Posted on 02/19/2005 7:36:30 AM PST by Woodworker
Panel says professor of human origins made up data, plagiarized works
A flamboyant anthropology professor, whose work had been cited as evidence Neanderthal man once lived in Northern Europe, has resigned after a German university panel ruled he fabricated data and plagiarized the works of his colleagues. Reiner Protsch von Zieten, a Frankfurt university panel ruled, lied about the age of human skulls, dating them tens of thousands of years old, even though they were much younger, reports Deutsche Welle. "The commission finds that Prof. Protsch has forged and manipulated scientific facts over the past 30 years," the university said of the widely recognized expert in carbon data in a prepared statement.
Protsch's work first came under suspicion last year during a routine investigation of German prehistoric remains by two other anthropologists. "We had decided to subject many of these finds to modern techniques to check their authenticity so we sent them to Oxford [University] for testing," one of the researchers told The Sunday Telegraph. "It was a routine examination and in no way an attempt to discredit Prof. von Zieten." In their report, they called Protsch's 30 years of work a "dating disaster."
Among their findings was an age of only 3,300 years for the female "Bischof-Speyer" skeleton, found with unusually good teeth in Northern Germany, that Protsch dated to 21,300 years. Another dating error was identified for a skull found near Paderborn, Germany, that Protsch dated at 27,400 years old. It was believed to be the oldest human remain found in the region until the Oxford investigations indicated it belonged to an elderly man who died in 1750. The Herne anthropological museum, which owned the Paderborn skull, did its own tests following the unsettling results. "We had the skull cut open and it still smelt," said the museum's director. "We are naturally very disappointed."
Protsch, known for his love of Cuban cigars and Porsches, did not comment on the commission's findings, but in January he told the Frankfurter Neue Presse, "This was a court of inquisition. They don't have a single piece of hard evidence against me." The fallout from Protsch's false dating of northern European bone finds is only beginning.
Chris Stringer, a Stone Age specialist and head of human origins at London's Natural History Museum, said: "What was considered a major piece of evidence showing that the Neanderthals once lived in northern Europe has fallen by the wayside. We are having to rewrite prehistory." "Anthropology now has to revise its picture of modern man between 40,000 and 10,000 B.C.," added Thomas Terberger, an archaeologist at the University of Greifswald. Frankfurt University's president, Rudolf Steinberg, apologized for the university's failure to curb Protsch's misconduct for decades. "A lot of people looked the other way," he said.
Genesis 61. When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them,
2. the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.
This appears to be the case by a casual reading, but study indicates that the text does not support this idea.
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Topics: Gi'ants
Text:
(1.) Heb. nephilim, meaning "violent" or "causing to fall" (Gen. 6:4). These were the violent tyrants of those days, those who fell upon others. The word may also be derived from a root signifying "wonder," and hence "monsters" or "prodigies." In Num. 13:33 this name is given to a Canaanitish tribe, a race of large stature, "the sons of Anak." The Revised Version, in these passages, simply transliterates the original, and reads "Nephilim."
(2.) Heb. rephaim, a race of giants (Deut. 3:11) who lived on the east of Jordan, from whom was descended. They were probably the original inhabitants of the land before the immigration of the Canaanites. They were conquered by Chedorlaomer (Gen. 14:5), and their territories were promised as a possession to Abraham (15:20).
The Anakim, Zuzim, and Emim were branches of this stock. In Job 26:5 (R.V., "they that are deceased;" marg., "the shades," the "Rephaim") and Isa. 14:9 this Hebrew word is rendered (A.V.) "dead." It means here "the shades," the departed spirits in Sheol.
In Sam. 21:16, 18, 20, 33, "the giant" is (A.V.) the rendering of the singular form ha raphah, which may possibly be the name of the father of the four giants referred to here, or of the founder of the Rephaim. The Vulgate here reads "Arapha," whence Milton (in Samson Agonistes) has borrowed the name "Harapha." (See also 1 Chron. 20: 5, 6, 8; Deut. 2:11, 20; 3:13; Josh. 15:8, etc., where the word is similarly rendered "giant.") It is rendered "dead" in (A.V.) Ps. 88:10; Prov. 2:18; 9:18; 21:16: in all these places the Revised Version marg. has "the shades." (See also Isa. 26:14.)
(3.) Heb. 'Anakim (Deut. 2:10, 11, 21; Josh. 11:21, 22; 14:12, 15; called "sons of Anak," Num. 13:33; "children of Anak," 13:22; Josh. 15:14), a nomad race of giants descended from Arba (Josh. 14:15), the father of Anak, that dwelt in the south of Palestine near Hebron (Gen. 23:2; Josh. 15:13). They were a Cushite tribe of the same race as the Philistines and the Egyptian shepherd kings. David on several occasions encountered them (2 Sam. 21:15-22). From this race sprung Goliath (1 Sam. 17:4).
(4.) Heb. 'emin, a warlike tribe of the ancient Canaanites. They were "great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims" (Gen. 14:5; Deut. 2:10, 11).
(5.) Heb. Zamzummim (q.v.), Deut. 2:20 so called by the Amorites.
(6.) Heb. gibbor (Job 16:14), a mighty one, i.e., a champion or hero. In its plural form (gibborim) it is rendered "mighty men" (2 Sam. 23:8-39; 1 Kings 1:8; 1 Chr. 11:9-47; 29:24.) The band of six hundred whom David gathered around him when he was a fugitive were so designated. They were divided into three divisions of two hundred each, and thirty divisions of twenty each. The captians of the thirty divisions were called "the thirty," the captains of the two hundred "the three," and the captain over the whole was called "chief among the captains" (2 Sam. 23:8). The sons born of the marriages mentioned in Gen. 6:4 are also called by this Hebrew name.
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Matchett-PI: "Your trite cliches are so precious.
So tell me, "what would Jesus think" about you and your friends "beating people over the head with Darwin's religion"?
BTW - FYI: If anyone could "do what Jesus would do", there'd have been no need for Jesus to do what he already DID, so if you're wearing one of those cute little bracelets, even if it makes you feel better, take it off."~~
Shubi:"Hating people ..is wrong. I will pray for you."
Matchett-PI:"You have a barrel full of self-righteous, trite leftist cliches, don't you?"
Shubi:"I didn't know praying for someone was a "trite leftist cliche". Perhaps you are not what you represent yourself to be."
I report - the reader can decide. Hahaha
That's fine; you are entitled to your opinion.
A question: what WOULD it take, as evidence, for you to believe that Jesus is omniscient?
"Ask, and you shall receive."
Phil Johnson is a law professor at Berkeley. What, one might ask, are the credentials of someone like that to judge a subject of science? Well, when it comes to examining the evidence, assumptions, and logic of the case being argued, quite a lot.
How exactly is he qualified to examine biological evidence when he is not a biologist?
RELIGIOUS KOOK ALERT!!!!!!!
Been spending a lot of time on TBN, I see.
What I think is irrelevant, and what it would take to convince me is not at issue. As I have now said a couple of times the point is not whether I think that Jesus was omniscient, it is whether someone who claims to be a Christian is biblically forced to accept Jesus's omniscience. I don't accept that the biblical passages that you have posted make it compulsory for a Christian to think that Jesus was omniscient.
Would I be going too far by suggesting that science is based on naturalism because we can (in principle at least) reliably, repeatably test natural things to double check our ideas of what makes them work?
Would I be going too far by saying that "by definition" we cannot experiment on God?
Would I be going too far by saying that even if it were possible to experiment on God, we wouldn't necessarily be able to say with confidence that the experiment was valid, because God might be deliberately changing the way he acted, for the course of the experiment, for any reason He chose?
Would I be going too far to say that, once you allow extra-natural influences, which you cannot test, then for the sake of logical consistency, you have no a priori grounds for excluding ANYTHING, from pixies to angels?
In other words, if you can't measure it consistently or reliably, you are in no position to use science to deal with it.
It is not NECESSARILY that all such entities must be entirely the result of deranged minds, as some skeptics like to claim (Bill Maher). But if you have no way of reliably testing or sifting through HOW or WHEN a supernatural being will act, then there is no tidy way of incorporating it into a mathematical model.
And thus while there may or may not be a supernatural, it is and will remain a non-trivial task to try to incorporate any supernatural elements into a scientific framework.
The problem is that while there are other means of acquiring knowledge about things, (eyewitness testimony as from courtrooms, experience such as tennis practice or karate, "angels appearing from on high", etc.), the other forms of acquiring knowledge tend to be personal, or subjective, or not easily reproducible by independent, disinterested observers. Therefore there is the distinct possibility of a lot of junk being accepted because there is no good way of weeding it out. And scientists, being used to having very efficacious means of making sense out of things, tend to eschew less effective methods.
OTOH, most scientists tend to avoid strict reliance on the scientific method in their personal lives. There is a time and a place for things, you know. :-)
Cheers!
Did you think that repeating your childish outburst would somehow improve its appeal or ability to "persuade"?
"Indeed, the perversity of the impious, who though they struggle furiously are unable to extricate themselves from the fear of God, is abundant testimony that his conviction, namely, that there is some God, is naturally inborn in all, and is fixed deep within, as it were in the very marrow. . . . From this we conclude that it is not a doctrine that must first be learned in school, but one of which each of us is master from his mother's womb and which nature itself permits no man to forget."
Ponder this classic observation:
"Primates often have trouble imagining a universe not run by an angry alpha male" -- AnonThat alone could be the "explanation" for the instinct to seek someone to obey/follow "which nature itself permits no man to forget" as you put it. It certainly fits in a great number of ways.
It also explains why my dog worships me, and my cat doesn't. Creatures which have evolved a social structure revolving around an alpha-male (like dogs, as well as humans and other primates) will be "hardwired" to expect and want a "ruler" to whom they give their allegiance and turn to for protection and permission.
Similarly, Arthur C. Clarke has suggested that man looks for a god because of the instincts which help us survive as a species having a long childhood. To keep kids from wandering off on their own too soon and getting eaten by the tigers beyond the safety of the tribe (and so on), humans, primates, and other animals with a long nurturing time have instincts which instill in the young feelings involving turning to your parents for protection and sustenance, looking up to them for guidance on how to live, fear of straying too far from them and being alone, respect for their position of power over you, etc. etc. etc. After growing up and/or leaving home, however, these instincts leave a yearning to continue to look up to some more powerful, protective nurturer/rule-giver. And a belief in a watching-over-me deity would fulfill this need for some people. Is it mere coincidence that so many gods are described in terms which are variations of "heavenly father", "our father who art in heaven", "god the father", etc.?
Further support for this potential explanation is seen in the results of studies such as: Vitz, P.C. (1999), "Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism". Vitz found that atheists tend more often than theists to have grown up with absent fathers (through death, divorce, etc.) or poor relationships with their fathers. If theism is an outgrowth of the childhood desire to have a parent to look up to and feel protected/guided by, then Vitz's findings make sense.
So Plantinga's simplistic argument -- which boils down to, "if we have a yearning for something greater than ourselves, then something greater than ourselves must necessarily exist", really doesn't hold water. There are many reasons why humans would have such a yearning entirely apart from Platinga's one possible explanation. His (and your) "that *must* be it!" mindset is not just simplistic, it's logically incorrect.
Proving nothing other than the fact that arrogant, self-righteous, moral relativists pretend that there is no way the Creator / Sustainer God could possibly exist since the evidence shows that he doesn't come up to their standards of goodness.
Wow, you draw some... strange conclusions. No, that's neither what I said, nor what Darwin was saying. That quote I posted had to do with biological relatives, not deities. How you read into that any sort of "pretending there is no way god could possibly exist" is a mystery. Hallucinate much?
But you sound pretty "arrogant and self-righteous" yourself. How about toning it down a few notches, lest you give Christians a bad name? There are many good presentations of the values of Christianity, but yours is not among them.
And please explain how you managed to jump to the conclusion that I am both a "moral relativist" and one of the "impious". The fact that I point out the flaws in various arguments, including flawed arguments against science and flawed arguments for religion, does not constitute sufficient evidence for such leaps.
"Indeed, the perversity of the impious, who though they struggle furiously are unable to extricate themselves from the FEAR of God ...."
Uh huh... It's Platinga who is engaging in "perversity" of twisted thinking here. His "point" in the above passage is just as goofy and misses the point as the following equivalent:
"Indeed, the perversity of those who do not believe in Santa Claus, who though they struggle furiously are unable to extricate themselves from the FEAR of Santa.... [i.e., the FEAR of ending up on his 'naughty' list...]"Now, see how stupid and obviously fallacious that sounds when used to make the identical so-called argument in a parallel case?
Hint: The "impious" do not believe that there is any such thing called "God" -- they think it is just as insubstantial as Santa Claus. Therefore, Platinga (and yourself) are just being incredibly dense when you try to impute any "FEAR" of non-existent entities to them. Do you reject a belief in Santa Claus because you are "AFRAID" that he actually exists and can't face being judged "naughty" by him? Of course you don't -- that's just stupid, and so is Platinga's version.
You can run - but you can't hide.
And, YOU CAN'T HIDE FROM SANTA, mwuahahaha!!!
Come back when you find a real argument. And note that I didn't "run" from this one. So yet *again* we find that your assertions are wrong.
Blasphemer: You are denying the Invisible Pink Unicorns?
I'm not qualified to answer your question because I'm not totally nuts.
No it doesn't. That is the whole problem with ID. We in science know that DNA causes the appearance of design, but there is no need to insert and intelligent designer to explain what we observe.
The argument rests on who or what "designed" DNA, but we also know that DNA is able to change and grow or reduce. For instance, some plants have more DNA material than we do.
This is the whole fallacy of the ID argument. It is based on no evidence whatsoever. Also, creation is not in the theory of evolution, as you know by now, and whether DNA was designed or not is immaterial to evolutionary biology.
The human population was becoming corrupted on a large scale with these angel genes...
...demons tried to imitate what the angel had done.
The angels were judged and locked up in chains of darkness.
It seems that the giants that were around at the time of King David may have been demon (fallen angel) and man hybrids.
Classic stuff. An absolute gem of a post.
Every now and again I am reminded why I love these threads.
"I report - the reader can decide. Hahaha"
Oh, I get it, like humor but different.
Logic doesn't work if the premises are faulty. That is the problem with the whole creationist argument. Creation isn't in evolution, so any conclusion they draw, no matter how logical it appears, is fallacious.
Funny link! :)
I produce and sell aluminum hats to keep creationist brains from bad joojoo waves.
Another evolutionist charlatan uncovered!
I think he should quit sitting on the fence and tell us what he really feels about religion. He's just got to stop bottling it all up...
I've got to admit one of his points about kids believing most of what their parents tell them pretty uncritically hit home; recently on these forums a C'er told us without a trace of irony that his 2 year-old daughter had recently invited Christ into her life "of her own free will". Personally I found that really creepy and incredibly self-deceptive that he thought that any 2yo could weigh up the arguments in any meaningful way.
Of course that cuts the other way too. My kids don't have the same chance of becoming Christians that they would have if they'd been swapped at birth into an evangelical family, which makes the whole "believers get into heaven" thing feel like a bit more of a lottery than it ought to.
Do you sell any good drugs to suppress the angel genes?
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