Polish MEP calls for ‘scholarly debate’ on evolution

Radio Polonia ^ | Oct 16, 2006

[JoAnka]

Polish MEP calls for ‘scholarly debate’ on evolution

Polish European Parliament deputy and biology professor, Maciej Giertych, is calling for an end to the monopoly of Darwinian theory in the teaching of evolution in schools.

'I am a scientist, I am a geneticist, my specialty is population genetics and I reject the theory of evolution on the basis of the field of science I represent. I find that in many fields of science there are scientists who reject the theory of evolution because in their fields they also find evidence against the theory.’ says MEP Maciej Giertych.

For the past decades, biology classes in Poland and around the world have focused practically exclusively on Darwinian theory when tackling the subject of evolution. Prof. Giertych and his colleagues see room for reform in this respect.

'Schools are teaching evolution as a fact and there seems to be very little reference to new research that would either support or negate the theory of evolution. There is so much new evidence that is being simply ignored by the school textbooks.’

But when last week in the European Parliament Giertych and a group of non-Darwinian scientists organized a conference, a whiff of controversy was in the air. Some commentators were quick to label Giertych a religious bigot, ridicule his views and boldly question his competence. Prof. Kielan-Jaworowska:

'There are people who still believe that not the earth is going round the sun but the sun round the earth. His views have nothing to do with science; I would not call him a scientist. We are deeply ashamed that he got the title of a professor and that he is a biologist.'

But not everyone feels that ideology on the verge of religious bigotry is on Giertych's side of the debate. Dr Otto Neuman of the Polish Creationist Society:

'That is a heritage of communism when evolutionary doctrines were taught in schools like a kind of religion.'

Meanwhile Giertych and his non-Darwinian colleagues say they want to stay away from the emotional dispute and focus on an honest scholarly debate in the spirit of academic freedom. A debate, which, they feel, should lead to biology classes being more diverse and open to newest findings.

'The proponents of the theory of evolution are not prepared to sit down and look at the evidence and present their own evidence for the theory of evolution. Debates on the subject immediately develop into philosophical conflict, a lot of emotions are involved and a tendency to label the other side as ignorant, as motivated ideologically - whereas what is needed is a serious scientific debate and confrontation of results.'

Whether a debate is possible, remains to be seen. First, scholars on both sides must recognize each other as partners. And that is still to be achieved. Prof. Kielan-Jaworowska again:

'I don't think scientific discussion with him is possible.'

In response to such attitudes the non-Darwinian side of the conflict is calling for less prejudice and more access to public debate. Prof. Giertych again:

'Since the opponents of the theory of evolution are finding evidence against it, we are struggling to get this into the public domain. We want the media and the textbooks to recognize the fact that there exists empirical evidence against the theory of evolution.'

The liberal archbishop Życiński of Lublin, has criticized Prof. Giertych's call for scholarly debate. However the official Catholic Church position on the subject was reiterated by the late Polish Pope, John Paul II, who in a 1996 statement to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences said, "fresh knowledge leads to recognition of more than one hypothesis in the theory of evolution."

[ml1954]

Hey, no problem. I can find your idiotic posts on my own.

[VadeRetro]

You are inconsistent in your use of pronoun gender. Perhaps you intend some veiled insult?

I am unimpressed by the studied amnesia trick employed by creationists and IDers to avoid dealing with the evidence for evolution. No one has ever shown you any evidence?

Here. Let me be the first.

[Stultis]

I am not interested in looney tunes theories of the 19th century with fascist inhuman implications for the 21st.

Got it?

Oooooo-kay... You're not interested in the subject matter of threads in which you voluntarily participate. "Got it," I suppose. [smiling and backing away slowly]

[RunningWolf]

Whether Piltdwon was hoax, fraud or honest mistake is not as important as the fact that the the vast majority of the scientific community was duped by it. Granted there were a very few who questioned it almost immediately, but they got only a small podium in the 'scientific community'.

You guys need to quit obtaining your history sources from talk-origins, because it does not take a lot of digging at all to reveal that talk-origins on this issue (like most) is wrong.

Contrary to what an evo might assert (if only by calling it a lie) Piltdown was largely accepted and was considered a pivotal event at the time. Why? it was what they wanted to find, or rather it was an ancestor (fake) that fit their expectations. This event highlighted a great deep and vast weakness in this field, it continues to this day, and that is "More troubling, it is a case of scientific predisposition toward interpretations that validate contemporary ideas about evolutionary events. Once such ideas gain wide acceptance, they are sometimes judged by the strength of opinion, not strength of evidence."

The following are quotes from various major news sources contemporaneous with that period.

Most English scientists subscribed to theory that Eoanthropus dawsoni was a

legitimate hominid fossil, and most of the English and U. S. press agreed with that.

:

British 1912-1917

Manchester Guardian: The Earliest Man? REMARKABLE DISCOVERY IN SUSSEX.

A Skull "Millions of Years" Old Manchester Guardian (November 21, 1912)

The Earliest Known Man. Manchester Guardian (November 21, 1912)

The Earliest Skull. "A HITHERTO UNKNOWN SPECIES."

STORY OF THE SUSSEX DISCOVERY. Manchester Guardian (December 10, 1912)

Paleolithic Skull Is a

Missing Link

Human Remains

Found in

England Similar in

Some Details to

Bones of Chimpanzee

FAR OLDER THAN

CAVEMEN

Bones Probably That of a

Direct Ancestor of Modern

Man, While Cavemen

Died Out.

Special Cable to

THE NEW YORK TIMES.

---

---

Darwin Theory Is Proved True

English Scientists Say the Skull

Found in Sussex Establishes Human Descent from Apes.

THOUGHT TO BE A WOMAN'S

Bones Illustrate a Stage of Evolution Which has Only Been

Imagined Before.

CREATURE COULD NOT TALK

Probably Lived at a Time When Other Species of Human Had

Developed Further Elsewhere

Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES December 22, 1913

LONDON. Dec. 21.–A race of ape-like and speechless man, inhabiting England hundreds of thousands of years ago, when they had for their neighbors the mastodon and other animals now extinct is the missing link in the chain in man's evolution, which leading scientists say they have discovered in what is generally described as "the Sussex skull." To this Dr. Woodward proposes to give the name of "eoanthropus," or "man of dawn."

Prof. Arthur Keith says that the discovery marks by far the most remarkable advance in the knowledge of the ancestry of man ever made in England and supports the view that man was derived not from a single genus or species, but from several different genera. He goes on:

"It gives us a stage in the evolution of man which we have only imagined since Darwin propounded the theory."

Prof. Keith expresses the opinion that the skull is what anthropologists have been seeking for forty years, namely, a tertiary man, mankind of the pliocene age, which was the beginning of the first great glacial period.

"There is no doubt at all," he said, "that this is the most important discovery concerning ancient man ever made in England. It is one of the three most important discoveries of the sort ever made in the world. The other two were the discovery of the individual known as Pithecanthropus, made in Java in 1802 by Prof. Eugene Dubois. The other, which equals it in instructiveness and importance, is the skull discovered at Heidelberg six years ago.

W.

[RunningWolf]

Oh BTW, say hello to the GuitarGuy over there at DC.

Wolf

[ml1954]

I didn't have to look around much for your next idiotic post.

[VadeRetro]

The following are quotes from various major news sources contemporaneous with that period.

The English got excited, yes. They finally had evidence for the "Out of England" theory.

All the finds thereafter painted a different picture. Only the English--and not all of them--didn't want to let go.

You can't make the last 200 years of science go away with Piltdown Man, Archaeoraptor, and Nebraska Man. You'll have to find some real evidence of your own for any alternative theory you may have.

[VadeRetro]

May I add that a headline is not a doctoral thesis. You don't seem to have any evidence for your more exaggerated claims.

[eleni121]

OOOOH...now the Big bad lupus has gotten into the "fray"

I'm scared Mommy...the 'oids are coming out in full force.

[Stultis]

When Pilt Down Man hit the world of evolutionary theory, it rocked their world, it was hailed as the missing link of Ape to Man, and the biggest names of TOE in England Europe and the USA bought into to it.

Yeah. Not quite. From this webpage:

The hoax was swallowed uncritically

This is a half truth; almost no one publicly raised the possibility of a deliberate hoax. There were rumors circulating, however. William Gregory, a paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History wrote in Natural History in May of 1914:

"It has been suspected by some that geologically [the bones] are not that old at all; that they may even represent a deliberate hoax, a negro or Australian skull and a broken ape jaw, artificially fossilized and planted in the grave bed, to fool scientists."

He went on, however, to vigorously deny the charge, concluding

"None of the experts who have scrutinized the specimens and the gravel pit and its surroundings has doubted the genuineness of the discovery."

In general, however, the finds were accepted as being genuine fossils but were not accepted uncritically as being from an ancient human ancestor. There was an early and recurring doubt that the jaw and the skull were from two different animals, that the jaw was from an archaic chimpanzee and that the skull was from a relatively modern human being. Notable critics include Dr. David Waterston of King's College, the French paleontologists Marcellin Boule and Ernest Robert Lenoir, Gerrit Miller, curator of mammals at the Smithsonian, and Professor Ales Hrdlicka.

Initially there were many more critics, e.g. Osborn. However the finding of the second skull converted many of the critics. Finding a jaw from one animal near the skull of another might be an accident of juxtaposition -- two such finds is quite unlikely to be an accident. Some critics, e.g. Lenoir and Hrdlicka remained unconvinced none-the-less.

The following quote comes from a "The Evolution of Man", a 1927 book by Grafton Elliot Smith:

"Yet it [the skullcap] was found in association with the fragment of a jaw presenting so close a resemblance to the type hitherto known only in Apes that for more than twelve years many competent biologists have been claiming it to be the remains of a Chimpanzee."

Franz Weidenreich in 1946, in his book "Apes, Giants, and Men" (Note that Weidenreich was an extremely respected scientist, having done most of the work on the Peking Man skulls):

In this connection, another fact should be considered. We know of a lower jaw from the Lower Pleistocene of southern England which is anatomically, without any doubt, the jaw of an anthropoid. The trouble is that this jaw, although generally acknowledged as a simian jaw, has been attributed to man because it was found mixed with fragments of an undoubtedly human brain case. I am referring to the famous Piltdown finds and to Eoanthropus, as the reconstructed human type has been called by the English authors... Therefore, both skeletal elements cannot belong to the same skull.

It should also be mentioned that in 1950 Ashley Montagu and Alvan T. Marston mounted major attacks on the interpretation of the Piltdown fossils as being from a single animal.

[RunningWolf]

Woof

LOL!

[Quark2005]

When Pilt Down Man hit the world of evolutionary theory, it rocked their world, it was hailed as the missing link of Ape to Man, and the biggest names of TOE in England Europe and the USA bought into to it. It was in the Encyclopedia Britannica up to the year 1953, all the text books had to be re written after it was finally debunked.

If only they had had the eminent Running Wolf, amateur paleontologist around, the hoax of Piltdown Man would have been discovered instantly, and saved those clueless scientists decades of trouble! :

[RunningWolf]

As I said, there were critics and doubters were there even earlier, almost right from the start.

But they did not get heard until years later as the doubt built upon doubt.

[ml1954]

Red circles/ellipses highlighting part of an image project authority. It's always good to use red circles/ellipses. I don't know if PhD candidates have discovered this subtle psychological tactic yet (that will fool almost everyone), but if your treatise is marginal, why not use every trick you can find.

[VadeRetro]

It was harder to draw red circles in those days, though. No computers.

[js1138]

They had to make do with blue crayons.

[Stultis]

critics and doubters [...] did not get heard until years later

Baloney.

From Blinderman's "Piltdown Plot Project" site, here's a partial list of published criticisms of Piltdown. Note that they go right back to 1913:

British

The Piltdown Skull. British Dental Journal (1913)

? •The Controversy over the Discovery of "Dawn Man"Current Opinion (Dec. 1913)

? • David Waterston. The Piltdown Mandible Nature (Nov. 1913)

P. Chalmers Mitchell. An Application of the Rules of Zoological Nomenclature Nature (Dec. 1915)

? • W. Courtney Lyne, The Significance of the Radiographs of the Piltdown Teeth. Proceedings of the Royal Society (January 1916)

Nature re. Critics. Nature (June 1916)

Louis Leakey. Our Stone Age Ancestors Adam's Ancestors (1935)

L. Leakey, and V. M. Goodall. Unveiiling Piltdown Man. Unveiling Man's Origin. (1969)

 

U.S.

? • Gerrit S. Miller, Jr. The Jaw of the Piltdown Man. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collection (1915)

chart of jaw measurements

Miller, Jr. The Piltdown Jaw American Journal of Physical Anthropology (1918)

Miller, Jr. Reviews. American Journal of Physical Anthropology (1920)

George Grant MacCurdy. The Revision of Eoanthropus Dawsoni Science (1916)

George Grant MacCurdy. Piltdown Man Human Origins: A Manual of Prehistory (1924)

 

Continental

Puccioni, Nello. Appunti intorno al frammento. Remarks concerning the Piltdown jaw fragment fossil. (1913)

M. Ramstrom, The Piltdown Find (1919)see Miller, Jr. Reviews

• Marcellin Boule. The Piltdown Man Fossil Men: Elements of Human Palaeontology (1923)

• Franz Weidenreich. The Piltdown Chimera Apes, Giants and Man (1945)

 

Swanscombe Man

Alvan T. Marston. The Relative Ages of the Swanscombe and Piltdown Skulls, British Dental Journal (1950)

• Reasons Why the Piltdown Canine Tooth and Mandible Could Not Belong to Piltdown Man. British Dental Journal (1952)

Last Home of "Swanscombe Man" Manchester Guardian (Dec. 1953)

 

Hoax or Fraud

? • Alfred McCann. Making the Piltdown Man God–or Gorilla (1922)

Piltdown Man: The Realization of Fraudulence Science (1970)

William King Gregory. The Dawn Man of Piltdown, England American Museum Journal (1914)

R. C. Preece. Alfred Santer Kennard (1870-1948) (1946)

R. Essex. A Hoax That Grew Kent and Sussex Journal (1955)

[RunningWolf]

We are saying the same thing I think.

Like I said the critics and doubters go back to the beginning, but those voices were not given serious consideration or how else could the hoax last as long as it did?

BTW as I predicted, your compadre demented has abandoned the field while the rest of the team takes up the slack for her.

W.

[ml1954]

Clueless As Usual Placemarker

[js1138]

Who cares who's posting? The claim that Piltdown was not criticised is simply false. It doesn't matter whether anyone is around at any given moment to say it. The sun also rises.