China finds new species of big, bird-like dinosaur

HONG KONG/BEIJING (Reuters) - China has uncovered the skeletal remains of a gigantic, surprisingly bird-like dinosaur, which has been classed as a new species.

Eight meters (26 ft) long and standing at twice the height of a man at the shoulder, the fossil of the feathered but flightless Gigantoraptor erlianensis was found in the Erlian basin in Inner Mongolia, researchers wrote in the latest issue of Nature.

The researchers said the dinosaur, discovered in April 2005, weighed about 1.4 tonnes and lived some 85 million years ago.

According to lines of arrested growth detected on its bones, it died as a young adult in its 11th year of life.

I dropped it when those deceived by their own lusts choose to claim that Piltdown Man (Eoanthropus dawsoni) was the only evolutionary hoax.

Let us not forget the evolutionary frauds of Ernst Haeckel. As his protege Boelsche wrote,

...should not the embryo of mammals, reptiles and birds show at least traces of a tadpole or fish stage in the mother's womb, or in the egg? It is the most remarkable proof of the reliability of the biogenetic law that this is actually the case... How is it with human beings in this respect? Every text-book on anatomy to-day gives a satisfactory answer. The embryo of human beings at a certain stage is likewise provided with traces of gills on its neck and with fin-like disks in the places where arms and legs develop later on. This is as universally accepted as the fact first stated by Copernicus that the earth revolves around the sun. No man who has the least respect for truth can deny this fact. Nevertheless, there are people who find this very plain fact of embryology very little to their liking, and who therefore frequently attempt to brand it as a "falsification." But every university text-book in the hands of every student of medicine, which is used as a basis for the state examinations, contains a statement of this simple fact, and if any student were to deny it during his examination he would be severely reprimanded by the state examiner. People who still refer to such undeniable and scientifically recognized facts as falsifications place themselves outside the pale of all moral premises and scientific research. [Wilhelm Boelsche, The Evolution of Man, 1904]

[Osgoode] Davidson Black previously worked on Piltdown Man, no?

[Stultis] Not exactly, but close. Black was a student of Grafton Elliot Smith at the time Smith was working with Piltdown.

This is not exactly true. Black worked on the site with both Dawson and Woodward in 1914 and he discovered the Rhinoceros etruscus teeth. This is mentioned in Woodward's The Earliest Englishman.

You are wasting your breath my friend. Have you ever heard Dan Rather admit that the forged documents were a lie or inaccurate?

What an absolutely ludicrous comparison. Indeed what an absolutely invidious comparison, since it "dumbs down" and trivializes real fraud and unrepentant deception (e.g. Piltdown or the National Guard "documents") by equating it with honest and self corrected mistake (e.g. Nebraska Man).

In the case of the Bush / National Guard documents, FReepers and other bloggers specified exactly and in detail what was inauthentic and therefore fraudulent about them. It was even demonstrated exactly how the documents were created (in MS-Word).

You have done NOTHING of the sort with your putative examples of "hoaxes". The actual hoaxes (e.g. Piltdown) we admit. But what are we supposed to "admit" wrt to Nebraska Man, for instance? You haven't said what is supposedly "hoaxed" regarding it. Please do tell us and we'll address it.

Of course you won't tell us because you don't even know. Yours is nothing but a bald, bigoted, reflexive, gratuitous, posturing and phony assertion.

Yeah, I know about Black finding the rhinoceros teeth (fragments thereof, actually) at the Piltdown site. This doesn't contradict what I said, nor does it validate what you claimed: that Black "worked on Piltdown Man". Heck, he didn't even "work on" the rhinoceros teeth. He just found them.

He didn't even regularly work the site. He was just visiting that one time with a large group of scientists from The Geological Society of London (IIRC) who were taken there by Woodward. Black just poked around a bit on that occasion and Dawson (presuming, as I do, that he was the hoaxer) decided to make him the "lucky" recipient of a couple of his more minor salted specimens.

None of that changes the fact that Black's secondary association with Piltdown, via G.E. Smith, was transitory and trivial.

Of course you won't tell us because you don't even know. Yours is nothing but a bald, bigoted, reflexive, gratuitous, posturing and phony assertion.

LOL... Yeah! If you say so. Fact of the matter is everytime someone destroys your religion people like you run around trying to shout us down. Case in point... Your last post.

Listen, I won't waste my time trying to educate you nor will "we address it." You are happy in your ignorance. I'm good with that. People like you seem to think that those of us that disagree with you are somehow ignorant of your positions. We aren't. We too when to the same public and private schools you did. We received the same New Age indoctrinations you have and we've attended the same universities and colleges you have. We just don't buy into every fantasy that comes down the pike. We like evidence that supports theories which turn those "theories" into scientific fact. If an entire species of man can be derived from the fragments of a worn out pig's tooth and presented to the world as "the missing link" isn't a fraud or a scam then I truly do not know what the word "is" means.

Please... enjoy your life. I'm not about to waste my time debating with you. There are thousands of real scientists in the world that are already exposing the theory of evolution as a hoax and you followers of junk science refuse to look at that evidence just as Dan Rather refuses to look at the fact that GWB NEVER went AWOL or tried to avoid service. You... Like Rather would rather believe what you believe than look at the evidence.

And please don't ask me to do your homework for you. I've spent decades acquiring my knowledge. I'm not going to try to post it all here on FR for you. Google it if you really care, And try to listen to those you do not agree with for a change. You just may learn something.

Good night.

If an entire species of man can be derived from the fragments of a worn out pig's tooth and presented to the world as "the missing link" isn't a fraud or a scam then I truly do not know what the word "is" means.

First to dispense with the factual error (even though I did so in a previous message addressed to Theo): Hesperopithecus was never presented by the scientists working on it as a "species of man". The name means "Western Ape". Aside from pointing out a few possible affinities to human teeth, they didn't -- because of the poor and heavily worn condition of the fossil -- even try to press the case that this was a human ancestor. It was plenty to claim that an anthropoid ape had been found in the New World where they were previously (and currently) unknown.

Now, as to the statement more generally. I genuinely do not follow the logic. You are flatly claiming that if these scientists claimed a pig's tooth belonged to a human (actually ape) then it follows that it must involve fraud.

But it seems to be that this only follows if a genuine MISTAKE is eliminated as a possibility.

Therefore the implication of your statement is, ironically, THAT EVOLUTIONARY SCIENTISTS ARE INFALLIBLE! (Factually and cognitively infallible, of course. Not morally infallibe, since you're also claiming by implication that they're also all outrageous and constant liars.)

Where do I go wrong in my analysis?

Is it possible? Can you really think that scientist can't possibly be sincerely mistaken, and therefore that any erroneous conclusion must be fraudulent?!

you followers of junk science refuse to look at that evidence

To the contrary. I've read extensively of the creationism/antievolution literature. I have a couple hundred volumes in my antievolution library. I think it's very likely I've read more of this stuff than you have, and know some of your own arguments better than you do. I've visited creationist "research" sites (specifically Carl Baugh's "mantrack" sites in the Paluxy River). I've attended creationist conventions. Etc, etc.

I'm sure it helps you to believe that those who reject antievolutionary creationism do so only because they haven't looked at it. In fact very many of us do so because we have.

Although I never bought into the full creationist scheme, my initial response on reading two or three books was at least somewhat sympathetic. Although I thought their own conclusions were probably wrong, I suspected some of these authors might be raising some legitimate and worthwhile questions.

What I did then was to pick out a few of the more interesting points and go the library (in the end I had to visits several large science and medical libraries) and chase out all the related references and footnotes to the original scientific facts and research papers. The result was unexpected and shocking. I found that there was NOTHING of value in any of these arguments. They were all based on the most outrageous lies and distortions regarding the actual evidence. Then (and only then) I finally read some of the anticreationist literature and discovered that many others had done the same thing with the same result.

And please don't ask me to do your homework for you.

How is it my "homework" to say what you think constitutes a "hoax" regarding Nebraska Man (for instance)?

I absolutely and in complete and forthright honesty know of nothing that is fraudulent about Nebraska Man. I know the fossil was genuine. I know that the researchers at the American Museum certainly thought it was an ape's tooth. I know that they sent casts of the tooth to dozens of scientists and institutions around the world. I know that they tried (in the face of much skepticism) to make their case. I know they kept pressing the matter until they managed to disprove their case.

I simply cannot possibly imagine what you consider to involve fraud or "hoaxing" in all this. I really can't. You need to tell me.

You refuse to tell me. I assert that it is very simply because you cannot. You're welcome to falsify my assertion. (But you won't.)

>>Thank you. I dropped it when those deceived by their own lusts choose to claim that Piltdown Man (Eoanthropus dawsoni) was the only evolutionary hoax.<<

I’m just catching up but did somebody really say that? I can think of half a dozen attempts at physics fraud of the top of my head and before there was DNA verification I would bet that there were many attempts to misrepresent fossils.

They must have mis-spoke or not thought that through. That’s one of the reasons for all the checks and balances in science - the acknowledgment that evidence must be tested and verified because of human nature.

Two words: Nebraska Man.

Henry Fairfield Osborn was a prominent Darwinian and rabid eugenist. Originally a Piltdown-doubter, in 1921 he supposedly examined the evidence and declared, in most florid terms, that Piltdown man was genuine. He was also a major inspiration for the out-of-asia theory. Elliot Smith (a Piltdown guy) promoted the "Nebraska primate" as a human ancestor. Davidson Black, the Peking Man guy, (and also a Piltdown boy), was, according to Stultis in post 50, Elliot Smith's "student". And of course all the Peking man stuff mysteriously vanished. Next up on the Jerry Springer show: Inbred Science!

Hesperopithecus was never presented by the scientists working on it as a "species of man"... I simply cannot possibly imagine what you consider to involve fraud or "hoaxing" in all this. I really can't

EndWelfareToday happens to be correct and you are wrong. Osborn misidentified the tooth as belonging to a primate. Based on this one tooth, Elliot Smith (the Piltdown guy) had an illustration of two knuckle-dragging Nebraska Men published in The Illustrated News of London in 1922 and claimed Nebraska Man was an ancestor of humans. That was a total fraud and hoax.

How am I wrong when I pointed out the Illustrated News piece myself, way up thread, in #55?

That's why I said that Hesperopithecus was never presented as human, or a presumptive human ancestor, "by the scientists working on it," i.e. the principle investigators at the American Museum, by any scientist publishing on it or reponding in professional venues.

That statement is completely correct. Smith, although (I believe) he saw a cast, cannot reasonably said to have been "working on" the fossil. And he weighed in via a popular venue. Osborn, speaking for the American Museum gave the appropriate response, as I quoted in #55, and here again:

"such a drawing or 'reconstruction' would doubtless be only a figment of the imagination of no scientific value, and undoubtedly inaccurate."

Nevertheless Smith's "reconstruction" was not a "fraud" or a "hoax". It was indeed foolish and gratuitous and worthless. But none of those things, or even all in combination, are fraudulent. To perpetrate a fraud or hoax you must be engaging in knowing deception, not just foolishness.

Nor, OTOH, does EndWelfareToday happen to be correct.

If you'll click the "reply to" links and go back through the thread, you'll find that his/her claim was that "Nebraska Man" was a "hoax" (as opposed to, say, an honest mistake in interpretation).

EndWelfareToday has explicitly refused to elaborate on this assertion: to explain how it was a "hoax" or what exactly is supposed to be fraudulent. Of course he/she won't do so because there's no "there" there. It clearly wasn't a "hoax". The fossil was undoubtedly genuine, and so was the (mistaken, but later self-corrected) belief of the principle advocates at the American Museum that they'd stumbled on the fossil tooth of an American ape. Osborn and King never misrepresented anything about the fossil, whether regarding the circumstances of its discovery or its physical characteristics and condition.

It would be less embarrassing for you to keep silent, rather than miss the point with such pathetic obviousness.

As you know, despite your pretense, I acknowledged the fact that actual fraud was demonstrated in detail in the case of the Bush National Guard "documents". In fact this is integral to the point I was making because you, by contrast, have simply asserted -- with no demonstration, no theory, no explanation, no specification whatever -- that "Nebraska Man" was a "hoax".

You've flatly refused to elaborate, or to indicate in any fashion exactly what aspect(s) of "Nebraska Man" was/were "hoaxed".

If CBS's critics had been so lackadaisical Dan would still be on the air lying about Bush.

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