Friday, October 15, 2021

Who committed fraud?


The Discovery Institute is a thinktank for the Intelligent Design movement, which teaches that life is best explained as originating with an intelligence and not originating through evolution. This opposition to evolution is especially seen in how it tackled the subject of human origins in a video it released on October 13, 2021: “Human Evolution: The Monkey Bias — Science Uprising, Episode 8.”[1]

This video refers to the PBS documentary “In Search of Human Origins, part one.”[2]

In their “Monkey Bias” video, the following accusation was made by the narrator: “This PBS documentary shows Anthropologist Owen Lovejoy manipulating the fossils to make Lucy walk upright.” The video then shows Owen using a power tool to grind away at what is presumably the actual pelvis, with one audience member in “Monkey Bias” viewing this in obvious shock. This is an accusation of academic fraud, and one that was made publicly in a PBS documentary for all his colleagues to witness on TV. That accusation thus struck me as strange. Why would he commit academic fraud so brazenly and openly in a documentary? It did not add up in my mind. So, I tracked down the transcript of “In Search of Human Origins, part one,” and I saw obvious academic fraud, but not from Owen Lovejoy.

The relevant portion of the transcript presents this, with my comments interspersed:
DON JOHANSON: My suspicions were confirmed. As Lovejoy pointed out, the joint had all the hallmarks of a creature that moved around on two legs, not on all fours. Walking upright is something that only humans can do. And it needs a special kind of knee joint, one that can be locked straight. A chimp gets around on all fours. If it tries to walk upright, it's knee joint doesn’t lock. It’s forced to walk with a bent leg and that’s tiring. This mysterious fossil really perplexed us. What was a modern-looking human knee doing among fossils that were millions of years old. …
[So Lucy had a lockable knee joint for walking upright.]
The ape that stood up, it was a revolutionary idea. We needed Owen Lovejoy’s expertise again, because the evidence wasn’t quite adding up. The knee looked human, but the shape of her hip didn’t. Superficially, her hip resembled a chimpanzee’s, which meant that Lucy couldn’t possibly have walked like a modern human. But Lovejoy noticed something odd about the way the bones had been fossilized.

OWEN LOVEJOY: When I put the two parts of the pelvis together that we had, this part of the pelvis has pressed so hard and so completely into this one, that it caused it to be broken into a series of individual pieces, which were then fused together in later fossilization.

DON JOHANSON: After Lucy died, some of her bones lying in the mud must have been crushed or broken, perhaps by animals browsing at the lake shore.

OWEN LOVEJOY: This has caused the two bones in fact to fit together so well that they’re in an anatomically impossible position.
[So the hip bone was shattered and fused into an unnatural geometry.]
DON JOHANSON: The perfect fit was an allusion that made Lucy’s hip bones seem to flair out like a chimp’s. But all was not lost. Lovejoy decided he could restore the pelvis to its natural shape. He didn’t want to tamper with the original, so he made a copy in plaster. He cut the damaged pieces out and put them back together the way they were before Lucy died. It was a tricky job, but after taking the kink out of the pelvis, it all fit together perfectly, like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. As a result, the angle of the hip looks nothing like a chimp’s, but a lot like ours. Anatomically at least, Lucy could stand like a human.[3]
Accusation: “Anthropologist Owen Lovejoy manipulating the fossils.”
Reality: “He didn’t want to tamper with the original, so he made a copy in plaster.”

Lovejoy working on the plaster copy is also seen in a video snippet of the PBS documentary.[4]

This also shows that “Monkey Bias” carefully removed the context of Lovejoy operating on the plaster copy, and presented the PBS documentary narration with the following underlined part removed:
The perfect fit was an allusion that made Lucy’s hip bones seem to flair out like a chimp’s. But all was not lost. ✂️Lovejoy decided he could restore the pelvis to its natural shape. He didn’t want to tamper with the original, so he made a copy in plaster. He cut the damaged pieces out and put them back together the way they were before Lucy died. It was a tricky job, but after taking the kink out of the pelvis, it all fit together perfectly, like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle.✂️ As a result, the angle of the hip looks nothing like a chimp’s, but a lot like ours.
“Monkey Bias” then had Discovery Institute senior fellow Casey Luskin comment: “And so Lucy’s pelvis had to be reconstructed using a quite a bit of evolutionary interpretation and imagination.” Thus, not only did “Monkey Bias” purposefully misportray Owen as damaging the original fossil, it also removed the original narration in the PBS documentary explaining that there was an anatomical problem with the pelvis, as it was shattered and fused differently than in life, as well as a paradox of a locking knee joint. Omitting reference to the knee joint is particularly problematic, as that explains why Owen was suspicious of the pelvis to begin with. So it was not “evolutionary interpretation and imagination,” but detailed knowledge of comparative anatomy.

The conclusion from this is pretty troubling. Since it was the Discovery Institute and Casey Luskin who removed the relevant context to make Owen Lovejoy look like a biased vandal in committing academic fraud, it is actually the Discovery Institute and Casey Luskin who lied publicly and misrepresented Owen Lovejoy and the fossil evidence for their own biases, committing academic fraud. Opposing human evolution is one thing, but lying about it and slandering someone is unacceptable.

I am only reporting this incidence as it is what I personally discovered based on my suspicion that there was some monkey-business a foot.

Lastly, speaking of feet, “Monkey Bias” made a point about Lucy’s feet never being recovered but being human-like in restorations,[5] but completely left out any discussion of human-like footprints (the Laetoli Footprints) dated to her kind, the Australopithecines. It also ignored any discussion of the foreman magnum. (It has a more central position in the underside of the cranium, positioning the vertebral column directly under it, demanding an upright posture.)

Casey Luskin then referred to a Nature magazine article “From forelimbs to two legs” which he claimed called Lucy a knuckle-walker.
Screenshot from “Monkey Bias.” Click to enlarge.
He said: “In fact, an article in the journal Nature studied the hand bones of Lucy, and found that she had the hand bones of a knuckle-walker.” (A video of a knuckle-walking gorilla was then displayed.) He said this while showing the actual text of the article, which he highlighted as saying: “These features are thought to be associated with knuckle-walking…” Does that match his claim of what it said? And why did he not point out the publication year: 2000, or share qualifying information published at the same time in the same journal that negates his claim? For instance, he showcased text from a preliminary article “From forelimbs to two legs” in “news and views” that was introducing the main paper “Evidence that humans evolved from a knuckle-walking ancestor” by Richmond and Strait. This main paper was summarized by Henry Gee in his supplement “These fists were made for walking,” where he said: “Richmond and Strait have looked at the wrist bones of two extinct members of the human family, Australopithecus anamensis from Kenya and Australopithecus afarensis (the famous ‘Lucy’ skeleton) from Ethiopia, as they report in Nature. … Both, for example, were bipeds—they walked as upright as you or I, and probably not on their knuckles.”[6] Why did Casey Luskin not quote that? Was he being incompetent or dishonest? This is absolutely appalling.[7]

The moral of the story is, do not look for a “quick win.” Do competent research and fact-checking. Above all, be honest. There is no love or joy in doing anything less.[8]

Update:
Sadly, the Discovery Institute is celebrating “Monkey Bias” and a video airing after it which merely repeated the same sensationalized and slanderous claims from the attorney Casey Luskin. For an organized body of public servants to act this way is reprehensibly careless and reveals a very slipshod view of truth. The need to fact-check news outlets now includes their website Evolution News. This is very dissapointing. See: Human Origins — The Scientific Imagination at Play and Luskin: The “Big Bang” of Human Origins by David Klinghoffer.

Update 2:
Sadly, Günter Bechly now joins the list of liars. He defended the obvious lies revealed above and claimed: “Neither Luskin nor the video narrator alleges that Lovejoy engaged in ‘fraud.’ … Neither the Science Uprising episode nor Luskin claims that Lovejoy damaged a precious original fossil in his work.” He is only making this situation worse, and is not helping his compatriot Casey by excusing his obvious deception and mischaracterizations. Günter Bechly is only correct that the PBS video narrator did not allege that Lovejoy engaged in fraud, because he did not! Again, I am deeply disappointed in the Discovery Institute, Evolution News, etc., and now Günter Bechly for their obvious dishonesty. My fellow Jehovah’s Witnesses should take note of these developments and have limited involvement with this insincere organization. It has become the Dishonesty Institute. (John 8:44; Revelation 21:8; 1 Corinthians 15:33) See: Examining “Professor Dave’s” Absurd Attack on Casey Luskin by Günter Bechly. (This title is grandstanding and contains two lies: “absurd” and “attack.” It was not “absurd” but spot-on, and not an “attack” but a sincere evaluation. This deceptive conduct from professionals, who call themselves Christians no less, is deeply disheartening!) (6/1/2022)

Footnotes:
[1] youtu.be/aGzXAgFSbnk
[2] At this mark: youtu.be/aGzXAgFSbnk?t=260. This was first aired on June 3, 1997.
[3] www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2106hum1.htm
[4] youtu.be/L_U9SCyWw4w
[5] Start of Lucy part: youtu.be/aGzXAgFSbnk?t=206
[6] “From forelimbs to two legs” by Mark Collard and Leslie C. Aiello
www.nature.com/articles/35006181 (or free PDF)
“Evidence that humans evolved from a knuckle-walking ancestor”
www.nature.com/articles/35006045 (or free PDF)
“These fists were made for walking”
www.nature.com/articles/news000323-7
[7] I asked the co-author of the Nature article, Dr. Richmond, if Casey Luskin was correct in his summary of it, that: “an article in the journal Nature studied the hand bones of Lucy, and found that she had the hand bones of a knuckle-walker.” He replied:
Wow, yes, Luskin’s comment is a flagrant mischaracterization of our scientific results. Lucy did not have the hands of an active knuckle-walker. Rather, there is evidence from her anatomy that her ancestors seemed to have had knuckle-walking adaptations. (Personal correspondence dated November 22, 2021.)
This is what I gathered from his article too. Why didn’t Casey Luskin draw a more responsible and professional conclusion? Could his vision be clouded with the lenses of confirmation bias?
[8] Owen Lovejoy is alive and is a professor at Kent State University. www.kent.edu/anthropology/dr-c-owen-lovejoy
He was kind enough to share with me his response to “Monkey Bias”:
Hi Jim: Thanks for the notification and of your interest in our work. I did watch the video and I have rarely seen such colossal dishonesty in any film or video that I have ever seen. It’s amazing but terribly disheartening for the future of science that there are organized groups dispensing such trash. Sincerely, Owen (October 17, 2021)
He is correct. What they produced is nothing more than a hit piece!

Screenshots of correspondence:

Additional reading:
Baboon Bone Found In Famous Lucy Skeleton
www.techtimes.com/amp/articles/45780/20150413/baboon-bone-found-in-famous-lucy-skeleton-of-early-human-ancestor.htm

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posted by JimSpace at 3:10 PM