With Creation Revolution remaining fairly quiet on the topic of human evolution I thought this week’s “Misguided Monday” would pass without incident.
Then I found Across the Fruited Plain. It’s a site that pumps out creationist commentary at such a rate that there’s already enough there to keep me occupied for many moons.
So we can ill afford to stand around with lengthy introductions and instead must dive straight into one of the more egregious posts: “A Mammoth Lie“
Mammoths have been used quite frequently to promote the idea of evolution theory and old habits die hard among theorists. Here once again, we see the remains of mammoths being paraded as evidence for evolution, when quite the opposite is true.
A CT scan of two mammoths from different time periods looked rather different, despite being members of the same species. But this change over time is apparently the opposite of evolution.
“High-tech scans” is intended to make us believe that these folks have the equipment (and credentials) necessary to not be wrong concerning evolution.
I’m somewhat skeptical that describing a CT scan as high-tech is part of some brainwashing campaign. CT scans are described as high-tech all the time, even by people complaining about them.
It would seem to me there isn’t really a conspiracy and “high-tech” is just phrase associated with CT scans. But in case there is a real problem I shall endeavour to only call them CT scans in this post, lest all my readers see “high tech” and become brainwashed.
Regardless of whether there is some kind of wordplay involved, at the end of the day the science stands and falls on its own. Prefacing astrology with “high-tech” doesn’t make it any more valid; nor would it render a true conclusion false.
Let’s look at a few examples of how accurate “high-tech scans” have previously been:
This section is intended to cast doubt on the reliability of the scans being used. Given the scans in question are CT scans you would rightly expect that the following examples are CT scans gone wrong.
They are not, rendering this entire tangent irrelevant. But I suppose we’ll go over it anyway, since being irrelevant doesn’t stop it being wrong.
“One part of the Vollosovitch mammoth carbon dated at 29,500 years old and another part at 44,000.” Troy L. Pewe, Quaternary Stratigraphic Nomenclature in Unglaciated Central Alaska, Geological Survey Professional Paper 862
You can find the paper being cited here and I believe it’s not behind a paywall so you should be able to read it just fine. If you do have a little look, you should notice two things.
First, the information on mammoth dates is presented in a table. This means that the direct quote given in Across the Fruited Plain is a pure fabrication. No part of the article goes “one part of the Vollosovitch mammoth…”, it’s all a table.
Secondly, none of the radiocarbon dates for mammoths given in that table are 44,000 or 29,500.
So not only is the quote a fabrication but the information contained in it is too.
“One part of Dima [a baby frozen mammoth] was 40,000, another part was 26,000 and the ‘wood immediately around the carcass’ was 9-10,000.” Troy L. Pewe, Quaternary Stratigraphic Nomenclature in Unglaciated Central Alaska, Geological Survey Professional Paper 862 (U.S. Gov. printing ofice, 1975) p. 30
Same paper (slightly different citation) same flaws: There is no direct quote saying that in the article and the dates themselves aren’t in the table either.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Dima wasn’t found until 1977 – two years after the citation was published.
The direct quote is a invented, the figures are false and the mammoth itself wasn’t even found when the source was published. How wrong can a single sentence be?
“The lower leg of the Fairbanks Creek mammoth had a radiocarbon age of 15,380 RCY (radio carbon years), while its skin and flesh were 21,300 RCY.” Harold E. Anthony, “Natures Deep Freeze,” Natural History, Sept. 1949, p. 300
Now, I haven’t been able to track down the original source for this so can’t say for sure whether the source does make this claim.
Regardless, I am very skeptical of the validity of the claim given that the first radiocarbon dates were published in December 1949, 3 months after radiocarbon had allegedly given conflicting results on the age of this mammoth.
As such this is very likely not true.
“The two Colorado Creek, AK mammoths had radiocarbon ages of 22,850 plus or minus 670 and 16,150 plus or minus 230 years respectively.” Robert M. thorson and R. Dale Guthrie, “Stratigraphy of the Colorado Creek Mammoth Locality, Alaska.” Quaternary Research, Vol. 37, No. 2, March 1992, pp. 214-228
I’m not really sure how this refutes radiocarbon dating. Two mammoths were found and shown to be from different times. So what?
The use of this example as a refutation of radiocarbon becomes especially puzzling when one checks the reference given and finds they were from different stratigraphic units.
In other words, two mammoths from different layers dated differently. If anything, this is a point to radiocarbon dating for being confirmed by the stratigraphy (the older layer contained the older mammoth).
How come theorists never mention that the majority of mammoths that we find are frozen solid, standing upright, with tropical vegetation still in their teeth and digestive tracks?
Whilst it is true that some mammoths have been found with vegetation in their mouths and guts, it is normally only moss and grass. To call that tropical is, I think, a rather large overstatement.
Also, as the paper linked to just now should indicate, “theorists” do mention that these mammoths were found with vegetation.
A cataclysmic event on the order of the Noahic worldwide flood would have had to have been responsible for these giants frozen instantly, intact and well preserved. They did not freeze to death slowly like animals awaiting a gradual Ice Age or else they would not have been so perfectly preserved encased in ice.
Most frozen mammoths are partly rotted, being far from the perfect condition expected if these were frozen instantly….by a flood?
How is that meant to work anyway?
You discovered two frozen mammoths, supposedly found major skeletal differences between them, but didn’t consider the differences worthy of mention?! And what, may I ask, are “major skeletal differences?”
A few seconds on google would turn up the livescience article which sparked this whole story, which contains information on what these differences were.
“Lyuba’s front legs are proportionally longer than Khroma’s, and Khroma has bony ridges where her tusks would have erupted that Lyuba lacks”
I’m inclined to think we have a creationist on our hands who spends more time indignantly typing than they do researching. This failing is also expressed in this next bit.
if they were pulled out of the same permafrost, then they existed at the same time.
“The two mammoths, dubbed “Lyuba” and “Khroma” were found in 2007 and 2009, respectively. Lyuba is 42,000 years old, while Khroma was found in geologically older sediments”
So we find two members of the same species that lived at different times and also have different anatomy. We have an example of change over time, rather nice evidence of evolution.
The response to this was to spout off irrelevant (and invented) radiocarbon inconsistencies and not bother to look up what the differences in anatomy were.
Evolution, a mammoth lie? Hardly.
2012 and all that · 7th May 2012 at 7:35 pm
I am so completely and utterly speechless. I wish I could call Poe’s Law on this one but I think this person is sincere.