Sunday, March 24, 2013

Argument from fossil forgeries

Many creationists keep repeating the half dozen most famous fossil forgeries (and at least one misinterpretation of events) over and over like parrots, as if that had anything to do with whether the theory of evolution is true or not, completely ignoring the facts.

People create forgeries of all kinds of things, usually for money or fame. Forgeries of historical and archaeological artifacts are being made all the time. Sometimes forgeries of fossils are made. This is something that just happens, and there's nothing that can be done to avoid it, other than study carefully all alleged findings that are of potential importance to determine their authenticity.

And that's the main point: How exactly do we know that those fossil forgeries are indeed forgeries? Because the people who have the necessary expertise, the scientists, are examining those fossils and determining whether they are genuine or not. In other words, the same people who creationists claim are trying to fool us into believing a false theory.

So why, exactly, would the "evolutionists" (as creationists call them) expose their own forgeries, if their intent is to deceive us into believing that they are genuine and to promote the theory of evolution?

Moreover, the claim is that "evolutionists" are trying to fool us with all kinds of fossil forgeries, and the half dozen famous examples are cited. Never are any names or actual examples presented of this happening in the present. If you ask them "who exactly is trying to pass these forgeries as genuine?" they never answer the question.

What's really happening is that individual persons are creating forgeries for profit or fame, and the scientific community are exposing them, as they should. This is exactly what one should expect to happen. It's unfortunate that some individuals are trying to make money from this, but it's inevitable. The important thing is that these forgeries are studied and exposed as such.

One thing that these creationists never acknowledge is that hundreds and hundreds of forgeries of biblical artifacts have been created during the history of humanity. By their own logic that should mean that the biblical stories are likewise false. But no, this is somehow different, even though they cannot explain why.

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