.

yes, i know and those quotes do a lot to undermine their own beliefs.

[Minimalist]

Quote:
superb hoaxes are still being done.


yep, just what i thought sweep away the problem when it is on your end so you can justify your own theory. the problem is, you hold up science as infallible when it is as corrupt as an any secular organization.

Religion is the greatest hoax in history. As the police say when investigating a crime...."Follow the money."

At at the end of that trail you will find some preacher with his hand out.

[Minimalist]

"the jelly fish is 98% water and the watermelon is 97% water. does that mean they have the same common ancestor. i think not."

Yet...both of them are smart enough not to believe in god and waste their time living by his 'rules'.

Strange.

[Realist]

Yet...both of them are smart enough not to believe in god and waste their time living by his 'rules'.Strange.

Yes, that's right. Both have very short and frighteningly pointless lives. Let's all follow their example, eh?