The Frauds of Evolution: Fraud #2, The Academicians and the Fossil Record

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The Academicians and the Fossil Record

“The tyranny in the matter of evolution is overwhelming to a degree of which the outsider has no idea.”—Dr. Thomas Dwight, Harvard University

I said in my last article that this next article would be on the famous Piltdown Man hoax but I have decided to put that off for my next article (God willing). I am still on the subject of evolutionary fraud, however. This time the subject is the fraudulent claim of abundant intermediate species in the fossil record by high level evolutionists in academia.

Since posting Fraud #1, I came across two creationist videos (apparently older, I believe from the early 80’s) that I just HAD to share with everyone here. They are very short videos, just 9 minutes and 42 seconds and 8 minutes and 51 seconds. Great things sometimes come in small packages, and that is certainly true of these two videos. I strongly urge the reader to click the links and watch them (as well as all the links in this article).

The subject matter dovetails perfectly with my comments in “Frauds of Evolution #1” about the willful prevarication of paleontologists claiming that “the fossil record supports the story of gradual adaptive change of living organisms from one species into another.” Niles Eldredge, Steven M. Stanley, Stephen Jay Gould and other evolutionists of the “punctuated equilibria” persuasion, and even a fair number of old school Darwinists, blew the whistle on this dishonesty back in the 1970’s and 1980’s, calling neo-Darwinism “effectively dead.” This all comes from within evolutionist circles and, of course, from the pages of scientific journals which, for all practical purposes, no one reads except the specialists dealing with the actual “nuts and bolts” of science.

It is not stated but the two videos appear to have been produced by creationist Luther Sunderland. Ironically, I would not have deduced this fact were it not for being directed to Luther Sunderland’s excellent book, “Darwin’s Enigma,” by evolutionist Alexander Mebane is his short book, “Darwin’s Creation Myth,” an exceedingly well-written, articulate book. (Would to God we creationists had a whole army of writers like Mebane articulating the creationist message!) Sunderland deftly conducted what may fairly be described as a creationist “sting operation” against some of the heavyweights of evolution. Mebane explains:

Sunderland was “appointed an official adviser to the New York State Education Department: discreetly concealing his views, he interrogated in 1979-1980 five museum experts (Colin Patterson, Niles Eldredge, David Raup, David Pilbeam, Donald Fisher) eliciting from them frank ‘off the record’ admissions extremely damaging to the publicly-upheld façade of orthodox Darwinism.” –”Darwin’s Creation Myth”, pg. 80, emph. supp.

In such a professional position, Sunderland would likely have been presumed to be an evolutionist and thus of like mind as the interviewees. But such was not the case. This was an undercover operation.

What a wonderfully strange and paradoxical world we live in! Mebane, remember, is an evolutionist. Mebane’s comment was way more than enough to get my attention and to get me to purchase Sunderland’s book. I wound up using it as source material in my very first article here at The Creation Club. Though I am not certain, the videos appear to be part of Sunderland’s “sting operation” which was the basis of his book because the videos present interviews with prominent evolutionists.

My focus here in this present article is the question: Why are so many “reputable,” respected and knowledgeable university professors and curators of natural history museums so willing (indeed, apparently eager) to go before the public—on video no less—and utter willful, knowing, bald-faced lies to the general public regarding evolution and the fossil record? The specific issue at hand concerns the existence or non-existence of intermediate life forms in the fossil record. Sunderland catches them “with their pants down,” as it were, contradicting themselves.

The first evolutionist under Sunderland’s microscope was Dr. Leo Hickey, Director Yale Peabody Museum. Hickey stated flatly,

“There are myriad transitional forms. There’s really no problem finding transitional forms.”

And Dr. Louis S. Russell, Director, Royal Ontario Museum:

“Well, it’s completely false to say that there’s a lacking of transitional forms because we have plenty of them, sometimes more than we can cope with.”

And Dr. Preston Cloud, Assistant Professor of Paleontology and Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at Harvard University:

“There are so many transitional forms between species that we must often fall back on statistical analysis to separate one from another.”

(My dear hominid, this is utterly inane. I don’t know about you but the kind of similarity that requires “statistical analysis” to distinguish fossil specimens from one another sounds more like identical twins to me, and hardly members of separate species. Paleontologists often divide into “lumpers” and “splitters,” a subject I won’t elaborate on here, but clearly Dr. Preston Cloud was a “splitter.”)

Then, Dr. Tim White. Professor of Anthropology, UCB: “The claim that there are no intermediates is simply a false claim.”
(Yes, Dr. White, we know: the coelacanth, etc.)

The video notes that these scientists went on to contradict themselves and to try to offer explanations of why there are NOT any transitional forms in the fossil record! The reader should be reminded at this juncture that the whole evolutionary field of “punctuated equilibria” now dominant among evolutionists is an effort on the part of evolutionists to explain the lack of intermediate forms in the fossil record.
Cloud admitted, “The problem of transitional forms is one that all honest paleontologists have a problem with. The geologic record is incomplete and it’s incomplete because of erosion.” (The “incompleteness” of the fossil record is an a priori assumption, and is convincingly contradicted by evolutionist Michael Denton in  his book “Evolution: A Theory in Crisis.”)

And Hickey: “One of the things that also makes it a little more difficult in the fossil record is the rapidity with which evolution acts in very short bursts. [This is the doctrine of “punctuated equilibria”.—T. S.] It doesn’t leave many transitional forms behind.” But Hickey had already dogmatically proclaimed there is a myriad of transitional fossil forms and no problem finding them! This kind of effrontery is breathtaking.

Sunderland then wrote to the man who was perhaps the world’s leading evolutionist, Colin Patterson, Director of the British Museum of Natural history, which houses over seven million fossils, and asked Patterson why he did not present a single example of a transitional form in one of his books. Patterson responded:

“I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I certainly would have included them…I will lay it on the line: there is not one such fossil for which one might make a watertight argument.”

Patterson is not the only prominent evolutionist to make these candid admissions. All of which proves my point: we are being deliberately lied to, and have been for a very long time now, by virtually all of the evolutionists in academia (not to mention all their media outlets). It frustrates me that the typical John Q. Public just can’t wrap his brain around the fact that our esteemed evolutionist academicians are simply snake oil peddlers selling their tall tales for the privilege of feeding (and feeding quite well) at the public trough. People have a hard time believing that degreed academicians can be so calloused morally and lie with a straight face. Believe it. It’s true. Money, prestige and (as we will see below) also fear are strong motivating forces.

So how and why is it that this misrepresentation of the facts is so widespread, so pervasive? What can account for such common and flagrant dishonesty? How and why can it be that so many reputable academicians are willing to tell deliberate, bald-faced lies about supposed intermediate forms in the fossil record?

The answer is because they are under very intense compulsion to do so: the employment environment in academia is one of intense hostility to any kind of dissent and is little different than working for the Soviet bureaucracy under the Stalinist regime in Communist Russia, or the official news agencies in Communist China. The answer is because there is a strenuously ENFORCED orthodoxy around this subject and those who get “out of line” and contradict the orthodoxy stand in very real danger of losing their jobs and everyone in academia knows it.

The tone and tenor of this orthodoxy is ultimately dictated loosely by the upper echelon of the evolutionary establishment, chief of which are the entrenched bureaucrats of the Smithsonian Institution in the United States and the British Museum of Natural History in England. Those who dream of advancing their careers in academia in any field even remotely touching upon the subject of evolution know it is wise to “go along to get along.” Failure to do so means failure to advance in your career and very possibly to have your employment terminated permanently. Prominent “heretics,” and even those who are perceived of as “collaborators in heresy,” are made examples of to teach everyone else a lesson.

One such unfortunate “collaborator” was Richard Sternberg, demoted from his job at the Smithsonian Institution because he allowed Stephen C. Meyer to publish a “peer-reviewed scientific article about the Cambrian explosion and the problem of the origin of biological information needed to explain it,” (see “Darwin’s Doubt,” by Stephen C. Meyer, pg. 209). Meyer’s article appeared in the Smithsonian’s “Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington.” The offending point was that Meyer argued that ID (Intelligent Design) could help explain the origin of biological information.
Meyer notes:

“Museum scientists and evolutionary biologists from around the country were furious with the journal and its editor, Richard Sternberg, for allowing the article to be peer-reviewed and then published. Recriminations followed. Museum officials took away Sternberg’s keys, his office, and his access to scientific samples. He was transferred from a friendly to a hostile supervisor. A congressional subcommittee staff later investigated and found that museum officials initiated an intentional disinformation campaign against Sternberg in an attempt to get him to resign. His detractors circulated false rumors: ‘Sternberg has no degree in biology’ (actually he has two Ph.D.’s, one in evolutionary biology and one in systems biology); ‘He is a priest, not a scientist’ (Sternberg is not a priest but a research scientist); ‘He is a Republican operative working for the Bush campaign’ (he was far too busy doing scientific research to be involved in political campaigns, Republican or otherwise); ‘He’s taken money to publish the article’ (not true) and so on. Eventually, despite the demonstrable falsehood of the charges, he was demoted.”—pg. 210, “Darwin’s Doubt”

Get the picture? This is the work of the Great Darwinian Propaganda Machine saying, in essence, to everyone in academia, “You see this? You step out of line and you’re next!” This is “education” by intimidation of everyone who works in academia. If a prominent official at the Smithsonian can be mistreated this way, then no one in academia is safe.

The Sternberg story was also related in Ben Stein’s documentary, “Intelligence Expelled,” which can be found on YouTube here.

Now, given such a pervasive employment environment in academia, the more rational question becomes, “Why would we ever expect the evolutionists in academia to tell the truth about this subject?” That is the more rational question. And just to make it personal, dear reader: Would YOU risk YOUR livelihood, YOUR career, YOUR reputation amongst your professional peers, and the livelihood of YOUR FAMILY, and endanger everything you had worked so hard for through years of college and in your job? The answer is probably, “No.” You would pass the buck along to the next person and hope that somebody else would do the right (and sacrificial) thing. And that is why esteemed academicians such as Dr. Leo Hickey, Dr. Louis Russell, Dr. Preston Cloud, and Dr. Tim White, ad infinitum, are willing to go on camera and tell willful, bald-faced lies about transitional forms existing in the fossil record to the public. THEY ARE JUSTIFIABLY AFRAID TO DO OTHERWISE. Now bear in mind, I am being very generous here. The only plausible alternative is that these evolutionists are happy to lie to us. I will give them the benefit of the doubt and posit that they are simply afraid to tell the truth.

So how do we assess this situation and what do we DO about it? First, we need to be realistic and squarely face up to the fact that the higher education system and the media are firmly in the grip of those who have a vested interest in 1) censoring information on biological origins, 2) repressing and suppressing information from coming forward in the first place, 3) propagating disinformation regarding evolution (as, for example, proclaiming publicly that the fossil record is full of intermediate forms), 4) and perpetrating material persecution against those who would contradict them, chiefly manifesting itself by the method of job termination, and by spreading disinformation and slander against those whom they perceive as their ideological enemies.

It is my judgment that creationists are far, far too passive in the face of such evildoing. Creationists ought to be engaged in relentless agitation against censorship and persecution. Let’s take the Richard Sternberg case, for example. Let me mention the obvious, first of all. Sternberg, an evolutionist, was open-minded enough and fair-minded enough, to allow Stephen Meyer to make his case for ID. That should have been the end of the story. But no, the evolutionists were determined to punish Sternberg for his perceived collaboration with heresy so they mounted a campaign against him personally and succeeded to push him out of his position at the Smithsonian.

Even though Sternberg is not a creationist, creationists should have stood up for him in this matter with a DEMAND made to the Smithsonian that Sternberg be given his job back and restitution made for the slander. (Some of this may have happened. I don’t pretend to be thoroughly familiar with the goings-on surrounding his case. I’m just using his case as an example.) And unless and until that was done, there should be regular and continual and very public outcry made against the injustice and unceasing denunciation made against the individual principals responsible for the injustice. The demand should be unceasing; the denunciation should be long-term, very public, and ongoing without let-up until job restoration and restitution have been performed.

Dear reader, please understand something: the scientific debate has been WON hands-down by creationists. It is OVER WITH. It does not matter which related discipline is examined, whether paleontology, geology, biochemistry, genetics, etc.  We are no longer dealing with the science but the sociology. I believe a lot of creationists do not understand this. Creationist scientists should continue with the science, but the real lack in the whole creationist cause is the failure to face up to the sociology of the matter. The Great Darwinian Propaganda Machine has a pervasive institutional grip and they are determined to keep the populace at large in a state of ignorance and false beliefs. Our primary focus needs to shift to dealing with the institutional obstacles.

All the science and a million impeccable creationist articles and videos based upon empirical science will have little impact until the censorship and persecution that exists are squarely countered. That is the true challenge before us.

 

I will return to the Piltdown Man fraud in the next installment of this series.