Evolution quotes #36

Regarding the Taung fossil:

"Lacking large segments of the anatomical jigsaw puzzle, Smith Woodward had to make some guesses as to how the pieces he had might relate to each other. Apparently misidentifying some minor anatomical landmarks on the interior of the cranium, he assembled a skull that not only was erroneously small (just over 1,000 cubic centimeters) but also appeared to have certain primitive anatomical features. This reconstruction deeply impressed Elliot Smith. Sir Arthur Keith, however, challenged the accuracy of the reconstruction and did one of his own, eschewing the errors Smith Woodward had committed. Keith's version not only was much bigger (about 1,500 cubic centimeters), but also lacked the primitive features erroneously present in Smith Woodward's…

'Why did not [Keith's] correction immediately raise suspicions of the authenticity of the Piltdown fossils?' asked Le Gros Clark. 'Because of its personal nature the controversy [between Keith and Smith] certainly clouded the issues and befogged the atmosphere of scientific discussion…
In his day Elliot Smith's authority carried great weight (and rightly so, for he was a very eminent anatomist), so that not only did he persuade himself that his original interpretation of the skull and endocranial cast had been fundamentally right, he also seems to have persuaded biologists in general that this was so.'[1] But in spite of their differences of opinion, both Keith and Elliot Smith continued to accept Piltdown Man as a vindication of their own ideas, each for his own different reasons. Keith, who viewed the skull as essentially modern in form, saw it as a confirmation of the antiquity of modern types of man. At the same time, Elliot Smith claimed the cranium to be distinctly primitive in form."[2]

[1] "The Exposure of the Piltdown Fraud," lecture at the Royal Institution, London, 20 May 1955
[2] Roger Lewin (noted science journalist), Bones of Contention (New York, NY: A Touchstone Book published by Simon & Schuster Inc., 1987), pp. 74-75

related resources:
The Piltdown Man Fraud

The Taung Skull: 'missing link'?

That quote!

An atheist says "I fear for the future of evolution". The atheist knows the evolutionary hypothesis can't take Question Evolution! Campaign punches

An atheist writes to Creation Ministries International about the Question Evolution! Campaign and says, "I fear for the future of evolution".

Despite whatever claims, protestations and excuses atheists and evolutionists give to creationists, deep down they know evolutionary belief is unwarranted. This is nothing new. For example, in a letter to Asa Gray, Charles Darwin confided: "...I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science." Late in Charles Darwin's life, Darwin told the Duke of Argyll that he frequently had overwhelming thoughts that the natural world was the result of design. Also, to anyone who knows the history of Darwinism, it comes as no surprise that evolutionists have recently shown a great reluctance to defend their pseudoscience in public debate after they lost hundreds of public debates to the creationist side of the aisle. The biologist Dr. Duane Gish won hundreds of debates against evolutionists and now most prominent evolutionists are afraid to publicly debate creationists. A great many defenders of evolutionary nonsense know that the evolutionary hypothesis can't take a punch. In 2010, the members of Global Atheist Conference refused to the debate the scientists at Creation Ministries International.

Duane Gish wrote concerning the Question Evolution Campaign:

As one who has debated over 300 evolutionists, I am delighted to see this Question Evolution campaign under way. The 15 Questions for Evolutionists brochure hits all the major questions on origins that evolutionists have no satisfactory answers for. The questions should be propagated widely. I commend the campaign.

Related resources:

Creation Ministries International

Question evolution! campaign

Traditional Values - Question evolution! Campaign webpage

15 questions that evolutionists cannot satisfactorily answer

Atheism

Evolution quotes #35

"When American anthropologist Ales Hrdlicka asked in 1927, 'What is the actual, precise, evidence for human evolution that science now possesses, and upon which it bases far-reaching conclusions?' (my emphasis [Lewin's]),[1] he was in fact posing a question that has no answer. Not because there is no evidence for human evolution, but because3 no science works that way. No science-least of all paleoanthropology-is as objecting as Hrdlicka implies here or as is often portrayed in the philosophers' idealized view of science…
preconceived ideas shape the progress of all sciences, but nowhere else to the degree that occurs in the search for human origins. And yes, personalities are important in the flow of all sciences, but, again, in the science of man emphatically so. Le Gros has an answer: 'Undoubtedly, one of the main factors responsible of the frequency with which polemics enters into controversies on matters of paleoanthropology is purely an emotional one. It is a fact (which it were well to recognize) that it is extraordinarily difficult to view with complete objectivity the evidence for our own evolutionary origin, no doubt because the problem is such a very personal one.' Ernst Mayr, one of this generation's most prominent evolutionary biologists, concurs: 'Human beings seem quite incapable of speaking about themselves and their history without becoming emotional in one way or another.'"[2]

[1] Smithsonian Report for 1927, pp. 417-32
[2] Roger Lewin (noted science journalist), Bones of Contention (New York, NY: A Touchstone Book published by Simon & Schuster Inc., 1987), pp. 20-21

related resources:
Is there really evidence that man descended from the apes?

Human Evolution Stories

Bones Overthrown