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The ridiculous level of uncertainty in the field of human evolution

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Further to “1998: The Fossil people … fight like cats and dogs” because their field is such a mess”:

Recall, if you will, Liberty U neuroscientist David A. DeWitt. He recently examined Bill Nye’s slide of a collection of skulls, used in the recent Nye–Ham debate. It was so disorganized (to an expert), “I can only conclude that the sole purpose of showing such a slide was to confuse and obfuscate, not educate.”

Yeah, that was crickets you heard in response. It’s simply taken for granted now that the field is a mess but we should all believe its proponents the same way we believe  experimental physicists trying to sort out data around the Large Hadron Collider.

Maybe we can swallow hard and believe falsehoods out of a misguided sense of loyalty to science. But how can we believe contradictory nonsense?

DeWitt has some thoughts on the recent disclosure that the missing link fossil is a “hotchpotch,” that “may never have existed”:

When there is a dispute between whether a set of fossil remains is 2 individuals of a brand new species (A. sediba) that is ‘our closest ancestor’ or whether it is 4 different individuals including 2 australopithecines and 2 Homo erectus it cannot be considered as serious science.

I don’t think the evolutionists are going to be able to tolerate this and I expect Berger to win. They cannot allow it to be true that we have Homo erectus fossils in the same place and the same time as Australopithecines. This is not permissible.

Look at how messed up this field is. Genetic evidence supports Neanderthals and modern humans interbred. The Dmanisi skulls show such variation as to incorporate all of the various Homo specimens.

On top of this, the alleged molecular clock that suggests humans descended from a group of 10,000 individuals 100,000 years ago assumes a chimp/human common ancestor. Since evolution is part of the assumption, the conclusion is a perfect example of begging the question.

This situation illustrates a problem I try to draw attention to: The corrupt nature of much current science journalism.

The science journalist takes his job to be making it all sound plausible to the public. Why?

Is it my fault/problem that the field of human evolution is not credible as it now stands? Wouldn’t I better serve the public by allowing the lay people ultimately responsible for funding science to know this fact?

Maybe the field could become credible. But we can’t fix something if we can’t identify and talk about what is wrong.

Science journalism isn’t cheerleading. Lose the pom poms. – O’Leary for News

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Comments
'The science journalist takes his job to be making it all sound plausible to the public. Why?' The news media overwhelming believe in abortion, no fault divorce, gay marriage, the censoring of religion in public discourse, and the evils of censorship of pornography. Which theory do you think they will support?Peter
April 12, 2014
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OT: podcast - Casey Luskin is again on The Universe Next Door with Tom Woodward, this time discussing Darwin’s Doubt and what it adds to the discussion about one of the most important events in the history of animal life--the Cambrian explosion. http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2014-04-11T17_55_19-07_00bornagain77
April 12, 2014
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