" Science Says Bf Does Not Exist..." So What?

[Incorrigible1]

A Bob Zenor sighting! Good to see you.

[David NC]

I just cannot hold a lot of faith in science. When I was in school we were taught the Coelacanth was one of the first fishes to become amphibians (that is why they disappeared from fossil record) later to go on down the line etc.. to mammals . Then one is caught  alive , they look exactly like they did in 60 million year old fossils(no change). I was taught that man came down thru a line from neandertal to cromagnan to modern man etc.  now we are finding out these "subspecies" for lack of better word of hominids lived along side each other. Then we learn we did not kill out the other hominids or out compete them, we interbred with them and basically assimilated into what we have today. Science just gives me a head ache.

The ebu gogo . seem to have a lot of parallels with what natives in north America said of sasquatch other than sasquatch being much bigger. It is really odd that legends like this are found in a lot of places around the world that have had no contact.

[Incorrigible1]

Dunno how old you are, but the coelacanth was rediscovered in 1938.

[Guest Urkelbot]

That looks very similar to a graphic I made a few years ago.  This is the first time I saw a major hominid expert basically stating that floresiensis diverged that early.  Just to illustrate our ignorance about Asian hominids I have made the point that we still don't have any fossil record for floresiensis.  Finding them in Asia pretty much destroys the conventional wisdom that erectus was the first to leave Africa and much of what we supposedly knew about them.  Logically there was an entire lineage of hominids with an unknown number of branches that lived in Asia that were more distantly related than erectus.  One of them lived until at least about 13,000 years ago and if you believe the native stories of ebu gogo then they probably lived until at least the last century.  Much of what we thought we knew  like erectus being first out Africa just makes a good story and there is little to back it up.  It has been conventional wisdom for so long I expect it is still being taught as a fact.

[[/url]

I hadn't heard of the hypothesis that florensis evolved from an earlier homo. I just scanned the recent literature from 2013 and it appears they are two competing theories at the moment. Dwarfed erectus vs early homo.

[BobZenor]

The main reason for competing theories is probably because Mike Morwood desperately wanted the fossil classified as Homo.  He explained in his book A New Human how P. boisei (or was it robustus?) lost pretty much all its value when it was relegated as basically a nonhuman or a side branch on our evolutionary tree. I remember as a child when Paranthropus was claimed to be a human ancestor and the tool maker until they found habilis. That probably contributed to my cynicism when it comes to their theories.  It was probably wrong to assume that habilis was "the" tool maker if they cohabited with erectus 1.5 million years ago by the way but that is another story.  Morewood pushed very hard to put floresiensis into our genus.  Many features of floresiensis are very early Homo or earlier.   He seems like an honest and very smart scientist but the biased assignment to Homo allowed him to continue the studies so I don't hold it against him. He pretty much stated in his book what he was doing and why. 

 

The erectus theory prior to floresiensis was pandering to Leaky because of their political power and was bogus in my opinion.   It makes Turkana boy more valuable and Africa the birthplace of mankind. It still is but they tried to discount other hominids to keep Asia from possibly having human ancestors before better evidence was in. It is more complicated since we apparently hybridized with  at least two more recent Asian hominids, neanderthals and denisovans but that is another topic.  Early reports about floresiensis were biased by politics but so was the erectus out of Africa.  Leaky exaggerated the evidence that erectus was first because that was the most human ancient hominid from Africa.   It sounds like Stringer isn't pandering to anyone but just following the evidence.  You could say I am prejudiced but I was saying basically the same thing as Stinger about there probably being another hominid lineage more ancient than erectus in Africa long before georgicus and floresiensis made that apparent, if you aren't biased by preconceived ideas and circular logic. 

 

They are still trying to argue against both georgicus and floresiensis as being some kind of erectus.  They are clinging to beliefs because it is easier then reevaluating evidence. They are acting as advocates in my opinion or they aren't really looking at all the data objectively. It seemed to me that most of those people in that field didn't even take basic biology but I now see it as mostly politics and people pushing their self interest that started some of the theories.  That is why all the older and extremely divergent sangarin hominids were called erectus. That seemed dubious to me from a biological point of view.  Erectus was all they could be because erectus left Africa first. That is part of the circular reasoning.  Some do actually have characteristics of floresiensis.  Some had huge jaws, reduced frontal lobes and signs of much larger bodies than modern humans.  It is like many of those anthropologists base everything on the fossil record and circular logic to conform to only fossils they have.  That is what I meant about not understanding biology.  I looked at the evidence and saw what made biological sense.  They did it to conform to known fossils.  Their way is not the more rational and my way isn't making wild assumptions.  What was obvious was that the fossil record was incomplete and it apparently still is so making theories to conform to known fossils is kind of illogical if you are interested more in the truth than some sort of academic exercise.  They seemed to lack the big picture.  Stringer is using logic by placing floresiensis in a separate lineage.  I doubt most get the actual significance since they are apparently trained to rely on fossil evidence rather than making logical deductions like a separate lineage more distantly related than erectus living in Asia.  Most for some reason are very slow to recognize their circular logic so it takes a while for the evidence to be convincing.  I doubt most see the implications but Stringer apparently does.

 

Hopefully that made sense.  I could see it because I wasn't worried about gaps in the fossil record. That is to be expected for geological reasons.   It constrained many that seem to think it is more scientific to only use the fossils found.  The divergence of the Asian hominids implied an early radiation event but they chose to believe it was erectus that radiated because of a limited fossil record.  That was no better than an earlier radiation in early Homo but it maintained the erectus out of Africa first theory and the African scientists had the money and prestige to push the idea.  That is why I basically discounted it as settled.  It wasn't based on evidence from a biological or logical perspective in my opinion.  

Edited October 8, 2013 by BobZenor

[Guest]

Nice summary, thanks. This is what's messed up about science, it's all about the glory and grant money. In the end the truth will stand, but in the meantime it's half about waiting for the "authoritarians" to die and their rep to fade.

[Guest]

Dunno how old you are, but the coelacanth was rediscovered in 1938.

lololololo

[Guest]

I just cannot hold a lot of faith in science. When I was in school we were taught the Coelacanth was one of the first fishes to become amphibians (that is why they disappeared from fossil record) later to go on down the line etc.. to mammals . Then one is caught  alive , they look exactly like they did in 60 million year old fossils(no change). I was taught that man came down thru a line from neandertal to cromagnan to modern man etc.  now we are finding out these "subspecies" for lack of better word of hominids lived along side each other. Then we learn we did not kill out the other hominids or out compete them, we interbred with them and basically assimilated into what we have today. Science just gives me a head ache.

The ebu gogo . seem to have a lot of parallels with what natives in north America said of sasquatch other than sasquatch being much bigger. It is really odd that legends like this are found in a lot of places around the world that have had no contact.

I think it's okay for science to keep advancing and changing. It's not a great reason to bash IMO.

[Guest]

Who gave Science the sole and absolute authority to declare truth and falsehood?

 

I'm trying to figure out what science you are talking about. Let's try your sentence with a few variations:

 

Who gave gardeners the sole and absolute authority to declare that potatoes are edible?

Who gave carpenters the sole and absolute authority to declare that trees could be used for building materials?

Who gave doctors the sole and absolute authority to declare that disease could be caused by micro-organisms?

Who gave chemists the sole and absolute authority to declare that stable compounds could be made into an explosive?

Who gave tailors the sole and absolute authority to declare that clothing could be made from woven plant fibers?

 

Are you going to cast a vote and declare any of them untrue? These things are all science.

 

 

In reality, the words "Science says..." are nothing more than a meme, a trigger for the conditioning that we've been subjected to in school from the day we start. Invoke the magic words "Science says..." and the bobble-heads start nodding, the brain shuts down, and we just stop thinking.

 

I've never been part of a conversation like that. Science is made up of data, experimentation, theory, trial and error, repeatability, and large scale consensus. If what you just said were true then Einstein would not have gotten the noble prize for explaining the photoelectric effect. The classical theory was at odds with observation. This happens all the time in science.

 

This in spite of the ample evidence that "Science" is as flawed and fallible as any other human institution. "Scientists" are nothing more than flawed human beings with all the prejudices and foibles we are subject to. The only difference between us and them are a few years of schooling and a bunch of letters after their names.

 

Science is not an institution and you don't have to have a degree to do science. If what you are suggesting were true then polycrystalline photovoltaics would not exist. Other aspects of what you are saying are simply wrong. For example, professor Langley came up with a good system for a synchronized time code which today is still broadcast by the Naval Observatory. However, his Aerodrome failed miserably in spite of credentials and considerable backing. It was in fact the Wright brothers who had no advanced education and built bicycles for a living who succeeded. The difference was that Orville and Wilbur built their own wind tunnel and collected airfoil data which was used to build models which were tested at Kittyhawk. This took a number of years before they came up with a working configuration. Your view might be more accurate for the development of rockets. However, you should keep in mind that this required support from scientists, engineers, and technicians. Are you aware that Playtex was the prime contractor for the development of the space suit?

 

Now I fully expect the usual suspects to come swarming in with accusations that I am "anti-science". I'm most emphatically NOT. The scientific method is a legitimate tool for inquiry. That said, it is NOT infallible, and not always the right tool to be using. And it NEVER not EVER should it's produce be treated as some sort of revealed truth from on high, immutably fixed and never to be questioned.

ALWAYS question. ALWAYS think for yourself. To invert another meme that used to be drilled into us via kid's programs: "the group" is NOT always right.

 

I would not say that you are anti-science because what you are criticizing sounds like a parody of science. And, I'm not sure why you call it a meme. Science allows for an unknown, in fact, unkowns are proposed all the time. Generally though you can't try to explain one unknown by invoking another unknown. And, if you can think for yourself then you shouldn't have any trouble with logic and science.

[wiiawiwb]

The scientific community's lack of common sense is exceeded only by its arrogance.

[MIB]

The scientific community's lack of common sense is exceeded only by its arrogance.

 

Also exceeded by the foolishness of people who can look at historical changes in what science accepts (anybody remember alchemy, phlogiston, "the ether", yada yada yada?), yet proclaim science's infallibility today. Doh!

 

MIB