“Dr. Noah Efron of Bar-Ilan University in Israel, said scientists, like other people, were guided by their own human purposes, meaning and values. The idea that fact can be separated from values and meaning ‘jibes poorly with what we know of the history of science.’”1
Atheism and scienceAnthony Hurford:
“a remote possibility exists with such low track density material that without knowing it unintentional bias to influence the results either to 1.8 or 2.4 may be creeping in, either because of outside pressure (more likely in my case) or because of acceptance of an hypothesis in our minds.”2
“What was causing [Andrew] Gleadow concern was the ability to discriminate genuine as against pseudo tracks in the crystals, the reliability of counting them, and the regimen for plugging the numbers into the age computations.” He eventually came up with a method that he considered bias-free and came up with the 1.8 million year date. Hurford stated, “I was convinced that his analytical approach was right. But I wasn’t convinced that 1.8 was right. I had nailed my colors to the mast of 2.4 and I didn’t want to believe 1.8.”3
Atheism and scienceRegarding the footprints at Laetoli:
“Not only are the prints ‘remarkably similar to those of modern man,’4 says Mary Leakey, but they, ‘could only have been left by an ancestor of modern man.’ Therefore, for Mary Leakey the discovery of the footprints served to support the conclusion that the teeth and jaws described by White were indeed from members of the genus Homo. ‘The form of the prints fully confirms this,’5 she says. This line of argument rests on the assumption that only species of Homo would have feet and a gait like ours and that the footprints of Australopithecus would be somehow identifiably different: more primitive, perhaps. It is an assumption of the sort that has often been made in paleoanthropology, but it appears to be based as much on special pleading-a kind of homocentrism-as on hard evidence.”6
Atheism and scienceMatt Cartmill, Duke University anthropologist states:
“The demands of the scientific method itself force us to pursue the essential extrascientific objective of telling stories that explain our privileged status in the universe of things_The importance of our science lies in its effects on our world view-on the way people think of themselves and the universe and their place in it-which is a subject within the providence of ideology and religion, broadly defined.”7
“Edward Tyson had earlier, in 1699, unconsciously manipulated what was to be the first scientific description of a great ape, in this case a juvenile chimpanzee_In the post-Darwinian era, throughout the history of paleoanthropology, authorities would commit Tyson’s error time and time again: Neanderthal, Piltdown, Australopithecus, Ramapithecus, Zinjanthropus-each in its turn has been the object of the exaggeration of traits favored by observers whose theories demanded them.”8
Atheism and scienceJohn Durant; Oxford University has written:
“‘Could it be that, like ‘primitive’ myths, theories of human evolution reinforce the value-system of their creators by reflecting historically their image of themselves and of the society in which they live?’…’Time and again,’ observes Durant, ‘ideas about human origins turn out on closer examination to tell us as much about the present as about the past, as much about our own experiences as about those of our remote ancestors.’”9
“These peaceable theories of human origins, like the best-in-man idea, become ‘a mirror which reflected back only those aspects of human experience which its authors wanted to see_.This is precisely what we would expect of a scientific myth.’”10
“paleoanthropology alone among all the sciences operates within the fourth dimension, with humanity’s self-image invisibly but constantly influencing the profession’s ethos.”11
“no one likes to be told that the notions upon which he may have built and promoted his career have turned out to be wrong. And scientists, contrary to the myth that they themselves publicly promulgate, are emotional human beings who carry a generous dose of subjectivity with them into the supposedly ‘objective search for The Truth.’ In fact, a completely unbiased, unprejudiced exploration of nature is a methodological impossibility, as biologist and philosopher of science Sir Peter Medawar is fond of pointing out_
the way in which scientists typically report their findings, in formal papers submitted to learned journals, is, he says, ‘notorious for misrepresenting the process of thought that led to whatever discoveries they describe.’12 Preconceptions are rarely acknowledged, because this, after all, would be ‘unscientific.’ And yet preconceptions are and individual scientist’s guide to how to view the world with a degree of order that allows structured questions to be asked_
Donald “Johanson readily agrees that paleoanthropology is no different from other sciences in this respect. ‘The fossil finders themselves have often brought with them their own personal prejudices and beliefs_We see discoveries as bolstering our specific interpretation of what the family tree should look like.’13 Leakey’s view is similar. ‘In our family we were working with the human sciences, and I was never shown examples of objectivity in the true sense of what science is supposed to be like.’”14
Atheism and scienceWith regards to “emotionally charged atmosphere” and “charge of inappropriate exclusion” from accessing fossils, Donald Johanson states:
“‘Sometimes this has resulted in rather bitter rivalries,’ says Johanson, ‘with scientists breaking down communication with one another_.This is unfortunate, because it stops the development of the science. It interjects a distasteful form of elitism, because it sometimes results in instances where-it has been recently written-only those in the inner circle get to see the fossils; only those who agree with the particular interpretation of a particular investigator are allowed to see the fossils.’Virtually every anthropologist has a tale or two to tell about a rival professional improperly preventing others from working on fossils in his possession. ‘There are lots of ways of simply making it difficult for someone to come to your lab and work with the fossils, if you choose not to have them come,’ comments one senior anthropologist. ‘You don’t have to be so obvious and crude as to say ‘No,’ even if that’s what you really intend.’
Of course, even when a curator of fossils has genuine reasons for suggesting to a fellow anthropologist a more convenient time to come to his lab, for example, or for imposing some kind of restriction on publication, such responses can easily be misinterpreted as malicious attempts to prevent access, and not infrequently they are.”15
Atheism and scienceErnst Mayr is the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology, Emeritus, of Harvard University and “has probably dome as much as anyone to advance evolutionary theory and to entrench it at the core of all biological thought_He’s one of the founders of modern neo-Darwinism and has restored natural selection to a central place in the theory of evolution.”Mayr has stated:
“Mendelian genetics did not seem to support the possibility of gradual adaptive changes, which Darwinism required. Geneticists favored the idea that species evolved suddenly through massive mutations. ‘But we naturalists realized that species develop gradually. The only evolutionary theory that was gradual was Lamarckism, and so to oppose the mutationists, we all became Lamarckians.”16
“‘virtually all our theories about human origins were relatively unconstrained by fossil data,’ observes David Pilbeam.17 ‘The theories are_fossil-free or in some cases even fossil-proof.’ This shocking statement simply means that there is and always has been far more fleshing out of the course and cause of human evolution than can fully be justified by the scrappy skeleton provided by the fossils. As a result, he continues, ‘our theories have often said far more about the theorists than they have about what actually happened.’”18
Atheism and science
Regarding a fixation on the view of Asian origins:
“it also led to the very ready acceptance into the human family of the most meager of fossil evidence-a single tooth-which first came out of Chou Kou Tien, the famous Peking Man site_’Far from the bones being objective facts to be judged as evidence, there was an established pattern of belief. There was a climate of opinion that favored discoveries made in Asia but not the ‘silly notion’ of small-brained bipeds from Africa.’”19
Loring Brace regarding the La Chapelle-aux-Saints Neanderthal fossil:
“There is no trace of evidence that Neanderthals had exceptionally divergent great toes or that they were forced to walk orang-like on the outer edge of their feet; there is no evidence that they were unable fully to extend their knee joints; there is no evidence that their spinal columns lacked the convexities necessary for fully erect posture, there is no evidence that the head was slung forward on a peculiarly short and thick neck.”20
“The real interest of Piltdown, however, is not so much where on the family tree-or bush-it was hung, but how those who believed in the fossil saw in it what they wanted to see. Remember, that cranial parts were those of modern man_And the jaw is that of a modern orangutan, chemically treated to make it look like a fossil and with cheek teeth filed down to make them look humanlike. Given this mischievous chimera, this is what was said of them. ‘The Piltdown skull, when properly reconstructed, is found to possess strongly simian peculiarities,’ noted Elliot Smith. ‘In respect of these features it harmonizes completely with the jaw, the simian form of which has not only been admitted, but also exaggerated by most writers.’21
In other words, Elliot Smith was able to see signs of humanity in the orang jaw and features of an ape in the human cranium.’ That the jaw and cranial fragments_belonged to the same creature there has never been any doubt on the part of those who have seriously studied the matter.’”22
“Even as recently as the 1970s, professional anthropologists would assume, on the flimsiest of evidence or more usually on no evidence at all, that the australopithecines’ bipedalism was an ungainly, energetically inefficient ‘stagger’_In fact, proper anatomical analysis has shown australopithecines’ locomotion to have been perhaps even more efficient than that of Homo sapiens. Here again was an example of that old problem of differences being exaggerated while similarities were minimized.”23
Atheism and science
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