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Shroud of Turin? Probably Not a Death Shroud of Jesus

The death shroud held by the Vatican and occasionally displayed, commonly known as “The Shroud of Turin,” has long since been demonstrated to be a fraud from antiquity. The provenience is unknown; the cloth dates to the 14th century; the pigments in the “image” are ocher and vermillian (i.e. paint); the facial image is unrealistic for a cloth draped around a skull; etc.

Another death shroud was discovered recently in the Old City of Jerusalem that dates to the alleged time of Jesus and is, apparently, the first shroud from the period found in Jerusalem. Shimon Gibson, the archaeologist involved in the discovery, will be publishing full study results later this year, and I’ll be sure to give the paper a once over, perhaps summarizing it here.

What was significant to those that research the Turin shroud is the nature of the textile itself. The new shroud is a two piece ensemble: a linen head-wrap;  and a wool body wrap. In addition the weave of the newly found shroud was a simple two-way weave, whereas the Turin shroud was a complex twill weave.

Several of the media reports I’ve seen include a headline that suggests that the Turin shroud is not of Jesus’ time, implying that this is a conclusion reached by the archaeologists studying the new find. It certainly renders more unlikely that the Turin shroud is genuine, but this is a conclusion that would be safer to arrive at for the other reasons I mentioned above rather than the style of the cloth. So far, there’s a sample size of one from the period that Jesus was supposed to be alive, and that’s the recent sample. We have only that to go on and it would be scientifically incorrect to compare it with the Shroud of Turin since we don’t know that the new find is typical of death shrouds of the day.

Still, the recent discovery is a remarkable find and I look forward to reading the paper describing it.

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• ‘Jesus-era’ burial shroud found (news.bbc.co.uk)
• DNA of Jesus-era shrouded man in Jerusalem reveals earliest case of leprosy (scienceblog.com)
• Shroud of Turin reproduced (boingboing.net)
• Italian Group Claims to Debunk Shroud of Turin (time.com)

Mike Adams Pretends to know the Minds of Skeptics

In a recent article on the inter-webs, Mike Adams, self-proclaimed “health ranger” and an editor at NaturalNews.com, pretends to know something about skeptics.

Wow.

In a word: fail.

In his opening paragraphs he says,

skeptics” claim to be the sole protectors of intellectual truth. Everyone who disagrees with them is just a quack, they insist. Briefly stated, “skeptics” are in favor of vaccines, mammograms, pharmaceuticals and chemotherapy. They are opponents of nutritional supplements, herbal medicine, chiropractic care, massage therapy, energy medicine, homeopathy, prayer and therapeutic touch.

“Sole protectors?” “Intellectual truth?” Hyperbole much?

Yes, most skeptics are in favor of science-based medicine, which is what vaccines, mammograms, pharmaceuticals and chemotherapy have in common. They’re all based on science and evidence to support their efficacy. Are they without faults? No. Of course not. But their faults are generally well understood and physicians who make use of them are always ready to revise their protocols accordingly and appropriately.

Are we opponents of nutritional supplements, herbal medicines, chiropractic care, massage therapy, energy medicine, homeopathy, prayer and therapeutic touch (crap like reiki)?

Perhaps. I’m partial to nutritional supplements that make sense. I try to have broccoli and brussel sprouts now and then. Perhaps some cauliflower. Definitely asparagus. Love that stuff. And nutritious! Supplements that come pre-packaged and unregulated in little pills at $29.95 for 250? Nah. Thank you, but I’ll pass.

I’m not all that knowledgeable about massage therapy, but it seems okay. I got a massage once while I was overseas. It wasn’t unpleasant and it seemed to help a sore muscle or two.

But I see no good reason to accept “energy medicine” (whatever that is) or chiropractic or homeopathy (water with a memory? Bollocks). Herbal medicine. Maybe. If I was stranded in the wilderness and couldn’t get to a Walmart pharmacy for real medicine. I’d rather have some sudafed or ibuprofin than an untested, weak herbal remedy. At least they work and you don’t have to worry about who prepared it (some unlicensed, unregulated, undereducated nut probably).

Prayer? Why? No demonstrated efficacy for that. In fact, studies conducted by the religious and funded by the religious found that out.

So, in just the opening paragraph or two, Adams was completely and utterly wrong about skeptics. Buddy, you would first have to be a skeptic to know how they think. I’ve been gullible before, I know what that’s like.

What about his other claims? Adams claims that skeptics aren’t skeptical about a few other things. I’m going to answer them one-by-one. The first dozen or so, anyway. I didn’t want the spam I’d likely get from natural health nuts from registering on his site.

• Skeptics believe that ALL vaccines are safe and effective (even if they’ve never been tested), that ALL people should be vaccinated, even against their will, and that there is NO LIMIT to the number of vaccines a person can be safely given. So injecting all children with, for example, 900 vaccines all at the same time is believed to be perfectly safe and “good for your health.”

Untrue. Skeptics (at least the ones I know) believe in the efficacy of science-based medicine, which means that they would not support untested medicines (including vaccines). Yes, all people should receive vaccines -there’s no good reason not to prevent diseases like polio, rubella, measles, and chicken pox. Small pox was eradicated by vaccination. Polio is all but a memory in the U.S. thanks to vaccination. But I know of no skeptic that would agree that taking “900 vaccines all a the same time” is ether necessary or wise. Nor is it evident that even a sizable minority of skeptics believe someone should receive vaccines against their will. But, then, my children should be able to attend public school knowing that their peers are vaccinated and the children of anti-vax nuts are not permitted to attend.

• Skeptics believe that fluoride chemicals derived from the scrubbers of coal-fired power plants are really good for human health. They’re so good, in fact, that they should be dumped into the water supply so that everyone is forced to drink those chemicals, regardless of their current level of exposure to fluoride from other sources.

This is an example of a false premise. It simply doesn’t follow that because fluorine is present in an industrial plant that it should necessarily be unhealthy for my toothpaste or my water. If that were the case, we wouldn’t be drinking any water since it contains hydrogen and oxygen, both found in the same coal plants along with various carbonates, such as that found in soft drinks.

But at least it gives us an idea of the sort of intellect we’re faced with. I wouldn’t go so far as to agree with Adams that skeptics believe that they are the “sole protectors of intellectual truth,” but its clear that he isn’t concerned with it to begin with.

• Skeptics believe that many six-month-old infants need antidepressant drugs. In fact, they believe that people of all ages can be safely given an unlimited number of drugs all at the same time: Antidepressants, cholesterol drugs, blood pressure drugs, diabetes drugs, anti-anxiety drugs, sleeping drugs and more — simultaneously!

I think he’s just making shit up now. Like I said earlier, skeptics believe in science-based medicine and evidence-supported treatments. I see no evidence from Adams that the above sentiment is held by even a single skeptic.

• Skeptics believe that the human body has no ability to defend itself against invading microorganism and that the only things that can save people from viral infections are vaccines.

Again, he appears to be making it up as he goes along. What he presents here is a false dichotomy, which is to say that either the body can defend itself or it cannot. The answer is something very different, which is to say that the immune system of the human body protects us behind the scenes every day, which, believe it or not, Adams, skeptics are aware of (scientists, after all are necessarily, skeptics). But, occasionally, the immune system is inadequate or ineffectual. Thus medicine. If this weren’t the case, no one would ever die of small pox, anthrax, rubella, or even diptheria.

• Skeptics believe that pregnancy is a disease and childbirth is a medical crisis. (They are opponents of natural childbirth.)

Again with the hyperbole. “Medical crisis?” Medical risk, definitely. And, as with all risks that can be mitigated through science and technology, why take unnecessary chances? Sure, natural childbirth happens all the time. People are pretty good at it as evidenced by our evolutionary achievements. But we also evolved to have brains and the wherewithal to put them to use and, low and behold, infant mortality in the United States is at an all-time low. Why? Give you a hint: it wasn’t natural childbirth.

• Skeptics do not believe in hypnosis. This is especially hilarious since they are all prime examples of people who are easily hypnotized by mainstream influences.

This is mostly an ad hominem, so there’s little reason to do anything but respond with a well placed ad hom: dumb ass.

Now… that felt good.

• Skeptics believe that there is no such thing as human consciousness. They do not believe in the mind; only in the physical brain. In fact, skeptics believe that they themselves are mindless automatons who have no free will, no soul and no consciousness whatsoever.

Tempted as I am to again respond with dumb ass, I’ll refrain (I used to know the term for that sort of insult where you claim to refrain from a particular insult but, by making it known, have done the insult anyway… damn if I can remember now).

I won’t pretend to know what “consciousness” is. I’ve read some good works that have explored it, but they all end with questions and directions that research should go or still needs to go. Francis Crick’s The Astonishing Hypothesis and Daniel Dennett’s Consciousness Explained are both worth reading. Neither of these preeminent author/scientists presented any reason that consciousness must be something other than material substances gone wild (neurochemical processes in the brain), but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the brain is the key since its about the only organ that has never been removed or lost where “consciousness” is still retained by the patient. The brain is a material object, after all. Believers in an immaterial mind or “soul” or whatever else they claim “consciousness” to be have yet to outline any suggestions that are reasoned or rational for their claims. They’ve provided no reasonable mechanisms other than a material brain to explain “mind” or “consciousness.”

• Skeptics believe that DEAD foods have exactly the same nutritional properties as LIVING foods (hilarious!).

I really don’t know what the hell he’s going on about here. I do tend to take my steak closer to the rare side than well done, but I’ve yet to try it straight off a grazing cow. I’m thinking there’s probably not enough difference to warrant getting it that fresh.

• Skeptics believe that pesticides on the crops are safe, genetically modified foods are safe, and that any chemical food additive approved by the FDA is also safe. There is no advantage to buying organic food, they claim.

I’m skeptical of pesticides. Which is why I wash my vegetables (most of which are still “alive” by any scientific definition of the word, since if I place them in water, roots would quickly develop.

• Skeptics believe that water has no role in human health other than basic hydration. Water is inert, they say, and the water your toilet is identical to water from a natural spring (assuming the chemical composition is the same, anyway).

I’ve honestly never given it much thought. Water from my toilet is probably cleaner than water from a natural spring, given the nature of peculated toxins and chemicals from nearby sewage treatment plants, land fills, and highway and agricultural runoff. I still wouldn’t drink either without filtration or chemical treatment if I had a choice.

• Skeptics believe that all the phytochemicals and nutrients found in ALL plants are inert, having absolutely no benefit whatsoever for human health. (The ignorance of this intellectual position is breathtaking…)

Read my bit about brussel sprouts and broccoli above.

It would seem that Mike Adams is fractally wrong about what skeptics think, believe, or understand.

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• Sometimes, I think we break the crazy people (scienceblogs.com)
• CAM Paper Part I: Introduction (cclcmstudent.blogspot.com)
• Americans spend $34B for alternative medicine (ctv.ca)
• Back to the Golden Age before modern medicine? (scienceblogs.com)

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-15

• wants to read Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe by Erik J. Wielenberg – http://bit.ly/7Xcynu #

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Social Security for illegal immigrants?

There is an email going around in that urban legend fashion so popular with non-thinking and irrational conservatives who regularly drink the Rush Limbaugh / Fox News Kool-Aid that claims to be driving a petition to appeal to Obama (”regardless of whether you like him or not”) to veto a bill to give social security benefits to “illegal aliens.”

This, of course, is not what is happening or what the bill in question is about. What the email is about is fear-mongering and deception. What the bill is regarding is giving social security benefits to American citizens who were once illegal but now legal immigrants. Not aliens. Citizens. True, they weren’t born in the United States. True, they were once considered “illegal,” a loaded term to be sure. But they have since obtained their citizenship and have probably been productive, tax-paying (if not income, certainly sales taxes) citizens. Many of them have children who are natural born Americans who have been paying into the social security system for years.

Citizens. Not “illegal aliens” as the deceptive email suggests.

Check it out your self: http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/socialsecurity.asp

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• Glenn Beck thinks non-citizens shouldn’t be counted in the Census (crooksandliars.com)
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• Diversity! Justice Sotomayor Is Lauded for Using The Term “Undocumented Immigrant” in a Supreme Court Opinion (minx.cc)

A Decade of Pseudoarchaeology

Here are six pseudoarchaeological topics that I encountered on the internet since the beginning of the millennium. I think most of them I dealt with on this blog, others I probably encountered on various internet forums that I used to hang out on. These days, by the way, I usually stick to just The Science Forum, a generally friendly (for internet standards) forum of science geeks who discuss just about anything from math proofs to biology and evolution. Its a relatively small forum but fairly active.

But, I digress… here are some pseudoarchaeological wonders for your enjoyment. Click links at your own risk (not that any are a security risk, but I warn you: there are things you might not be able to unsee!).

An Erection by Homo Erectus?

A year or two ago, the Sethusamundram Ship Canal Project sought to link the Palk Bay with the Gulf of Mannar between India and Sri Lanka. Such a project, once completed, would cut about 400 km of travel for shipping in the region, which is not insignificant, probably saving millions of dollars worth of expenses in fuel in the process. There was a snag, however. Several groups have used several arguments opposing the shipping canal, some of which may have some merit like environmental, economic, and political issues. There is one argument that seems to get a lot of attention, though. Its the argument put forth by creationists that the land is sacred.

These aren’t just any creationists, they’re Vedi creationists (not unlike Michael Cremo) who believe that Adam’s Bridge, a.k.a. Rama’s Bridge, wasn’t created by geology and hydrology but, rather, a god bent on getting laid. Their argument is counter to that of the environmentalists who are trying to protect a natural wonder, these Hindu creationists claim that the tomobolo is man-made! The tombolo is a bridge, according to followers of Vedic mythology, and it was created by Lord Rama who lived 880,000 years ago. At one time, the bridge was said to be, geologically, about 1.7 million years old. At around 1.7 ma to .8 ma, the dominant hominid species of the region was Homo erectus. For the bridge to have been constructed, it would have had to been done by a comparative handful of hominids who’s biggest technological feat might have been the biface hand ax. Ah… there’s how this section’s title fits. Catchy, eh?

Recently though, some new geologic work dating the coral on some of the beaches in the strait has shown the the link between India and Sri Lanka to be about 3500 years old rather than the previous estimates of 1.7.

Bosnian Pyramid Scheme

Remember Samir Osmanagic? The kook that claims to be an archaeologist (with no apparent archaeological or anthropological education)? If you forgot -or wisely turned off your television a few years ago to start reading books and missed the Nightline dog and pony show, let me bring you up to speed.

The hoopla actually started in 2006 with Semir Osmanagic’s announcement that he had found the largest and oldest pyramid known to man, which was created by between 8,000 and 12,000 years ago –so large and so old it threatened to change the history of Europe and the World as we know it. And it would have. Had it been genuine.

But such is the nature of pseudo-archaeological claims: they provide much sensation and appeal instantly to the significance-junkies and mystery-mongers who want there to be something mysterious and, perhaps, sacred about the emergence and antiquity of man. This is why we see so many products for sale, particularly in the “alternative” medicine (as if there really are legitimate alternatives to medicine) field, that claim to have been “discovered by” or “known to” the ancients.

Osmangic was the guy that wrote a book which put the ancestry of the Maya as the Atlanteans. And, as if this weren’t kooky enough, he placed the ancestry of the Atlanteans as extra-terrestrial. The media (perhaps being the natural significance-junkies and mystery-mongers that they are) picked up on Osmanagic’s press releases and ran with them, without consulting with any genuine archaeologists. In spite of the press claims, Osmanagic is not an archaeologist. Not even close.

The reason the press was duped (and is still being duped in some cases) by the pyramid-claims is that the hill does vaguely look like a pyramid from certain angles (as do many, many hills around the world) and that there is some very interesting geology in the region that gives the appearance of manmade blocks. But the geology has been very well explained and understood, even before Osmangic and his “team” began bulldozing the hillside in what they refer to as “excavations.”

The main problem with this sort of pseudo-archaeology is that it is destroying a genuine archaeological site that has nothing to do with pyramids.

Oh, yeah. Osmanagic is still out there. Here are a few translated quotes from that news article:

First, they all laughed, that feeling is familiar. The second phase is – they all attacked me. Third, now I have a media blockade

Always on my lectures found some archaeologist. So far, the suggestion of Belgrade small band of students was the most aggressive. That they did not like the arguments that differ from what they learn at the university, should not worry. They have time to learn, be creative, to relieve constraints and limits that they impose on the study – said Sam.

Sammy boy also claimed in the article that the pyramids of Egypt were at least 12,500 years old and basically that the rest of the archaeological world is racist because we accept that there are pyramids in thousands of places in the world, just not in Bosnia. Where else you ask? Egypt, Mexico, Japan, Cuba … oh, the last two are under water and not exposed to dry air in probably over 13,000 years.

Atlantis or I’ll Sue You

I was lured to an internet forum of woo called “Atlantis Rising” once during this decade. Specifically their “Atlantis” subforum (oh, yes, they have many subfora dealing with everything from ancient astronauts to ESP. To be fair, I encountered several rational folks there. But not many. Among the most irrational, and what lured me there in the first place, were the repeated claims by another self-proclaimed “archaeologist” that he had discovered Atlantis.

Never mind that Atlantis is only ever mentioned in the ancient world by Plato who invented the fictional city-state in the same way he did many other allegories for his dialogs. Plato was a philosopher and he needed ways to tell a story -to tell the truth- about Athens without pissing off Athenian officials (perhaps the fate of Socrates was fresh on his mind). So he invented another “A”-word city-state. One that was remarkably like Athens.

Little did Plato realize a nut named Donovan would come along and invent a “lost city” from it that would capture the imagination of countless mystery-mongers for years to come.

Enter Georgios Diaz Montexano (GD-M), a.k.a. Jorge Diaz Sanchez, who spammed the internet forums for about a year with claims of “finding” Atlantis off the coast of Spain, on a sunken island (it would have probably been above sea level during the last glaciation), now a shoal. GD-M made claims of finding some spectacular artifacts and features of an ancient, Bronze-age civilization, which included “smelting factories,” “roads,” “columns,” “chimneys,” and a “striker pin” among others. The problem with these claims is that they didn’t offer any idea of the context of the finds or provenience of the artifacts. Some random pictures were shown of divers holding artifacts or pointing to underwater features, but never any real data regarding the alleged artifacts. In fact, many of the pictures, now long since removed from his sites, appeared to be lifted straight from the pages of treasure hunting magazines and perhaps a text on underwater archaeology. I think I even recognized George Bass in one!

To make a long story short (although, I’ll probably publish this story here in more detail in the future), GD-M created a persona of himself not unlike Samir Osmanagic in that he sought media attention and claimed more honorifics than he actually possessed. He even created his own societies, magazines, and the like to be members of and published in.

And, when criticized at Atlantis Rising, his “secretary” (perhaps spouse/girlfriend) who was a regular poster became very vile and threatening. She threatened a few of us with law suits. My response? I posted my full name mailing address in the clear so there’d be no difficulty in getting the subpoena to me. It never showed.

The Archaeological Remains of Inter-Stellar War

Okay, its a stretch to call it pseudoarchaeology, but the claim is that aliens bombed the moons and planets of our solar system millions, perhaps billions of years ago. Aliens are people -of a sort. Their material remains would be archaeological artifacts and features…. right?

Craterchains was his name (along with Norval) and ancient space aliens was his game. Norval, and this is the name he freely provides on his site, so I’m not revealing any secrets, is a guy I genuinely liked. He fancied (perhaps still) himself an investigator of Extraterrestrial Intelligence and the “war that has been occurring between ET factions here in our solar system for centuries.”

The evidence? Chains of craters that he feels couldn’t be caused by anything other than [drum roll....] ….. carpet bombing. According to Norval and his co-”researcher,” it takes intelligence to create such a perfect pattern of non randomness such as these OOOOOOOOOOO, there for, the most reasonable explanation for these types of “crater chains” being a nonrandom pattern, would be made by intelligence.

These “chains” of craters are a phenomenon of “Catenae,” which are multiple, sequential impacts of meteorites from a common progenitor that broke up as it became caught in the gravity well of a planet or moon. The trajectory of the progenitor, a “rubble pile” asteroid or comet causes it to continue on its original orbital path on impact, creating a string or line of crater impacts.

The term “rubble pile” refers to the fact that an object, such as an asteroid, is really a conglomeration of smaller rocks held together by gravitic bond. This bond is easily broken by the larger gravitic force of a planet or moon. It’s all very straight forward and intuitive physics.

No war. No aliens. Unfortunately, no archaeology.

Pleistocene Polis in Japan

Yonaguni Japan. The site of an underwater geologic formation that has captured the imaginations of many mystery-mongers and significance-junkies who see the site as the underwater ruins of an ancient civilization that somehow had the capability to engage in monumental architecture prior to 10,000 years ago. It was that long ago, you see, that the site was above sea level.

Admittedly, the geology is striking and very angular. While there are some apparent 90 degree angles, the vast majority appear rhombohedral, which is perhaps a dead giveaway that there is nature involved. This is a common cleavage and fracture angle for many minerals.

In addition to the timing -at 10,000 + years ago, pottery was barely a leading technology along with some clever stone implements, there are other factors that are against the “ancient high-civilization” explanation, such as the fact that above the waves, a nearly identical formation of rock exists. No one seems to be claiming these are buildings or ruins -probably because their so easily accessible and one need not be a certified diver or rely solely on the difficult to contextualize photographs of certified divers. One can walk on them and inspect them and see…. well, rock.

There’s also the problem with artifacts -or the lack thereof. Carl Sagan, my near namesake, was famous for saying that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. This, however, isn’t the case where there should be evidence. If a civilization built a port city that now lies beneath the ruins, it follows that they were therefore clever enough to have taken advantage of the high ground for protection against floods, storms, invaders, or just to be able to spot their sea-going vessels (a port city, remember). Yet there is no trace of them.  We can find traces of scattered hominids in the Pliocene and the earliest human settlements of the Pleistocene, but we cannot locate a single artifact or feature to suggest a civilization capable of building monumental architecture existed in Yonoguni.

Will the Real Mary and Jesus Stand Up?

The tomb itself was actually discovered in 1980, but “rediscovered” in more recent years by Simcha Jacobovici who co-produced the documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus with James Cameron.

The assertion is, obviously, that this is the tomb of Jesus Christ, the Christian Messiah who was, according to biblical legend, crucified to death by the Romans only later to “rise from the dead” and ascend to heaven. The implication, therefore, is that Jesus did not ascend at least bodily to heaven and that there were remains left to entomb. Based on the inscriptions found on other ossuaries within the tomb, other implications were that Jesus: was married to Mary Magdeline; had brothers and sisters (some of whom may have been older); had a child; may not have died on the cross; etc.

The producer, Jacobovici, claimed in the documentary that this is proof of the existence of Jesus, making this, too, an implication for those that doubted the historicity of Jesus or for those interested in defending that historicity. However, the documentary doesn’t reconcile a few problems, most namely perhaps, the 600 to 1 claim created by a statistician and used in the documentary. In this claim, statistician Andrey Feuerverger concluded that the odds are at least 600 to 1 that the combination of names appeared in the tomb by chance.

Scientific American had this to say:
Scan The Lexicon of Jewish Names, which includes names from ossuaries, ancient texts and every other source available, and you will learn that the names unearthed in the so-called Jesus Family Tomb were among the most common of that era. One in every three women listed in the Lexicon was named Mary, for instance, and, at that time, one in every 20 Jewish men was called Yeshua, or Jesus. […]“I did permit the number one in 600 to be used in the film—I’m prepared to stand behind that but on the understanding that these numbers were calculated based on assumptions that I was asked to use,” says Feuerverger. “These assumptions don’t seem unreasonable to me, but I have to remember that I’m not a biblical scholar.”

Indeed, one of the biggest contentions about the alleged “tomb of Jesus” is that the names were common. William Dever who, until recently, was the Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, stated in the Washington Post article, ‘Lost Tomb of Jesus’ Claim Called a Stunt, the following:

“I’ve known about these ossuaries for many years and so have many other archaeologists, and none of us thought it was much of a story, because these are rather common Jewish names from that period. It’s a publicity stunt, and it will make these guys very rich, and it will upset millions of innocent people because they don’t know enough to separate fact from fiction.”

That article is no longer available online, but there are numerous internet sites that seem to quote it. I’ll include it in the bibliography as I did find it in the Lexis-Nexis database. The quote is accurate.

Bibliography
Cooperman, Alan (2007). ‘Lost Tomb of Jesus’ Claim Called a Stunt. Washington Post, Section A, A3, February 28, 2007.

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-12-11

• Just completed a four-hour final exam in a graduate level Paleoanthropology class. Whew! I'm so glad its over! #

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-11-13

• I need an article if anyone has it: Wolpoff's "The Case for Sinking Homo Erectus." #
• Found the article I needed! Just after I posted my plea and emailed a couple friends, I clicked on last google link & it was his CV! #
• Lot's of interesting articles in PDF on Wolpoff's CV page for the paleoanthropologist http://bit.ly/3twcWb #

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-10-09

• Congratulations to Afarensis! http://bit.ly/19AmIp #
• Letterman to apologize on-air again tonight: http://bit.ly/IdOKa I couldn't help but comment on this one. #
• Scientist of the Year Notable: Elizabeth Blackburn – http://shar.es/1Yr4n #

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The 77th Edition of the Four Stone Hearth

Be sure to check out the 77th edition of the Four Stone Hearth, a blog carnival for anthropology bloggers. Some of the very best in anthropology blogging can be found there every other Wednesday. Somehow I keep forgetting to send in my own entries, so if you’re ever hosting the FSH, feel free to knick whatever you like from A Hot Cup of Joe. Today, the Four Stone Hearth #77 is hosted at A Place Odyssey. Go. Read. Enjoy.

The Effect of Ardipithecus ramidus on Agnopithecus creationus

There were a stream of posts on the anthropology blogs about Ardipithecus ramidus, the 4.4 million year old fossil hominid originally discovered by a team led by Tim White in Ethiopia between 1992-1993. I really wanted to get in on it but barely had time to read some of the reports and none to offer up a post until now. So what can I say that others in the blogosphere haven’t already pointed out? Probably not much, but I thought I’d highlight some of the reactions by creationists
(Agnopithecus creationus» ).

Chris Esparza, a writer for the Dallas Christian Living Examiner, made some comments that may or may not be from the creationist point of view, but certainly call into question what the find means to “Christians^[1].

Esparza gets a little heat in the comments section for his mis-quoting the age of Ardi to “3.2 million years ago” rather than the 4.4 mya date arrived at by the research team. This is interesting since it reveals the dedication the author had in the science, perhaps symbolic for the dedication that creationist and the 40 percenters» have for science: they read the headlines, skim for key words, and pick out the bits they feel support their conclusions -even if that latter bit means twisting the words or even re-inventing them. Esparza goes on to say about the “theory of evolution:”

[it's] idea of the missing link is that somewhere way back when, there was a primate who almost seemed to be half monkey and half human, proving that there was at some point an evolutionary split. A recent discovery in Ethiopia disproves that theory.

Not only did Esparza get wrong the concept that the Nat. Geo. quote was trying to convey, he conveniently reshapes the quote into his own pre-conceived notion that evolution is questionable to begin with and probably that “only” belongs in front of theory whenever talking about evolution. It doesn’t.  What the National Geographic article^[2] was pointing out is that there *is* a common ancestor to chimpanzees and modern humans, but it might probably isn’t something that would be “half-chimp / half-human,” rather it is an ape that exhibits a mix of derived and primitive characters, appearing very different from any modern primate (i.e. chimps, gorillas, humans), but still ancestral.

In another online Christian publication, Michael Foust of the Baptist Press^[3] quotes Answers in Genesis, headed by cult leader Ken Ham, as saying Ardi has “relatively little in common with humans.” What’s interesting with the AiG stance is that they at once criticize the methods by which the analyses were done:

“And we can’t forget that all of these conclusions are inferred from digital reconstructions and fallible reconstructions of bones that were in very bad shape.”

Then align with a quote mined from the National Geographic article quoted above in their dismissal of Ardi as a human ancestor:

“Instead, the new evidence suggests that the study of chimpanzee anatomy and behavior — long used to infer the nature of the earliest human ancestors — is largely irrelevant to understanding our beginnings,” National Geographic science writer Jamie Shreeve wrote. “Ardi instead shows an unexpected mix of advanced characteristics and of primitive traits seen in much older apes that were unlike chimps or gorillas.”

AiG is relying scientific analysis to dismiss a scientific conclusion because a result of the analysis appears to fit their preconceived conclusions. Yet they don’t think the analysis is accurate! And, they get the implications of the result wrong to begin with! Agnopithecus creationus! In its natural habitat.

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1. http://www.examiner.com/x-10272-Dallas-Christian-Living-Examiner~y2009m10d1-Oldest-human-skelton-disproves-missing-link-theory [↩]
2. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/10/091001-oldest-human-skeleton-ardi-missing-link-chimps-ardipithecus-ramidus.html [↩]
3. http://www.sbcbaptistpress.org/BPnews.asp?ID=31389 [↩]

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