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APRIL FOOLS' DAY PICTURES: Four Historic Science Hoaxes
nationalgeographic ^

Posted on 04/01/2009 9:09:50 AM PDT by JoeProBono

In 1912 scientists thought they'd discovered the elusive missing link between human and ape. Found in a gravel pit in Piltdown, England, a set of intriguing skull and jaw fragments were later reconstructed by the British Museum into a human-like head with an ape-like jaw.

In 1953 it turned out the find wasn't proof of anything—other than the skill of the still anonymous forger. The skull was a medieval human's. The jaw was an orangutan's. And the teeth were a chimp's.


TOPICS: Humor; Miscellaneous; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: aprilfool; aprilfools; cardiffgiant; darwinism; darwinsmistake; evolution; fauxtography; globalwarmingscare; hoax; hoaxes; junkscience; makingitup; mediabias; nationalgeographic; piltdownman; pseudoscience; revisionisthistory; scopestrial; waronerror
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To: Westbrook
Just extend the same courtesy to me.

Sure. You believe Chiroptera are birds if you like.

41 posted on 04/01/2009 10:14:29 AM PDT by Oztrich Boy ( As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities. - D)
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To: RegulatorCountry

42 posted on 04/01/2009 10:15:33 AM PDT by stormer
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To: Westbrook

Reptiles with feathers?


43 posted on 04/01/2009 10:16:44 AM PDT by stormer
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To: Oztrich Boy

> You believe Chiroptera are birds if you like.

When pigs fly.
:)

Chiroptera are mammals and are far more closely related to other mammals than they are to birds.

Just as dinosaurs are more related to reptiles than they are to birds.


44 posted on 04/01/2009 10:19:35 AM PDT by Westbrook (Having more children does not divide your love, it multiplies it.)
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To: Westbrook
"Flying reptiles " Did you just identify the Urvogel Archaeopteryx as a reptile?

Cdesign proponentsists, without exception, claim it is 100% bird.

You should stop digging

45 posted on 04/01/2009 10:25:07 AM PDT by Oztrich Boy ( As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities. - D)
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To: Oztrich Boy

> “Flying reptiles “ Did you just identify the Urvogel Archaeopteryx as a reptile?

Yes, of course, put words in my mouth. Just like the Left does. It appears to me that the tactics of the evolutionists very closely parallel those of the Left.

Pteradactyl was no archaeopteryx, and it’s just not the ID folks that qualify archaeopteryx as a bird.


46 posted on 04/01/2009 10:29:20 AM PDT by Westbrook (Having more children does not divide your love, it multiplies it.)
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To: JoeProBono
Don't forget my favorite, the "Lost Tribe" of Tasadays that the scientific community, and eco-nuts, were wetting themselves over.

As an example of their willing gullibility, from that site:

Disclosure - In 1986, nearly 15 years after the Tasaday were first discovered, everything changed. General Marcos's tyrannous regime was ousted and a new, freer, democratic government took its place.

A Swiss writer and Anthropologist named Oswald Iten took advantange of the opportunity to study the Tasaday without the former government's restrictions. He brought Joey Lozano, a journalist from South Cotabato, with him on his expedition. Strangely, when they reached the caves, they found them deserted. A search of the surrounding area led to the discovery of the same "Stone Age" people a short distance away living in modest huts, wearing T-shirts and blue jeans.

Iten and Lozano realized that the whole thing was a glorious hoax. Further research showed that the Tasaday actually came from two other tribes, tribes that had been part of the modern world for years. They publicized their findings through an ABC television documentary entitled The Tribe that Never Was. Millions of viewers were confronted with the images of Filipinos in T-shirts and Levi's laughing at the pictures of themselves from National Geographic. One anthropologist called the Tasaday, "rain forest clock punchers" who were "cave people" by day and went home to their families at night.

In retrospect, the fraud seemed obvious. Why, some wondered, were the caves so clean? Even a Stone Age tribe would have had garbage, such as crab shells or scraps of food. And how did such a small tribe avoid inbreeding? Also, the Tasaday were a mere three hours walk from an modern village. It seemed odd that they would not have encountered this village while searching for food. And if that was not enough evidence of a hoax, anthropologist, Thomas Headland conducted an investigation on the Tasaday and produced "eight little known facts about the Tasaday." These were:
1. The Tasaday were found wearing commercially manufactured cloth. They were asked to remove their clothes and wear their "traditional" garb.
2. The Tasaday must have traded with other tribes. They had brass, metal tipped arrows, bows made of cultivated bamboo, glass beads, iron knives, and tin cans, just to name a few of the foreign items that Headland mentions.
3. Nearby tribes ate meat from animals killed by the Tasaday, and gave them cultivated food in return.
4. The South Cotabato rain forest lacks the amount of starch foods necessary to sustain the Tasaday. Headland writes, "It has been generally assumed until recently that tropical rain forests are food-rich biomes for human foragers, and that prehistoric hunter-gatherers once lived completely independent of cultivated foods in such environments. An alternative hypothesis that such forests are actually food-poor for humans is proposed here. Specifically, that wild starch foods such as yams were so scarce and so hard to extract that human foragers could not have lived in such biomes without recourse to cultivated foods...."
5. The Tasaday were never directly observed subsisting on gathered food. Scientists simply assumed they did.
6. The Tasaday bamboo tools were cultivated bamboo. Their bamboo was the sun-loving type which cannot grow in the rain forest.
7. The Tasaday stone tools were fake. They were made at the request of the officials in charge.
8. In the Tasaday language, 85% of the words were identical to the Cotabato Manobo speech, which is spoken by most of the tribes in the area.

47 posted on 04/01/2009 10:32:44 AM PDT by Oatka ("A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves." –Bertrand de Jouvenel)
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To: stormer

Right off the top, shadow definition gives that one away. But, science has never stood to gain from propagating the notion of giant locusts, either, so there’s another reason to discredit the photo, even if the hoaxers had had better photo manipulation skills.


48 posted on 04/01/2009 10:33:47 AM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: RegulatorCountry


Praying Mantis captures Humming Bird
49 posted on 04/01/2009 10:39:04 AM PDT by Scythian
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To: Oatka

50 posted on 04/01/2009 10:39:29 AM PDT by JoeProBono (A closed mouth gathers no feet)
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To: Westbrook

Chiroptera

51 posted on 04/01/2009 10:42:30 AM PDT by JoeProBono (A closed mouth gathers no feet)
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To: Westbrook

I tend to view it as Hey, we’ve got all the Carbon, Hydrogen, and Oxygen laying around, let’s make some stuff.

God used regular materials to make the irregular (us).


52 posted on 04/01/2009 10:44:08 AM PDT by Ro_Thunder ("Other than ending SLAVERY, FASCISM, NAZISM and COMMUNISM, war has never solved anything")
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To: Westbrook
Pteradactyl was no archaeopteryx, and it’s just not the ID folks that qualify archaeopteryx as a bird.

1. It's Pterodactyl
2. You were the one who identified the Archaeopteryx fossil in post#36 as a "flying reptile"

53 posted on 04/01/2009 10:47:52 AM PDT by Oztrich Boy ( As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities. - D)
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To: Oztrich Boy

My mistake incorrectly identifying the photo.


54 posted on 04/01/2009 10:51:58 AM PDT by Westbrook (Having more children does not divide your love, it multiplies it.)
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To: Scythian
No telltale signs of PhotoShop, and there are insects and arachnids known to capture and feed off of small birds, mammals, etc. so there's nothing particularly incredible about the subject matter, even though it's an amazing image.
55 posted on 04/01/2009 10:52:20 AM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: Westbrook
My mistake incorrectly identifying the photo.

Understandable. The Archaeopteryx skeleton does look dinosaurian for some reason.

56 posted on 04/01/2009 10:56:28 AM PDT by Oztrich Boy ( As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities. - D)
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To: Oztrich Boy

> The Archaeopteryx skeleton does look dinosaurian for some reason.

Yes, and Obama’s frame looks like that of a gibbon, but that doesn’t make him one.


57 posted on 04/01/2009 10:59:19 AM PDT by Westbrook (Having more children does not divide your love, it multiplies it.)
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To: stormer

58 posted on 04/01/2009 11:11:36 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (Pres Obama just spent $150million of the $160million in returned AIG bonuses on a trip to England.)
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To: RegulatorCountry; Revolting cat!


59 posted on 04/01/2009 11:20:33 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (Pres Obama just spent $150million of the $160million in returned AIG bonuses on a trip to England.)
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To: a fool in paradise

Photo #1 is pretty good, especially if it’s actually antique. As far as the people, the barn and the vegetables, perspective is not off much, shadow and highlight do not disagree much, I’d give it an A.

Photo #2 is hilarious. Everything that can be wrong in a manipulated image is present here. If it weren’t so funny, I’d give it an F.

Photo #3 actually is two men carrying a giant shoe, in my opinion. Where viewers no doubt go wrong is in the assumptions made as a result of the image. I know cobblers and shoe repair shops used giant shoes to advertise their services in the past, so I’d assume that’s what we’re looking at in the photo. Awfully light, though. Papier maché maybe.

Photo #4 isn’t as funny as the giant locust in a duel with a man, and it’s not been cobbled together quite so badly. The main problem is that the “wake” of the fish is unrealistic, and not on the same plane as the rest of the water. So, I’d give it a D-.


60 posted on 04/01/2009 11:38:50 AM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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