Tag Archives: he_who_is_nobody

Anthropology, Archaeology, Paleontology, Reason, Religion, Science

Rebuttal to Ian Juby’s “’In 7 Days’ Crash Course in Creation” Day 3

12 Comments

Read part one and part two.

Day 3:  Dinosaurs & Humans step on evolution

 

In this lesson, Juby recites a list of well-known and refuted creationist claims, essentially covering the Greatest Hits (complete with pictures!) from the Talk.Origins “Index to Creationist Claims.” The Talk.Origins page adequately covers the claims made in this lesson, so I will give brief rebuttals and link to the appropriate pages.

According to the scriptures, God created the dinosaurs (the land animals) on day 6 – the same day He created people.  Therefore, according to the scriptures, man and dinosaurs have lived together.

 

Actually, there are two accounts in Genesis of the creation of humans. The first account states that humans and the other land animals were created on day six. Nevertheless, the second account claims that a god created all the life on earth and man second to last. However, after seeing that man was lonely, the god decided to create a partner for him out of one of man’s ribs.

Furthermore, humans have lived with dinosaurs for our entire existence. Birds are dinosaurs!

According to evolution, dinosaurs became extinct at least 60 million years before people ever evolved.  So what would it mean if we found man and dinosaur together?

 

First off, non-avian dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago and modern humans first evolved ~200,000 years ago. Thus, Juby’s math is a little off. Second, this is not according to evolution; here Juby is equating evolution with the geological record. Third, it would mean nothing if humans and dinosaurs were found together, because humans and dinosaurs are found together (birds are dinosaurs). However, the point Juby is trying to make is what is the implication of finding evidence of humans and non-avian dinosaurs together. The only implication would be that our ideas of the extinction of all the non-avian dinosaurs 65 million years ago would be wrong and there is a problem with the geologic record. This would in no way invalidate our understanding of evolutionary theory.

Well let’s ask the evolutionists:
Dr. Richard Dawkins, one of the most outspoken atheists in the world, wrote “…there are certain things about the fossil record that any evolutionist should expect to be true. We should be very surprised, for example, to find fossil humans appearing in the record before mammals are supposed to have evolved! If a single, well verified mammal skull were to turn up in 500 million year old rocks, our whole modern theory of evolution would be utterly destroyed. Incidentally, this is a sufficient answer to the canard, put about by creationist and their journalistic fellow travelers, that the whole theory of evolution is an ‘unfalsifiable’ tautology. Ironically, it is also the reason why creationist are so keen on the fake human footprints, which were carved during the depression to fool tourists, in the dinosaur beds of Texas,” (The Blind Watchmaker, 1986, p.225, emphasis mine)

 

This is where I fundamentally disagree with Dawkins. It would not destroy our modern theory of evolution. It would however, throw a wrench in our understanding of the geological record, as I already said. There is far too much genetic data supporting evolutionary theory today to ever allow a field such as geology the ability to over turn it.

Juby goes on to quote two other evolutionary proponents to the same effect as above, so I see no need in repeating myself. However, I must point out that the Dawkins quote is the most recent; being from the year I was born. The other two are from before that and well before our modern understanding of genetics. This also makes me doubt that Dawkins still holds this position today, and is probably why Juby has to look to the 80s for his quotes (after all, these lessons were created in 2008).

Now we get into the Greatest Hits from Talk.Origins:

This is a replica of a cast-iron pot, found in a lump of coal supposedly 285 Million years old!  This is well before the first dinosaurs were supposed to have evolved, roughly 225 million years ago.

There are only limited conclusions we can draw from such evidence:

A) Aliens were around 285 million years ago, and inadvertently dropped a pot
B) Humans were around 285 million years ago
C) The assumed age of the coal, and the assumptions of the stratigraphic record are incorrect.
D) It’s a fake.
E) It’s evidence of time travel.

 

Alternatively, F) the pot is of modern origins that fell into the coal mine.

The London artifact was a hammer found in Cretaceous rocks near London, Texas.  Max Hahn and his family were fishing near a waterfall when they found a rock with a piece of wood sticking out of it.  They took it home as a curiousity, and broke open the rock later on to find out that the wood was actually the handle of an ancient hammer!

There’s only so many conclusions we can draw from this artifact:
A) Aliens were around during the time of the dinosaurs (the Cretaceous period), and dropped their hammer.
B) Humans were around during the time of the dinosaurs
C) The assumed age of the rock, and the assumptions of the stratigraphic record are incorrect.
D) It’s a modern hammer that got encased in old rock and fossils.
E) It’s evidence that man figured out time travel.

The anti-creationists will try and argue for “D”, though no one has produced a historic hammer that looks like this one, and this fails to explain the fossils found in the rock the hammer was encased in.  It can’t be a “concretion” of fossils and rock, because there are no fossils to be found in the dirt in the riverbed the hammer was found in!

 

Again, F). D) is only partially correct. A historic hammer was encased in travertine. The fossils may have been reincorporated onto the concretion or they might not be fossils at all and be modern mollusks. We may never know because Don Patton does not allow actual scientists an opportunity to examine this artifact.

In the Paluxy riverbed in Glen Rose, Texas, literally dozens of fossil human footprints have been found amongst the dinosaur tracks that make this area so famous.

…

There’s only so many conclusions we can draw from this artifact:
A) Aliens were around during the time of the dinosaurs (the Cretaceous period)
B) Humans were around during the time of the dinosaurs
C) The assumed age of the rock, and the assumptions of the stratigraphic record are incorrect.
D) They’re from a creature other than a human being
E) It’s evidence that man figured out time travel.
F) stands for “Fake!”

Most of the fossil human footprints from the Paluxy are found in trails, excavated from underneath undisturbed limestone, in the presence of multiple witnesses.
So much for option “F”.

 

Once again F), for at least the example provided. The photo Juby provides is a laughable example of a forgery, which is one of the two explanations of the Paluxy River human tracks.

The fact that Juby does not see this for the obvious fraud it is speaks volumes about his knowledge of anatomy.  The other explanation is misidentification of therapod dinosaur track ways, which explains the uncovering of track ways in front of witnesses. The Paluxy River is a wonderful source for dinosaur tracks. Many fossil footprints from the Paluxy River are on display at museums across the U.S.

The last picture on the right is of the Delk track, a fossil that came to light in May of 2008.  This was one of several fossils that have been run through a CT scanner to check for its authenticity.  I produced a video devoted just to this fossil entitled “The Delk Track: Evidence of dinosaur and human coexistence,” and it’s available for free viewing on my videos page:
http://ianjuby.org/videos.html

 

First, the photo provided is from his website, the one that should have appeared in the lesson does not format. However, I am familiar with the Delk Track, thus knew what it looked like. Second, this is the one example Juby uses that does not appear on Talk.Origins “Index to Creationist Claims.” Nevertheless, Glen J. Kuban has written up a superb refutation of the Delk Track entitled “The Alvis Delk Print: An Alleged Human Footprint on a Loose Rock” wherein Kuban refutes everything about this forgery, including an explanation of how the human and dinosaur prints are fakes. I encourage everyone that has not already read his article to please read it. It is well worth your time.

Perhaps you’re still not convinced those are human tracks?  Well not far from Glen Rose, during the construction of the Comanche peak nuclear power plant, a gravel layer, sandwhiched between two layers of the Walnut shale, was cut through.  This fossil human finger was found amongst the gravels.

 

Unbelievably Juby (and his creationist ilk) think a shrimp burrow is a human finger. If I needed to point to one example of Juby’s colossal ignorance or blatant dishonesty, this would be it. This whole lesson is an example of his ignorance or his dishonesty. Either way, Juby is a horrible source for information when it comes to the Origins Debate. Everything, except the Delk track, has been known to be a forgery, misplaced, or misidentified for at least a decade. The forged Paluxy footprints/misidentified dinosaur tracks are included in AiG’s list of arguments that should be avoided, for crying aloud. This is only his third lesson and he is already resorting to evidence this weak? PATHETIC!

Coming up in lesson four: Dinosaurs and the flood of Noah…

Reason, Religion, Science

Rebuttal to Ian Juby’s “’In 7 Days’ Crash Course in Creation” Day 2

11 Comments

Read part one.

Day 2:  Still in the beginning….

You want deep time?

No problem, let’s give evolution 20 billion years.  Depending on who you ask, this is a typical estimate for the age of the universe.  While the majority of this time is supposed to have been spent building galaxies, stars and planets, let’s assign all of that time just to making life without a creator.

 

Juby cannot even be bothered to locate the actual estimated age of the universe, which is not hard to find out. Off the top of my head, I know it is ~13.5 billion years old and I would expect anyone who has studied the Origins Debate in any detail to at least be able to recall a fact this simple. However, he is only trying to set up a straw man.

And so, we have a stark contrast between the two models of human origins: Creation has a supernatural being who has infinite skill and knowledge, creating the first life.  Evolution, which has no skill and no intelligence, no guidance, no direction, must form the first life by blind chance.

 

First off, Juby is equivocating evolution with a straw man of abiogenesis. One could go a step further and infer that Juby is equivocating evolution with naturalism. Second, Juby is creating a false dichotomy by saying it is either a supernatural creator or blind chance, those are not the only options one can think of, nor are either of those the most likely options that lead to life.

This leads into Juby’s next straw man, which there is no other way to present, so I must quote the whole thing, please forgive me.

Amino acids are the basic building blocks of life.  Think of them as Lego; there are roughly twenty different kinds to choose from, and they join together to form structures called proteins.  These proteins can also join together and these form the essential parts of cells.

One simple protein might be an assembly of 200 amino acids.  So, using fairly simple math, for each amino in the assembly, we have a 1/20 chance of randomly selecting the correct one.  Thus, in our protein, we have 20200 different assembly combinations – and essentially only one of those combinations is correct and will work!

Written out, that’s:

1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000 different combinations!

Taking 20,000,000,000 (20 billion) years, and multiplying it by 365 days per year, 24 hours per day, 60 minutes per hour and 60 seconds per minute, you get:

630,720,000,000,000,000
seconds in 20 Billion years!

 

As you can see, we only have a mere 630,720,000,000,000,000 seconds to try all
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,00,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 different combinations.

Remember – evolution has no intelligence to call upon to select the correct combination the first time, so it’s hit and miss.

So let’s divide our available time into the number of combinations available.  We would have to randomly try

15,854,895,991,882,293,252,156,265,854,896,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000
different combinations, every second, for twenty billion years, to produce one protein by unguided processes.

 

As one can tell Juby chose a nice round number of 20 billion to make his math easier. However, if Juby actually understood the science of abiogenesis he would have noticed that the argument he just put forward is only arguing against a straw man of abiogenesis.

No one argues that a complete protein had to have formed all at once in one shot. The leading hypotheses in abiogenesis, much like in evolution, start with simple combinations of amino acids linking together and forming new structures. Essentially, a crude version of natural selection most likely took place before proteins, as we know them, first came on the scene.

However, Juby then goes on to give up the whole game:

Evolution requires an infinite amount of time, but an infinite creator God requires but the twinkling of an eye.  The complexity of life demands a creator.

 

There are three problems with this statement; first, his last sentence is an argument from ignorance. Life’s complexities have been and are being explained without a creator for the last 150 years of science. Evolutionary theory explains quite well the complexities of life and how those complexities arose. Second, Juby is still equating abiogenesis with evolution, and when he says evolution in the above quote, he means abiogenesis. Furthermore, earth formed 4.5 billion years ago and the first signs of life are 3.6 billion years old, so abiogenesis did not take an infinite amount of time. This could be an example of a lie from Juby.

However, the third point (the one I alluded to above) is Juby admitting that creationism is magic and nothing more. Juby truly wants people to believe that a god created life on earth with nothing more than magic!

However, this does not deter Juby, his next move is to project that fault (creationism = magic) onto evolution.

But never mind that for a second – let’s assume that somehow, by some miracle (yes, if you believe in evolution, you believe miracles – more on that later on in another lesson), we have enough amino acids, and somehow, by some miracle, they are joining together.  Let’s say we’re 10 billion years into the process, and we have 100 of the amino acids joined in the correct sequence, making half a protein.  What’s going to happen to that half-a-protein while the other 100 aminos get their act together? I’ll tell you – they’ll disintegrate! They’ll detach from each other, and we will lose what we already had!

 

Again, Juby’s ignorance of anything remotely resembling science shines through like a beacon in the night. Juby, why will they detach and disintegrate? You state this without giving a shred of evidence.

The other side of the “time” coin that the anti-creationists don’t want you to know about is the deterioration of the genome.  Evolution thrives on mutations.  Mutations are errors in our genetic code – the code that is essentially the blueprint on how to build you, or a plant, or a fish, etc…

 

Juby is essentially correct in his definition of what a mutation is, however, he does use some loaded language in it. Now watch as Juby uses his ignorance of genetics and his loaded language to create another fallacious argument.

Tremendous advances have been made in the arena of genetics and the study of the genome, and the surprises have been numerous.  One surprise that has come to light in recent years is that mutations are usually near-neutral; that is, they usually have no effect, and so are sometimes missed by the DNA repair mechanisms in your body.  The second thing they’ve learned is that these “near-neutral” mutations now accumulate over time (because they’re not detected and removed), and the accumulating errors add up to one BIG error, which is a very big problem.

 

Juby is correct that neutral mutations are the bulk of mutations that occur and he is correct that the neutral mutations can accumulate over time. However, there is nothing that suggests the build up of neutral mutations can lead to problems, as Juby states. Since he gives no evidence of this, I feel it is safe to assume Juby has no evidence to back this claim.

Third, negative mutations (that is, mutations that are definitely bad for you) outnumber the “good” ones considerably.

 

This is also true, but natural selection weeds those mutations out, thus they are not passed down to the next generation as frequently as good mutations. I do not understand why Juby would omit this fact.

Fourth, the “beneficial” mutations (the ones that are supposedly “good” for you) are always deletions – in other words, the supposed “beneficial” mutations which you can read about in the scientific literature, are actually information in the genetic code that is LOST.

 

This is patently false. Beneficial mutations can be any of the forms of mutations that we observe (deletions, point mutation, insertions, etc…). Thus, mutations can add and subtract to the genetic code. This could be classed as another example of Juby simply lying.

So to sum all these points together, we are losing valuable information in our genetic code over time.  We are also gaining errors over time, which really means we’re losing information that way as well.  When enough of the blueprint contained in the genetic code is corrupted, your body no longer has good enough “plans” on how to build/maintain your body, and you die.  We are losing this information so fast that all life as we know it should have died off millions of years ago, if indeed we had been around that long.

 

Now we see why he had to distort and perhaps lie in his last example. It was so he can present this conclusion based on all the falsehoods presented above.

In Conclusion:

Evolution requires an infinite amount of time, and yet, even if evolution was given its required infinite amount of time, it still could not produce life.  If we had millions of years, we would lose the life we have.  It is evident that life has not been around for millions of years, and that an intelligent Creator was involved in its origin.

 

No Juby, in conclusion, you do not know the first thing about genetics, abiogenesis, and deep time or you are blatantly misrepresenting everything you know in order to spin it to suit your preconceived notions.

Coming up in lesson three:

Dinosaurs and humans step on evolution…

Geology, Reason, Religion, Science, YouTube

Rebuttal to Ian Juby’s “’In 7 Days’ Crash Course in Creation” Day 1

16 Comments

Who is Ian Juby?

Ian Juby hails from Eastern Ontario, Canada. Inspired by Dr. Carl Baugh and the Creation Evidence Museum, he came back to Canada and set out to build Canada’s first Creation Museum, the Creation Science Museum of Canada.

– CreationWiki 

 

However, Juby is probably best known for his video response to AronRa.

On Ian Juby’s website, one of the first things one happens upon is his “in 7 Days” Crash Course in Creation. This delivers seven lessons over the course of seven days wherein Juby tries to prove the myth of creation over the science of evolution. I plan to debunk Juby’s crash course over the next few blog posts. So let us begin.

Day 1:  In the beginning…

 

The first lesson starts with Juby introducing the Origin Debate between creationism and evolution. There are no claims for creationism or against evolution until half way through the lesson. However, he does say this:

It has been my experience that evolution must hide behind assumptions, ad-hominem attacks, and lawyers.  It cannot be exposed to scrutiny because it will disintegrate.

 

Juby tends to do this throughout most of his work. He projects the faults of creationism on to evolution. Juby also goes on to state this:

I know when I first heard some of the information I’m about to share with you, I was angry.  I was not an evolutionist, and I was still angry because it became apparent that someone had lied to me.

 

I bring this up because Juby claims that he was upset that he was lied to by evil evolutionist, yet his whole crash course is full of half truths, blatant misrepresentations, and what could only be called lies.

After he is done projecting the faults of creationism onto evolution, he moves on to his first claim, which is:

Surprisingly, the debate did not begin with Charles Darwin.  The debate actually began with the age of the Earth, via one man, Sir Charles Lyell.  Lyell was a lawyer, and put his skills in arguing to work.  Though not trained in geology, he has become known as one of the founding fathers of geology.  I’m not arguing that a lawyer cannot do geological research.  I am simply pointing out that his “geological research” was everything from erroneous to downright fraudulent, and that he made an impression on the science of geology because of his argumentative tactics, not science.

 

Charles Lyell is indeed one of the fathers of geology because before men like him, there was no such thing as geology as we understand it today. Lyell could not go to school and obtain a degree in geology because no such subject existed until Lyell and others started to investigate the geologic formations found around them. Juby’s claim that Lyell’s research was “erroneous to downright fraudulent” is simply a lie. More importantly is the fact that Juby never brings up most of the evidence Lyell use to show deep time, such as many of the angular unconformities found in Scotland.

Juby moves on:

For example, it was Lyell who coined the phrase “The present is the key to the past.”

Notice what he has done here: He has effectively removed the idea of a global flood from the table, without ever mentioning it.  We do not see global floods occurring today, now, do we?  Therefore if only the present can be used to judge the past, then a global flood has just been disallowed in the interpretation of earth’s past – whether there was one or not!

 

No, he has not removed a global flood from the table. The idea of the present being the key to the past does not remove anything from the table except for miracles. One would be able to extrapolate the effects of a regional flood to a global system. A phenomenon happening today can be scaled up or down depending on the different variables we see. Juby simply does not understand how modern geology works.

Juby then goes on to speculate about Lyell’s intentions. According to Juby, the evil evolutionary conspiracy stretches back farther than anyone could have guessed.

In fact, he had secret intentions for his geological research, and his writings.  We would not have known his intentions except that after he died, his sister published his private writings and correspondence.  He wrote to one friend:

 

He follows this with a quote and his speculation as to how evil geologists got together to overturn the established teachings of the bible.

Whether Lyell had ulterior motives or not is not evidence against the ideas put forth in Principles of Geology. Lyell lays out the evidence for an old earth very clearly and the fact that Juby never mentions any of it is quite telling.

After this, Juby talks about Lyell’s visit to Niagara Falls where he points out that Lyell’s calculations were incorrect thus Lyell’s estimated age for Niagara Falls was also incorrect. For some reason, Juby feels that pointing out that Lyell was wrong about this is important to know, probably because he believes that if one thing Lyell said was wrong, than everything must be wrong.

Juby never comes out and says it, but it seems clear that he is trying to claim that the age of Niagara Falls is a good estimate for the age of the earth. This is wrong because there is no evidence that the river that created Niagara Falls has existed since the beginning of the earth.

Now we get into Juby’s big guns:

Lyell was also well aware of “polystrate fossils,” due to his visit to the Joggins Fossil cliffs of Nova Scotia, Canada.  Polystrate fossils are so called because they are buried vertically in the rock, cutting through several strata or layers of rock.  Hence, “poly” for many, “strate” for the strata of rock.  It cuts vertically through many layers.

 

That is right folks; Juby is still claiming that polystrate trees disprove deep time. First off, these fossils are not what creationist wish they were; they do not cut through vast expanses of geologic time, they belong to the same geologic period. They are found in depositional environments that form rapidly, such as swamps. In a depositional environment, such as a swamp, there can be many layers formed that all represent the same geological period that formed over hundreds to thousands of years and not millions.

Juby concludes:

Lyell’s research was fiction, yet everyone who read Lyell’s book concluded it was the Bible that was fiction.

 

Again, no it was not. The fact that Juby could not be bothered to bring up the bulk of what is found in Principles of Geology (essentially removing his ideas from the table, without ever mentioning them) speaks volumes.

Coming up in lesson two:

You want millions of years?  You got it.  It doesn’t solve the problems for evolution, and instead causes problems for evolution.

Entertainment, History, Paleontology, Science

The New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science

7 Comments

I volunteer at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, which was created in 1986 and is made up of two floors of exhibits. There are several different halls to the museum, some change over time, but the main thrust of the museum is found in eight halls that make up the Walk Through Time. This section of the museum focuses on the geological history of New Mexico from Precambrian to the present. The exhibits in the halls may change, but the overall theme of them stays the same.

In this blog post, I am going to give a general overview of the museum by describing the eight main halls that make up Walk Through Time. I will provide the map of the museum so one will be able to follow along while reading this post. In addition, this post is the beginning of several posts I will be doing about the museum. Some will be about specific halls, while others will be about specific exhibits found in the halls. This post will always be referenced, thus one will know exactly which part of the museum I discuss in the future.

Walk Through Time starts on the second floor and works its way back down to the first floor.

2njv75s.jpgb4zx9e.jpg
Hall One: Origins

In this hall, one is given a brief overview of the formation of the earth and how life might have started. It covers the Precambrian and Paleozoic periods of the earth. Walking farther into this hall one is shown fossils of some of the first life forms on earth and modern creatures that resemble that life. This hall also briefly covers the origin of land-based life. At the end of this hall is the beginning of the major theme of this museum, and that is the natural history of New Mexico. There are fossils, displays, and murals that cover what New Mexico was like at the end of the Paleozoic and beginning of the Mesozoic.

Hall Two: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

In this hall, the first thing you see is a wall talking about the largest extinction event in earth’s history. Next to that, they show what the oceans looked like (with fossils and art) in the Paleozoic and compare with what it looked like in the Mesozoic. The beginning of the hall deals with the early Triassic and has displays of living fossils featuring lungfish (including a live specimen) and coelacanth. Phytosaurs and Placerias, which made up the bulk of the land base life forms during the late Triassic, dominate the late Triassic part of the hall. This hall also includes a display of the earliest mammal (Adelobasileus) and talks about how exactly scientists are able to classify mammals using their ear bones. This hall also includes an exhibit on Coelophysis, New Mexico’s state fossil.

10x7qcm.jpg
Hall Three: Age of Super Giants

In this hall, some of the largest dinosaurs to ever live are displayed. This hall is about the Jurassic, which is the period that dinosaurs truly became the dominant animal on the planet. Two of the dinosaurs on display in this hall are Seismosaurus, the longest dinosaur to ever be discovered, and Saurophaganax, the largest carnivorous dinosaur of the Jurassic.

qy9wte.jpg
There is also a display showing the evolution of birds from dinosaurs. It compares the anatomy of Archaeopteryx with that of a pterosaur, a small dinosaur, and one of the first true birds in order to show the homology between the bird/dinosaur and dissimilarity between bird/dinosaur and the pterosaur.

Hall Four: New Mexico’s Seacoast

In this hall, one is able to find a display that shows the movement of the sea that once covered most of New Mexico for all of the Cretaceous period. Because of this sea, the Cretaceous period is one of the most fossiliferous periods in the whole state. When first walking into this hall, one sees into the bottom floor, which has a mosasaur sculpture surrounded by blue floors and walls, representing the sea that covered the state. Next to that is a coastal jungle, which is filled with fossils and sculptures of the creatures that once inhabited the coastal region of the inland sea. One walks down a ramp passed other fossil displays and the coastal jungle. When walking into the first floor one comes into a room entitled “A Bad Day in the Cretaceous”, which shows a film projected on the wall of a meteor striking the earth. Once one leaves this area one walks closer to the mosasaur display.

Hall Five: Volcanoes

In this hall, one is treated to a walk through a generic volcano. New Mexico has more extinct volcanoes than any other state. Inside this hall, it discusses all four different types of volcanoes and the lava they produce. It also shows examples of all four volcanoes with ones found in New Mexico. This hall has been here, virtually unchanged since the museum opened in 1986 and is still one of my favorites along with most of the people that visit.

Hall Six: Rise of the Recent

In this hall, one is able to see a brief overview of much of the Cenozoic of New Mexico. This hall contains some of the most beautiful murals in the whole museum. The best mural in this hall is the mural showing the evolution of the horse. There are a few fossil exhibits found in this hall including Diatryma, which was discovered here in New Mexico by Edward Drinker Cope.

 

Hall Seven: Cave

In this hall, an artificial cave is created to show all the different aspects of caves. There are different displays that light up and tell one about the different formations found in caves. This exhibit also discusses the life forms that one would find in a cave. In addition, a display talks about Carlsbad Caverns, which in my opinion is the most beautiful cave system on earth.

Hall Eight: New Mexico’s Ice Age.

In this hall, there are several different displays of the different animals found in New Mexico during the Pleistocene. This hall includes erected skeletons of a Columbian mammoth, two dire wolves, and a saber-toothed cat. It also has a mural, which depicts how lush New Mexico would have been during the ice age. This is also the only hall that contains depictions of human activities in the Museum, which is a mural of the Clovis People butchering a Columbian Mammoth.

Edited by Dean, 11/04/2013
Reason for edit: Spelling/word-choice alterations, all images but the first reduced in size by 50%.

Reason

How MonsterQuest gives creationists a platform

7 Comments

As you already know, I sat through several days of the History Channels pseudo-documentary MonsterQuest (the joy) and much to my surprise, in two of the episodes we find creationists. Now, I knew the History Channel had gone off the deep end by having this show in the first place, but I did not think it would stoop down to allowing creationists on their channel. Than again, one must ask themselves, what is the major different between an average creationist and an average crypto-zoologist?

Nevertheless, I digress. The first episode I noticed that allowed a creationist on was entitled “Flying Monsters” (episode 15, season 3). This episode deals with a group of creationists from Genesis Park, which mounts annual expeditions to Papa New Guinea in search of pterosaurs (or Ropen). Now, the History Channel did do a wonderful job editing out (what I can only suspect to be) the vast majority of the crazy coming from the creationists on this program, but they let a few things slip. At ~10 minutes in, Garth Guessman (the head creationist), while holding a copy of an old map says; “This is an old sea chart from 1595 depicting Papa New Guinea, and it has animals depicted on here that are similar to pterosaurs that could very well be distant memories of legends of possible pterosaurs.” I kid you not! That was what set the alarm bells off in my head, but it was not until around the end of the program at ~40 minutes in when he said, “Every culture in the world has stories of dragons. And if you think about it, they also have stories of people killing dragons. And when you ask the question what happened to dinosaurs, people never want to put that together.” This statement made me look into this person. Sure enough, he is a Young Earth Creationist (YEC) hoping that if he finds evidence of pterosaurs in Papua New Guinea that will somehow disprove evolution.

However, in this episode, not only do they have a YEC, but they also have an actual paleontologist (Dr. David Martill) whose specialty is pterosaurs. I truly wish I could get my hands on some of the unedited material for this episode. I would love to see the reaction from Dr. Martill when dealing with the inanity of the YECs.

However, this was not the only episode to feature creationists in it. While researching the above episode, I thought back to one of the first episodes I watched entitled “The Last Dinosaur” (episode 18, season 3) which was about Mokele Mbembe, thought to be a sauropod. This episode was not as bad as the first one I talked about (in terms of creationism, it is a terrible show after all), but the narrator was the worse part of this show. At ~13 minutes in, they talk to a creationist who went to Africa to take a picture of a living dinosaur (no doubt, because he thought that would somehow disprove evolution); instead, he took pictures of what were three toed tracks of something large (most likely a rhinoceros). The creationist claims they are most likely from a sauropod, yet gives no evidence as to why. This mistake can be forgiven, because he is nothing more then a creationist, however the narrator starts talking about how sauropod tracks have three toes and starts showing pictures of fossil dinosaur track ways (the tracks are from theropod dinosaurs). I cannot really get mad at the narrator because he is only reading a script, but whoever wrote that script is a moron. Sauropods had five toe tracks, and the pictures that they showed were of theropod dinosaurs, a very different animal. Did I mention how terrible this show is?

I feel very upset that this show ever aired on the History Channel. I think it is bad enough that the History Channel allowed crypto-zoologists to run amuck on their channel, but to allow creationists…

I do not have anything else to say because words cannot describe how disappointed I am with the History Channel. This is a channel that I feel, when I was in high school, did a far superior job teaching me history than my actual high school. It is just upsetting to see it slip this far.

Education, Entertainment, Reason

How MonsterQuest disproved Bigfoot

10 Comments

A far lesser known hobby I have is dealing with crypto-zoology (I have not dealt with this for years). However, recently I sat through a marathon of MonsterQuest to see how much new information cryptozoology has compiled. The only thing that I have learned is that the crypto-zoologists have all but disproved Bigfoot and all other land based cryptids with just one episode.

The main difference in the MonsterQuest pseudo-documentary compared to most other cryptid pseudo-documentaries I have seen is the use of trail cameras. A trail camera is a camera left in the wilderness for weeks to years taking pictures or video of anything that sets the motion detector off. Now, the episode of MonsterQuest that disproved land based cryptids is entitled “Lions in the Backyard” (episode 7: season 1). This episode deals with reports of black cats seen in the U.S., and of course, they were unable to show any black cats in the U.S.

However, how does an episode about black cats in the U.S. disprove Bigfoot and all other land based cryptids? Well, in the episode they eventually get to a section at ~21 minutes in where they talk to two actual biologists that use trail cameras. The two biologists explained that jaguars used to live in the U.S. (mostly the southwest) during historic times, but were now thought to be extinct in the U.S., thanks in large part to humans. Nevertheless, they were able to show, using trail cameras, three separate individual jaguars in Arizona; essentially proving that jaguars are expanding their territory back to somewhat historic ranges. Furthermore, they were able to prove this over an 8-year period.

Now, trail cameras are in use all over the U.S., not just by crypto-zoologists, but also by actual zoologists and hunters. Does anyone truly believe that something the size of Bigfoot, or any of the other cryptids crypto-zoologists love to talk about, could go undetected by these trail cameras for decades when they photographed several jaguars in 8 years? In addition, the photographs are not ambiguous, they were able to determine that two of the three individuals were male (the other remains unknown at the airing of this episode), that is how wonderful the pictures of these animals came out.

In every episode of MonsterQuest that dealt with a land based cryptid, trail cameras were placed in the areas the animals were thought to roam and yet no photographs of the cryptid were ever produced. I must point out that MonsterQuest only sets up these cameras for perhaps a month or two, but the actual crypto-zoologists, zoologists, and hunters have trail cameras that are in use for most (if not all) of the year, for years! One would think that if these cryptids were real, at least one of them would be captured on camera in the decades that trail cameras have been in use.

There are two things I learned from watching MonsterQuest; the first is that crypto-zoologists appear to be just as dogmatic as creationists are when it comes to their preconceived notions. I know that this information does not definitively disprove Bigfoot and his kin, but it seems to be very compelling evidence that any rational person should consider.

The second is I really want a trail camera now. Here in New Mexico there is a lot of wildlife that would be very interesting to photograph without human interference. Seeing the price tag on most of the trail cameras makes this dream something that will probably never happen for the simple fact that I do not think I would waste that much money on a hobby. However, one can dream.

Edited by Dean, 12/03/2013
Reason for edit: Grammatical corrections.

Reason, Science

Of species and kinds

7 Comments

 

One familiar argument an evolutionary proponent will encounter when dealing with creationists is the “species problem”. Essentially the argument is that there is not a definitive definition for a species. This almost inevitable argument comes up because the evolutionary proponent asks the creationist if they could define kind. Creationists believe that since biologists cannot come up with a consensus on species that applies to every organism, it gives them a free pass to not define kind.

 

The problem with this argument and the reason we have a “species problem” in biology is that different forms of life reproduce differently. For example, a definition for bacteria will not work for a population of mammals because they reproduce in a different manner. Thus, one is able to produce a robust definition of a species for organisms that reproduce sexually (i.e. reproductive isolation), but have a more fluid definition for species when it comes to asexually reproducing populations.

 

However, this is all beside the point and can be considered a red herring, thus one does not even have to address it. The main issue with this creationist argument is that the definition for kind should be vastly more robust than any definition of species. Young Earth Creationists believe that their God came to Earth, seeded all life on this planet, and made sure that each kind would reproduce after its kind. Thus, if a god(s) truly wanted to do this we would be able to see distinct genetics unique to certain kinds, which are not shared with any other animal outside of their kind. That is, there should be genetics shared only between the cat kind or dog kind that are not found in other organisms and we should not be able to find shared genetics between the two kinds.

 

Nevertheless, this is not what we see when we look into the genetics of life. Every time we look into the genome of an organism, we can see its shared life history with every other living organism on Earth. To date, we have not found a gene sequence unique to a group of organisms except at the species level, and those unique genes are what make that species different. It is this fact that is the real reason creationists refuse to define kind and would rather hide behind the “species problem” when asked to define kind. If the creationists were correct, and god(s) created different kinds then geneticists would be unable to create phylogenetic trees linking all organisms into clades based on their evolutionary history. To make this problem worse, other phylogenetic trees, based on morphology, embryology, etc…, should not be able to produce similar (statistically the same) trees. One would think that their genetics would be different, since all the kinds were created separately with no relation to the other.

 

Thus, the next time a creationist refuses to define kind, kindly remind him that comparative genetics has definitively proven universal common descent and that there have been no genetic markers to indicate that there ever were unique kinds. The “species problem” is not equivalent to the lack of a definition of kind.

Edited by Dean, 25/02/2013
Reason for edit: Minor corrections of grammar & punctuation.

Anthropology, Archaeology, Paleontology, Science

What is a …

12 Comments

I would like to answer a frequent question I hear while volunteering at the natural history museum. That question is “what is a paleontologist?” I will also throw in archeologist and anthropologist for good measure.

To answer the first question, a paleontologist is a person who studies the history of life on Earth. They are the people that dig up dinosaur fossils and other amazing plants and animals that once lived on our planet. The excavation and curation of the fossils they discover is what gives us our understanding of Earth’s past. There are several subfields of paleontology, which include paleobotany (plant fossils), invertebrate paleontology, and vertebrate paleontology. All of those can also be broken down into more fields.

So what is an archeologist?

An archeologist is a person that studies human prehistory. Archeologists are the people that dig up human remains, artifacts, and animals once preyed upon by humans. Since most of human history happened before anything was written down, archeology is our only look into the vast majority of our history on Earth. There are several subfields of this as well, such as bio-archeology (human remains), zoo-archeology (animal remains), lithic analysis, ceramic analysis. From there the fields are usually broken up into the area of the world you study and the time period you are investigating.

So what is an anthropologist?

An anthropologist is a person that studies primates, everything from lemurs to humans. In fact, in the U.S. archeology is considered a subfield of anthropology (most European countries place archeology into history). The other subfields are biological anthropology (anatomy of mainly humans), ethnology (or cultural anthropology), and human evolutionary ecology.

Now, there is some overlap in all three, but major distinctions between the three as well. for example if you found something you thought might be a fossil, you probably would not want to ask your local archeologist what it is, on that same note, if you discovered a arrowhead, a paleontologist would not know much more than you already know.

However, an example of the overlap is the subfield of anthropology I someday hope to become a part of. That subfield is called paleoanthropology and that is the field that studies the hominins and other ancient primate species. This subfield deals with primates (thus anthropology), which are very old and mostly extinct (thus paleontology) and some of the specimens can be classified as human and were creating lithics (thus archeology).

I hope this short overview of these three scientific fields was helpful and may have cleared up any questions you might have had. If anyone has any questions about any of the three fields, please ask away. I will be more than happy to address any questions.

Anthropology, Archaeology, Introductions, Paleontology, Science

First blog post

14 Comments

Seeing as how this will be my first blog post, I thought I would start by giving my CV.

I am currently a contract archaeologist; my specialty is human and faunal remains (I am not using that much today). I have been on excavations in Hawaii, Spain, and in my great state of New Mexico. I obtained my Bachelor of Science with honors in Biological Anthropology from the University of New Mexico in 2010. My senior thesis was about dental microwear on extant primate populations (it can also be used to reconstruct paleo-environments). I one day hope to return to school and continue studying skeletal anatomy, paleoecology, and cladistics. I also volunteer at my local natural history museum, which I also hope to obtain a larger role in soon (hopefully specimen preparation work and excavations). To sum it up, I like bones and fossils.

My main Ethernet hobby, as many of you already know from practically all my forum posts, is debunking creationism. With part of this blog, I am hoping to add just a little more firepower to the pro-science side of this argument, not only in biology, but also in all fields that creationism tries to distort and tamper with.

The other part of this blog I am hoping to answer general questions people have about archaeology, anthropology, and paleontology; a basic “ask an archaeologist/anthropologist/paleontologist” blog. I would welcome all questions; the main thrust of my volunteer work is answering questions from the public. Thus, any questions are welcome and will be answered by me (hopefully).

For the most part that is what I would like to blog about; I may blog about other things, such as how great New Mexico is, but look forward to creationism debunking and archeo-babble.

I guess this is enough for my first post. I hope everyone will enjoy my blog as much as I enjoy writing it.

Have a nice day. 🙂