What mean photo ID to vote?
Posted on 05/12/2008 9:05:36 AM PDT by Ethan Clive Osgoode
WHEN I am dead, the chance that my bones will become fossilized is very remote. Bones decay away like the rest of our bodies unless a lot of very unlikely things happen. First of all, a dead body will not leave any permanent remains in the form of a fossil unless it happens to be covered up and thus protected from decay. That is fairly easy in the case of animals in the sea. Rivers are always carrying sediment out and depositing it, and tides and currents shift the sediment and cover up the bodies of dead animals. But even in this case it is by no means likely that the bones will be fossilized. Much more probably they will gradually dissolve away, and leave no trace of themselves. Fossilization is rather a complicated process. It involves the replacement of each particle of bone, as it dissolves away, by a less soluble and therefore more permanent substance. When that has happened, the chances are still very remote that anyone will find the fossil thousands or millions of years later. Our quarries and mines and cuttings are mere scratches on the surface of the earth. With terrestrial animals the chances of fossilization are still less than with marine ones. They are likely to die and decay without being covered up. It would be quite absurd to look with any great hopefulness for the fossil remains of the ancestors of any given animal. It would not simply be like looking for the proverbial pin in a haystack, for then you are supposed to have the advantage of knowing that the pin is there. But in this case you are looking for a soluble pin in a haystack in a thunderstorm, and you always have at the back of your mind the disconcerting thought that perhaps it is no longer there.
That is the reason why we cannot describe the evolution of every species of animal in detail. The obvious thing to do is to study those animals which happen to have left the best record of their evolution. The horse is the best of all. We know the stages in the evolution of the horse in great detail, and with certainty. There are many other animals whose evolution from simpler forms is also well known. But if you take any animal at random, say a rabbit, the chances are that there will not be a complete fossil history of it.
One would not expect, then, to be able to find much in the way of human fossils, and the fact is that not many have been found. But we are in a very different position now from what we were at the beginning of the century.
At that time very little was known. A fossil skull had been found in a cave at Neanderthal in Prussia. This was definitely human, but had many ape-like characters. The enormous bony ridges above the eye are the most obvious features. Then there is the retreating forehead, receding chin, and massive jaw; and the form of the leg bones of this type of person shows that he must have shuffled along with his knees bent all the time. A cast of the inside of his skull gives a good idea of what his brain must have been like, and one can see from it that the parts of the brain concerned with speaking were poorly developed.
Now in the last century people did not like the idea of being descended from apes, and they were not prepared to examine the evidence for it impar- tially. They invented an excellent excuse for this skull. It was an abnormality! That would get out of the difficulty. The unfortunate individual had some disease which made his skull grow in "that funny way. A little peculiar, was it not, that hundreds of thousands of his relatives, who of course had skulls exactly like ours, left no fossil remains, while just the single one who happened to be abnormal was fossilized! But improbabilities do not worry people who have convictions based on prejudice and not on love of truth. Some people even suggested that these skeletons were those of hybrids between men and apes. This is incredible for two reasons. Firstly, no cases are known of any two Mammals, so widely separated as to fall into different families, being able to interbreed. Secondly, even if one imagined the impossible, and supposed that such hybrids could be produced, it would remain incredible that the millions of normal men of those geological times should have left no trace whatever, while the few hybrids were by a miracle fossilized and discovered. How has the famous Neanderthal man fared in our enlightened twentieth century? Many more skeletons have been found, closely resembling him. Neanderthal man has been found in Belgium, France, and Gibraltar, and in 1925 near the Sea of Galilee. With the skeletons are examples of his implements, which differ from those of other fossil men, and implements like these have recently been found in Mongolia. His was an enormously wide-spread race of primitive men, every one of them having those very characters which our learned and truth-loving forbears preferred to think of as due to disease.
In 1921 a fossil skull, without lower jaw, was found in Rhodesia. This had huge bony ridges above the eyebrows, and in most respects was rather like the Neanderthal man, but a little more primitive. We must hope for more examples of this race.
These Neanderthal men were fairly recent, as geological time goes, and also definitely more human than ape-like. They were probably not on the direct line of our ancestry, but died out perhaps twenty- five thousand years ago, just before the last ice age. Nevertheless they must have been closely allied to our ancestors.
Now what about the real missing link, something midway between ape and man? Where did we stand at the beginning of the century?
A most momentous discovery had recently been made. Dubois had set off to the East Indies with the avowed intention of finding a fossil ape-man, and, miracles of miracles, had actually found one in Java, after excavating for two years in Sumatra. It was sadly incomplete just the top of a skull, a leg-bone and some teeth but what was there was an amazing link between man and apes. If Neanderthal man's forehead may be said to recede, Java man's is almost non-existent, for his head slopes almost straight back behind his huge eyebrow ridges. His brain must have been about half-way in size between the brain of a gorilla and the brain of a man, yet he must have been about as tall as modern man. Here we have a very primitive man, or a very man-like ape, call it which you will, who existed as the geology of the place shows at about the time of our first ice age, perhaps half a million years ago.
That was rather a shock for the nineteenth century, and there was some attempt to discredit Dubois. Unfortunately for the disbelievers, however, the fossil bone was subjected to microscopical examination and proved beyond doubt to be genuine.
Since then there have been thrilling discoveries of intermediates between apes and men. I must pass over a lower jaw found near Heidelburg in Germany in 1907, although it is extremely interesting, simply because it is only a jaw. Four years later some work- men were digging gravel at Piltdown in Sussex, when a fossil human skull was discovered. This was a priceless specimen. One feels that one would have sacrificed a hand or an eye to preserve this treasure so that it could be examined by an expert. What happened? Workmen, ignorant of its importance, broke it up and threw the pieces into a rubbish dump. By extreme good fortune Mr. Dawson had been on the look out for pre-human remains in the district for some time, as he had found peculiar flints among the gravel, and someone gave him one of the fragments. We must thank Providence for putting Mr. Dawson there, for he had the dump most carefully searched, and many of the fragments were found. Experts then set to work to consider how they should be fitted together, and different experts had different ideas.
The main conclusions are the following. There are scarcely any bony eyebrow ridges at all, and the forehead rises quite steeply above the eyes. This is most surprising in such an ancient skull, which is probably not very much more recent than the Java skull. But associated with this skull there was a lower jaw which is to all intents and purposes that of a chimpanzee. Many experts considered that it was an extinct chimpanzee's lower jaw. The complete absence of chin and the huge canine teeth supported that view. These canine teeth must have interlocked with those of the upper jaw like a dog's. Now if we regard the jaw as belonging to the skull, then we have a splendid missing link. But if they do not belong to one another, then the find is not nearly so significant.
That is why the recent discoveries near Peking are so tremendously important, for now an essentially ape-like lower jaw has been found in the same lump of rock as part of an essentially human brain-case, and the Piltdown skull and lower jaw are thus confirmed as belonging to one individual.
The story of the Peking discoveries is most interesting. During the war. China started a geo- logical survey, and got a Scandinavian, Dr. Anders- son, to direct it. Dr. Andersson discovered rich fossil beds about forty miles from Peking. A great deal of excavating was done, but no human remains brought to light. One day one of the Chinese Workmen was overheard asking a companion why they were wasting their time hunting for fossils in that particular place, when there were far more about half a mile away. That chance remark altered the course of our knowledge of man's ancestry, for the site of excavation was changed, and shortly after- wards human remains began to be found.
The first discoveries were two teeth, but there was nothing very special about these. Then in 1927 another tooth was discovered, which was sent to Dr. Davidson Black in Peking for examination. It was by no means by chance that Dr. Black was in Peking. Years before he had taken the Professorship of Anatomy at Peking, simply because he thought it likely that pre-human remains would be found in China, and he wanted above everything to carry out research on this subject.
Careful measurement of this tooth convinced Dr. Black that it was intermediate between a human and an ape's tooth. He exhibited the specimen widely, but it was received with scepticism.
A year later part of a jaw was found, and in the same piece of rock part of a skull. I have referred to that already. You will remember the jaw was essen- tially an ape's jaw, and the skull essentially human. Not only were these two bones found in the same block; they were both obviously of a young indi- vidual. There cannot be any doubt that they belong together, and they confirm the lesson taught by the Piltdown skull, that man retained the chinless con- dition of his ancestors till rather a late stage of evolution, when he had already got a large brain- case. Dr. Black was now enabled, by a grant from the Rockefeller Trustees, to devote full time to research. Discoveries were coming thick and fast, for in 1929 a momentous discovery was made by a Chinese geologist, Mr. Pei. Mr. Pei found an almost complete brain-case, quite uncrushed. Mr. Pei sent it to Dr. Black, and Dr. Black spent weeks in freeing it carefully from the rock in which it was embedded. Dr. Black has now described the skull, and casts of it have been made, one of which was exhibited by Sir Elliot Smith at the centenary meeting of the British Association.
Other finds have been made since. Altogether parts of about ten people have been found. The geological age of this primitive race must have been about the same as that of the Java man.
What are the essential features of the skull? Does it resemble Piltdown man closely? In one respect it certainly does not. There are large eyebrow ridges. The forehead is receding, and in this respect also it resembles Java man. In one way, however, it is like the Piltdown skull. If you put a finger on your head just above your ear, and move it across the top of your skull and down to the other ear, you will find that your skull is smoothly curved. This Peking skull is not smoothly curved like that. It has a distinct bump on each side opposite the part of the brain which is used for understanding spoken words, and another bump opposite the part concerned in using hand and eye together. This seems extremely significant. It looks as though man was just beginning to speak and use tools. As his brain swelled in the appropriate places, so his brain-case enlarged unevenly. This curious feature closely resembles one of the reconstructions of the Piltdown skull. Otherwise the brain was small, as we should expect in a missing link. Certain parts of the skull are very ape-like, especially the bones round the base of the ears, and of course the lower jaw was absolutely chinless and ape-like.
Let me summarize. Perhaps half a million years ago man was in a very ape-like condition, as shown by the Java, Piltdown, and Peking skulls. His brain-case was smaller, and his brain was just swelling in those regions which are concerned with speech and the use of tools. His skull was thick. His lower jaw was absolutely ape-like. These are the three missing-link skulls, though the term is, of course, no longer suitable. Then, ages later, we have a large number of skeletons and tools from various parts of Europe and Asia which belong to the Neanderthal type. This race much more closely resembles modern man. The chin is still small, though the lower jaw is by no means ape-like. The heavy overhanging eyebrow ridges and retreating forehead are persistent marks of the beast. Neanderthal man was probably fairly closely allied to a not very remote ancestor of ourselves.
You can find casts of some of the skulls and lower jaws to which I have referred in many museums. In the Natural History Museum in South Kensington they are in the room to the right as you enter. If you can find a skull of one of the aborigines of Australia in a museum anywhere, you will find it interesting to compare it with a European's, for it is primitive in many ways. Notice the small brain-case and the large eyebrow ridges and the receding forehead. The hairy Australian natives are the most primitive people living on the globe to-day.
Perhaps you will have come to the conclusion that scientists are apt to base a lot of speculation on very fragmentary evidence. The fossil skeletons I have mentioned are very incomplete, except the Neanderthal ones. As a matter of fact there is no undue speculation. Let me tell you a story which proves this.
A long time ago, when people were just starting to colonize New Zealand on a large scale, a colonist found a bit of bone in his garden. It was about eight inches long. The finder thought it might be interesting, and he sent it to Professor Owen in England. Professor Owen examined it carefully, and decided that it was a small fragment of a thigh bone of a huge unknown bird allied to the ostrich. He therefore published a paper saying that he supposed that there formerly existed in New Zealand a gigantic species of flightless bird, larger than the ostrich.
Now perhaps you think that he was basing too much speculation on too little evidence. But he was not. As New Zealand became better known, more and more bones were discovered, and now you can see whole skeletons of the great Moa of New Zealand in many museums. Professor Owen's speculation was proved to have been based on sufficient evidence.
On the German side of the Darwinism-Eugenics story, you may be interested in Eugen Fisher's essay on the evolution of the Jews (1938). Hitler read Eugen Fischer's Principles of Human Heredity and Race Hygiene.
"There is a good deal of evidence that the feeble-minded are increasing in numbers in this country. They are careless of the consequences of their actions, and they reproduce rapidly. They appear to be a real danger to the State." - John R. Baker
Another installment in your ongoing effort to smear the theory of evolution and those who study it?
What mean photo ID to vote?
That looks like Sam Elliot as “Tell Sackett” from the late ‘70s.
Don’t bother trying to use logic and facts - it just confuses them and makes them madder.
Eh, why not. It cuts the other way as well, with evolution believers trying to smear those who disagree with the theory. (Please don't be so disingenous as to try to deny it. The only way you could do so honestly is to have been in isolation for the past 50 years.)
If you have problems with the theory of evolution, be prepared to present evidence.
(See tagline.)
Darwinism is only a half truth. While species do in fact evolve to their surroundings every day more evidence comes out that kills the Darwin evolution chain of thought.
Here’s a fact I find interesting (even if useless): Darwin and Lincoln were both born on 2/12/1809.
“The Jews deserve to be hanged on gallows, seven times higher than ordinary thieves”
“We ought to take revenge on the Jews and kill them.”
“The blind Jews are truly stupid fools”
“Now just behold these miserable, blind, and senseless people.”
“eject them forever from this country”
“they are nothing but thieves and robbers”
“What then shall we do with this damned, rejected race of Jews?”
“Such a desperate, thoroughly evil, poisonous, and devilish lot are these Jews”
“They are the real liars and bloodhounds”
“We are at fault for not slaying them.”
“I shall give you my sincere advice: first to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them.”
“Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed.”
“Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews.”
“Burn down their synagogues, forbid all that I enumerated earlier, force them to work, and deal harshly with them”
“If this does not help we must drive them out like mad dogs”
“If I had to baptize a Jew, I would take him to the river Elbe, hang a stone around his neck and push him over with the words `I baptize thee in the name of Abraham’.”
A fascinating anti-Semitic diatribe composed by the famous founder of Protestant Christianity, Martin Luther.
“That looks like Sam Elliot as “Tell Sackett” from the late ‘70s.”
Hell. That looks like ME from the late 70’s. ;O)
You might want to actually read my post. I didn't say anything about the theory itself, but about the behavior of human beings in the debate about evolution.
That’s a pretty good paper. It lays out the trail of discoveries of early man and his progenitors very well and puts it in a way even a man of average education can readily understand. Modern science writers would do well to make their work so accessible.
"Four years later some workmen were digging gravel at Piltdown in Sussex, when a fossil human skull was discovered. This was a priceless specimen. One feels that one would have sacrificed a hand or an eye to preserve this treasure so that it could be examined by an expert... That is why the recent discoveries near Peking are so tremendously important, for now an essentially ape-like lower jaw has been found in the same lump of rock as part of an essentially human brain-case, and the Piltdown skull and lower jaw are thus confirmed as belonging to one individual."
Yeah, I read the whole paper. It was good.
The moral of Piltdown is that science is a fallible, human activity which does not always take the most direct route in fulfilling its aim of understanding nature. When an anomaly such as the discovery of a human cranium with an ape's jaw occurs one must either fit it into a new theory, re-examine the evidence for error in discovery or interpretation, or show that the so-called anomaly is not really an anomaly at all but in fact fits with current theory. Which route a scientist takes may be guided more by personal hopes and cultural prejudices than by some mythical objectivity characterized by the collection and accumulation of colorless, impersonal facts to be pigeonholed dogmatically into a General Theory of Objective Truth and Knowledge.But to characterize scientists as arrogant buffoons making claims that often turn out to be false, and to make a caricature out of science because it is not infallible and does not arrive at absolutely certain claims, belies a grave misunderstanding of the nature of science. The buffoons are those who demand absolute certainty where none can be had; the buffoons are those who do not understand the value and beauty of probabilities in science. The arrogant ones are those who think that science is mere speculation because scientists make errors, even egregious errors, or at times even commit fraud to push their prejudices. The arrogant ones are those who can't tell the difference between a testable and an untestable hypothesis and who think one speculation is as good as another. The buffoons are those who think that since both scientists and creationists or other pseudoscientists pose theories, each is doing essentially the same thing. However, all theories are not empirical, and of those that are empirical not all are equally speculative. Furthermore, those creationists who think that Piltdown demonstrates that scientists can't accurately date bones should remember that methods of dating such things have greatly improved since 1910.
Because of the public nature of science and the universal application of its methods, and because of the fact that the majority of scientists are not crusaders for their own untested or untestable prejudices, as many pseudoscientists are, whatever errors are made by scientists are likely to be discovered by other scientists. The discovery will be enough to get science back on track. The same can't be said for the history of quacks and pseudoscientists where errors do not get detected because their claims are not tested properly. And when critics identify errors, they are ignored by true believers.
Did you like Eugen Fischer's paper too?
"That we should discover such a race as Piltdown, sooner or later, has been an article of faith in the anthropologist's creed ever since Darwin's time."- Sir Arthur Keith, Antiquity of Man, 1924.
Who is Eugen Fischer and where is his paper? I only saw the one posted here. ???
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