My 15 Minutes of Infamy in the Evolutionary Anthropology Community

I would hope that he would certainly answer yes to your questions. The more important question, and the one to which I hope to one day get an answer, is to what degree is this a problem? How many? How often? What percentages? The commentary gave me zero clues as to the number of times researchers are not allowing access to fossils that are being used to support the researchers' public claims. It is premature to be making claims... The author of the commentary thinks that such access issues are _huge_ problems, to the point of not being able to call paleoanthropology science. Twist

It is true that "farce" was an over-the-line description of either article. However, all you need to do is look at the claims being made: 1) Paleoanthropologists are largely keeping their fossils from scrutiny 2) Even the basic descriptions presented by paleoanthropologists are highly biased by the paleoanthropologist's preconceived evolutionary views. 3) Many of the claims of paleoanthropologists become established fact in the secondary literature much too prematurely, and it is then near-impossible to dispute both because of its nature as established fact and because the paleoanthropologists are not giving access to others. Also, if you do email him I would be interested in the _content_ of your letter. There are many places on the T.O quote mine project where the letter basically says "do you support creationism?" and if the author says "no" then the only result T.O can see is that the quote is out-of-context. An appropriate question I would see to ask him is: Do you think that the paradigms established by the first describers of fossils leads to premature conclusions when fossil access is denied? Do you think that such situations lead to speculation being substituted for fact? johnnyb

Oh, I did send an email to the commentary's author asking for clarification on the subject. Unfortunately his autoresponder implies he is out and about for the next month. Doubt if any of us will remember this thread even existed, but if he responds I will hijack a thread and make mention. *grin* Twist

JohnnyB, I still do not agree that the commentary's acknowledgement that hoarding evidence is a bad thing rises to the level of supporting the claim that paleoanthropology is a farce or not science. The commentary makes no references that I can find to imply that this situation is common much less predominant. Under that light burden of proof, would there be any science that could still be called science? I have read articles on folks making grandiose claims without providing sufficient information for third party verification. Should the entirety of medicine, physics, or computer science be dismissed as a farce since not every claim in these fields have been adequately vetted? I remain highly skeptical of conclusions from anthropologists (or anyone in any field) who retain sole custody of evidence. That has long been one of the primary indicators of pseudoscience. Tar and feather the individual. Twist

Lutepisc: "What evidence does DouglasG have that you're a 'wingnut,' Gil?" I used to fly hang gliders a lot, and in the early days we assembled the gliders with wingnuts. That probably explains it. GilDodgen

"Powerful social/psychological dynamics are playing an obvious role here." I'd agree...and on that note: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0600591103v1 "We analyzed a very large set of molecular interactions that had been derived automatically from biological texts. We found that published statements, regardless of their verity, tend to interfere with interpretation of the subsequent experiments and, therefore, can act as scientific "microparadigms," similar to dominant scientific theories. ...... We explicitly modeled both the generation of experimental results and the experimenters’interpretation of their results and found that previously published statements, regardless of whether they are subsequently shown to be true or false, can have a profound effect on interpretations of further experiments and the probability that a scientific community would converge to a correct conclusion." An example scenario: "A hypothetical chain of collective reasoning. The chain is started by a scientist who performs an experiment hidden from the outside world. The results of the experiment involve some fuzziness, and the chain originator publishes the most likely interpretation given the absence of prior publications. The second, third, and all other scientists who join the chain later, think in the context of the published opinions and can be led to interpret their experimental results differently than would be done in the absence of prior data. The fourth and fifth persons in the chain publish interpretations of their data that would be opposite in the absence of prior publication." Patrick

In a comment on the article, DouglasG writes, playing "devil's advocate": "You are just making claims. IE telling stories. These individuals studied teeth, and made stuff up about what they saw. I won't say the presented them as facts, but none of this rebuts the wingnuts statement." What evidence does DouglasG have that you're a "wingnut," Gil? As far as I can tell, the only tidbit of information he has about you is that single sentence--which the article has not rebutted. Powerful social/psychological dynamics are playing an obvious role here. It would be helpful if the players were aware of those. Lutepisc

"The linked pdf to show that the secular side has issues with the field does not even come close to implying such. The three page commentary only advocates free and public access to fossils once the original discoverer of the fossil has published." You are contradicting yourself. The author of the commentary thinks that such access issues are _huge_ problems, to the point of not being able to call paleoanthropology science. [emphasis mine in all quotes] "Paleoanthropology is a science that _depends on fossil specimens_, all of which are individually unique." "Also standard practice at this stage is a preliminary intepretation of the material's phylogenetic significance. However, such interpretation by the describers merely introduces an ongoing process that will continue indefinitely, and will invariably involve many other systematists in the field. All of this may seem pretty straightforward, but in practice, _complications have nonetheless arisen over scientific access to published fossils_, _especially those ascribed to hominid species_." It is a clear implication to me that the scientific corrective process _depends_ on further scientists having access. Instead, what is happening, is that the discoverer gets free reign to say whatever they want, but noone can correct them if they make unwarranted extrapolations, and that this problem is the worst in hominids. Is this _really_ any different than the situation described in the AiG article? The only difference to me is that the New Anatomist commentary doesn't drive the knife in so to speak. Without access, how is the free speculation of the original discoverer curtailed? "Once the publication has appeared, however, the specimen is in the public domain...scientists -- who _require_ direct access to it to _test_ the original describers' claims for it...several new hominid species legally published as early as 1994 still remain off-limits to researchers...if not rapidly subjected to informed scrutiny, the initial describers' interpretations of the specimens' signficance tends _automatically to become established wisdom in the field_. In this way, _untested notions readily become incorporated into textbooks, the secondary literature, and the vast reaches of the popular medial, without any consideration of alternative interpretations_." I don't see how this is materially different from GilDodgen's original quote "The methods and concepts of evolutionary anthropology often consist of making up stories, presenting them as facts, and arriving at silly conclusions." It's just said in a nicer way. "[concerning specific fossil interpretations based on evolutionary assumptions]We merely wish to point out that this difference of mindset leaves its mark _even at the level of basic description_, let alone that of analysis, and that no single exegesis of a fossil's form and significance will ever be definitive." So, according to their predetermined conceptions, they tell stories, even when just describing the fossil, and then don't give access to other resesarchers to check the stories. This actually is _worse_ than what is described in the AiG article, as they only point out that the interpretive schema affects how it describes, and fails to point out that these researchers then go on to prevent anyone else from seeing the fossil to verify whether or not these speculations have any basis in fact. I'm sorry, but the secular critique is actually more devastating, it just might not seem that way because he is using the careful language of journals (and as someone who has to keep friends in the field to do his own research) rather than open criticisms used by popular media. johnnyb

Paleoanthropology has been outed as a farce from both religious and secular sources: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext?ID=101521783&PLACEBO=IE.pdf For what it is worth, I will grant you that Answers in Genesis has issues with paleoanthropology (phew, hate to have to type that word often), but that should come as no surprise to anyone on any side of the intelligent design/evolution/creation debate. The linked pdf to show that the secular side has issues with the field does not even come close to implying such. The three page commentary only advocates free and public access to fossils once the original discoverer of the fossil has published. Other than the strangely misleading title, the commentary expresses no negatives about the field. On a related note, I semiwatched a bit on TV the other night on the fall of Teotihuacan. They made IMO some unsubstantiated leaps from singular pieces of evidence to grand conclusions, but not sure whether that was the scientists involved or the documentary fluffmeisters. Anyway, part I did enjoy dealt with tracing the origins of immigrants to the city through percentages of elements in tooth enamel. Twist

LOL! You guys are merciless. I like that. Take no prisoners. DaveScot

Holy Mastication!!! :) Here are a few brief quotes from the referenced article: seem to indicate... might have been...may undermine...may prove...trying to classify...could be...could be (again)...may underestimate...was taken to indicate...interpreted as an indicator...this suggests that... And then: "He settled on various measures of cervical width and discriminant function analysis as the best way of performing the analysis." How? Why? With all the "seems to indicate"'s and "might have been"'s, what is believeable about any of this? It may all be true, but I sure don't have much confidence it it. While I was reading the commentary, I started to think about what future Paleoanthropologists might say about finding the remains of a colony of late 20th century body builders - without knowing they were body builders, of course. Imagine... bones are much more massive than contemporary specimens... jaws extended... signs of early joint degredation... chemical depositions indicate high degree of melanin activity... large deposits of iron nearby... strange absence of hair imprints... I can only imagine of course, but they might proclaim this could be the "missing link" because it seems to fit what researchers might believe may prove their idea... dougmoran

Paleoanthropology has been outed as a farce from both religious and secular sources: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext?ID=101521783&PLACEBO=IE.pdf http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v15/i2/fossils.asp And yes, it seems to be just how you describe it. Also, just FYI, CRSQ recently had a paper on vertebrate teeth. johnnyb