Larry 2010/11

1. The first, 500 dissertations awarded on research of the Piltdown hoax, is the one I say is so obviously false that anyone repeating this one must first be asked if they’re joking. Think for a moment how many PhDs are awarded each year in paleontology or anthropology on any subject, and then consider how many would have to be awarded for any significant number to be on a single subject. The actual answer is probably no dissertations exist that dealt with Piltdown, and anyone making such a claim should have to produce the works themselves. Just Google “500 dissertations on piltdown” to debunk this one.
2. The second claim, that the famed “Nebraska Man” fossil, the misidentified peccary tooth, was presented as evidence at the Scopes trial of 1925 is almost as easily disputed. First, “Nebraska Man” had already been discarded by the scientific community by the time the trial started, and anyone familiar with the trial should know that the judge ruled out any scientists as witnesses. But if you still want to be sure just search the trial transcripts here.

Most paleoanthropologists (e.g. Groves 1989; Tobias 1991; Wood 1991, 1992; Skelton & McHenry 1992; Walker & Leakey 1993a; McHenry 1994c; Strait et al 1997; Asfaw et al 1999a; Klein 1999; Wolpoff 1999; Wood & Collard 1999), but not all (e.g. Oxnard 1975), agree that Homo evolved from Australopithecus, but there is less consensus on which species of Australopithecus is the most likely ancestor and which fossils are the earliest members of Homo.

So after Larry had read this, several times in fact, I was sort of surprised when he claimed that Leakey had called australos apes and not human ancestors in National Geographic. But I knew by then that Larry got all his information from creationist sources, so he was likely to blurt out completely inaccurate statements at any time.

The staff of the Nat Geo archives are extremely helpful people, and with their robust database were able to tell me that the only issue that mentions both Leakey and Australopithecines is June 1973, Volume 143, number 6. On pages 822 and 829 Leakey not only does not call australos apes, but refers to them as “near man”. Larry was not only wrong, but dead one hundred eighty degrees opposite direction wrong.

But get this: even after reading the Nat Geo article himself, Larry still doesn’t admit he’s wrong. No, he claims there’s another issue with Skull 1470, the Leakey team’s discovery and the subject of the piece, with the skull on the cover and that’s the one in which Leakey calls the human ancestors apes.

I thought this sounded odd since I wondered why Nat Geo would feature the skull on the cover after this article already appeared and gave good coverage to the discovery. Was Larry just flinging shit around like a monkey? He sure was. I searched the archive of issues at the downtown branch of the Madison Public Library and found no such issue.

This is a pattern: prove Larry wrong, catch him just spouting common creationist crap and he just makes stuff up and piles it on.