Hoax of the Century

[Danno 1,228]

Hoax of the Century

by Patrick J. Buchanan

03/02/2010

With publication of "On the Origin of Species" in 1859, the hunt was on for the "missing link." Fame and fortune awaited the scientist who found the link proving Darwin right: that man evolved from a monkey.

In 1912, success! In a gravel pit near Piltdown in East Sussex, there was found the cranium of a man with the jaw of an ape.

"Darwin Theory Proved True," ran the banner headline.

Evolution skeptics were pilloried, and three English scientists were knighted for validating Piltdown Man.

It wasn't until 1953, after generations of biology students had been taught about Piltdown Man, that closer inspection discovered that the cranium belonged to a medieval Englishman, the bones had been dyed to look older and the jaw belonged to an orangutan whose teeth had been filed down to look human.

The scientific discovery of the century became the hoax of the century. But Piltdown Man was not alone. There was Nebraska Man.

In 1922, Henry Fairfield Osborn, president of the American Museum of Natural History, identified a tooth fossil found in Nebraska to be that of an "anthropoid ape." He used his discovery to mock William Jennings Bryan, newly elected to Congress, as "the most distinguished primate which the State of Nebraska has yet produced."

Invited to testify at the Scopes trial, however, Osborn begged off. For, by 1925, Nebraska Man's tooth had been traced to a wild pig, and Creationist Duane Gish, a biochemist, had remarked of Osborn's Nebraska Man, "I believe this is a case in which a scientist made a man out of a pig, and the pig made a monkey out of the scientist."

These stories are wonderfully told in Eugene Windchy's 2009 "The End of Darwinism." But if Piltdown Man and his American cousin Nebraska Man were the hoaxes of the 20th century, global warming is the great hoax of the 21st. In a matter of months, what have we learned:

-- In its 2007 report claiming that the Himalayan glaciers are melting, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change relied on a 1999 news story in a popular science journal, based on one interview with a little-known Indian scientist who said this was pure "speculation," not supported by any research. The IPCC also misreported the supposed date of the glaciers' meltdown as 2035. The Indian had suggested 2350.

-- The IPCC report that global warming is going to kill 40 percent of the Amazon rainforest and cut African crop yields 50 percent has been found to be alarmist propaganda.

-- The IPCC 2007 report declared 55 percent of Holland to be below sea level, an exaggeration of over 100 percent.

-- While endless keening is heard over the Arctic ice cap, we hear almost nothing of the 2009 report of the British Antarctica Survey that the sea ice cap of Antarctica has been expanding by 100,000 square kilometers a decade for 30 years. That translates into 3,800 square miles of new Antarctic ice every year.

-- Though America endured one of the worst winters ever, while the 2009 hurricane season was among the mildest, the warmers say this proves nothing. But when our winters were mild and the 2005 hurricane season brought four major storms to the U.S. coast, Katrina among them, the warmers said this validated their theory.

You can't have it both ways.

-- The Climate Research Center at East Anglia University, which provides the scientific backup for the IPCC, apparently threw out the basic data on which it based claims of a rise in global temperatures for the century. And a hacker into its e-mail files found CLC "scientists" had squelched the publication of dissenting views.

What we learned in a year's time: Polar bears are not vanishing. Sea levels are not rising at anything like the 20-foot surge this century was to bring. Cities are not sinking. Beaches are not disappearing. Temperatures have not been rising since the late 1990s. And, in historic terms, our global warming is not at all unprecedented.

How horrible was it?

"The Vikings discovered and settled Greenland around A.D. 950. Greenland was then so warm that thousands of colonists supported themselves by pasturing cattle on what is now frozen tundra. During this great global warming, Europe built the looming castles and soaring cathedrals that even today stun tourists with their size, beauty and engineering excellence. These colossal buildings required the investment of millions of man-hours -- which could be spared from farming because of higher crop yields."

Today's global warming hysteria is the hoax of the 21st century. H.L. Mencken had it right: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and hence clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

[Niels Bohr 72]

When did Patrick Buchanan became an Anthtrolopoligist.

Hoax of the Century

by Patrick J. Buchanan

03/02/2010

With publication of "On the Origin of Species" in 1859, the hunt was on for the "missing link." Fame and fortune awaited the scientist who found the link proving Darwin right: that man evolved from a monkey.

In 1912, success! In a gravel pit near Piltdown in East Sussex, there was found the cranium of a man with the jaw of an ape.

"Darwin Theory Proved True," ran the banner headline.

Evolution skeptics were pilloried, and three English scientists were knighted for validating Piltdown Man.

It wasn't until 1953, after generations of biology students had been taught about Piltdown Man, that closer inspection discovered that the cranium belonged to a medieval Englishman, the bones had been dyed to look older and the jaw belonged to an orangutan whose teeth had been filed down to look human.

The scientific discovery of the century became the hoax of the century. But Piltdown Man was not alone. There was Nebraska Man.

In 1922, Henry Fairfield Osborn, president of the American Museum of Natural History, identified a tooth fossil found in Nebraska to be that of an "anthropoid ape." He used his discovery to mock William Jennings Bryan, newly elected to Congress, as "the most distinguished primate which the State of Nebraska has yet produced."

Invited to testify at the Scopes trial, however, Osborn begged off. For, by 1925, Nebraska Man's tooth had been traced to a wild pig, and Creationist Duane Gish, a biochemist, had remarked of Osborn's Nebraska Man, "I believe this is a case in which a scientist made a man out of a pig, and the pig made a monkey out of the scientist."

These stories are wonderfully told in Eugene Windchy's 2009 "The End of Darwinism." But if Piltdown Man and his American cousin Nebraska Man were the hoaxes of the 20th century, global warming is the great hoax of the 21st. In a matter of months, what have we learned:

-- In its 2007 report claiming that the Himalayan glaciers are melting, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change relied on a 1999 news story in a popular science journal, based on one interview with a little-known Indian scientist who said this was pure "speculation," not supported by any research. The IPCC also misreported the supposed date of the glaciers' meltdown as 2035. The Indian had suggested 2350.

-- The IPCC report that global warming is going to kill 40 percent of the Amazon rainforest and cut African crop yields 50 percent has been found to be alarmist propaganda.

-- The IPCC 2007 report declared 55 percent of Holland to be below sea level, an exaggeration of over 100 percent.

-- While endless keening is heard over the Arctic ice cap, we hear almost nothing of the 2009 report of the British Antarctica Survey that the sea ice cap of Antarctica has been expanding by 100,000 square kilometers a decade for 30 years. That translates into 3,800 square miles of new Antarctic ice every year.

-- Though America endured one of the worst winters ever, while the 2009 hurricane season was among the mildest, the warmers say this proves nothing. But when our winters were mild and the 2005 hurricane season brought four major storms to the U.S. coast, Katrina among them, the warmers said this validated their theory.

You can't have it both ways.

-- The Climate Research Center at East Anglia University, which provides the scientific backup for the IPCC, apparently threw out the basic data on which it based claims of a rise in global temperatures for the century. And a hacker into its e-mail files found CLC "scientists" had squelched the publication of dissenting views.

What we learned in a year's time: Polar bears are not vanishing. Sea levels are not rising at anything like the 20-foot surge this century was to bring. Cities are not sinking. Beaches are not disappearing. Temperatures have not been rising since the late 1990s. And, in historic terms, our global warming is not at all unprecedented.

How horrible was it?

"The Vikings discovered and settled Greenland around A.D. 950. Greenland was then so warm that thousands of colonists supported themselves by pasturing cattle on what is now frozen tundra. During this great global warming, Europe built the looming castles and soaring cathedrals that even today stun tourists with their size, beauty and engineering excellence. These colossal buildings required the investment of millions of man-hours -- which could be spared from farming because of higher crop yields."

Today's global warming hysteria is the hoax of the 21st century. H.L. Mencken had it right: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and hence clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

[Peikko 1,575]

Danno just eats up junk journalism - he loves it.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

My vote for Hoax of the Century goes to:

[Danno 1,228]

Danno just eats up junk journalism - he loves it.

Might be more enlightening.. if not entertaining if you poked a hole in just one point made in the article.

Come on. show us what the Queens Education can really do.

[Peikko 1,575]

You remember all that stuff about articles with false premises? This is another one Danno. Now, if you want to lap all this stuff up, that's fine by me, really, I just find it funny that you don't see how you are being manipulated, but, if you don't, you don't. Not one thing I can do about it.

[Danno 1,228]

You remember all that stuff about articles with false premises? This is another one Danno. Now, if you want to lap all this stuff up, that's fine by me, really, I just find it funny that you don't see how you are being manipulated, but, if you don't, you don't. Not one thing I can do about it.

Just to have a little more fun with you MC.

Since you can't name even one point of "junk" let's try it another why to highlight your vacant self,

What is your number one legit writer?.... (not that you agree all the time of course).

[Peikko 1,575]

Just to have a little more fun with you MC.

Since you can't name even one point of "junk" let's try it another why to highlight your vacant self,

What is your number one legit writer?.... (not that you agree all the time of course).

I did name one, the premise on which the article is based, it's false. If you understood how essay writing works, you would know that it is very structured, it's not a series of disjointed ramblings. However, if the fundamental question that the essay seeks to answer is either simply wrong, or a bad question, then the working of the argument is irrelevant, no matter how beautifully crafted.

As to which article writers I personally admire, well, in what context? I like a lot of different writers, some I admire simply because they have such a beautiful command of the English language, but in terms of what is interesting as regards politically, I don't favour one writer over another. If they have a sensible point to argue, I'll read it and enjoy it, no matter if I do agree or disagree with their conclusions.

[Danno 1,228]

I did name one, the premise on which the article is based, it's false. If you understood how essay writing works, you would know that it is very structured, it's not a series of disjointed ramblings. However, if the fundamental question that the essay seeks to answer is either simply wrong, or a bad question, then the working of the argument is irrelevant, no matter how beautifully crafted.

As to which article writers I personally admire, well, in what context? I like a lot of different writers, some I admire simply because they have such a beautiful command of the English language, but in terms of what is interesting as regards politically, I don't favour one writer over another. If they have a sensible point to argue, I'll read it and enjoy it, no matter if I do agree or disagree with their conclusions.

PLease, if I may, give me a few names of these writers.

[Peikko 1,575]

Why? Seriously, it's not about who is doing the writing, but about how they do it. If an article is well researched you can tell, it's not that hard.

You like opinion pieces, fine, but at least make sure that the premise that the piece is based on holds water, otherwise you are simply having your emotional strings tugged which is fine unless you believe, which you seem to do, that such an article holds some definitive truth within it. It doesn't, it can't, it's based on something that is false. It's like building a house on sand.

You know what online papers I read, I've posted often enough.

[mawilson 2,133]

Danno just eats up junk journalism - he loves it.

Well the "Piltdown Man" really was a hoax.

And Greenland really was green.

[Peikko 1,575]

That's a classic device, inject a couple of facts in order to lull the reader into believing that the rest of the article is also true. However, despite this obvious attempt at sleight of hand, the premise is still #######.

[Danno 1,228]

That's a classic device, inject a couple of facts in order to lull the reader into believing that the rest of the article is also true. However, despite this obvious attempt at sleight of hand, the premise is still #######.

The problem we have here is, since you have not named one false point, you have no wind in your sail.

Unless you are suggesting -all points are true but it is overall false?

[Peikko 1,575]

The problem we have here is, since you have not named one false point, you have no wind in your sail.

Unless you are suggesting -all points are true but it is overall false?

No Danno, I am not saying that. Do you know what a premise is? If you build an argument around something that is not true, or something that is irrelevant, the argument may make sense in and of itself, but it has not merit because the premise is false or irrelevant.

I don't really mind if you don't understand what I am trying to tell you, but I do find it strange that you can't see when an article is based on research and fact as apposed to an ideological opinion.

I don't know how many ways to tell you, that the premise is false, wrong not true and irrelevant.

[Danno 1,228]

No Danno, I am not saying that. Do you know what a premise is? If you build an argument around something that is not true, or something that is irrelevant, the argument may make sense in and of itself, but it has not merit because the premise is false or irrelevant.

I don't really mind if you don't understand what I am trying to tell you, but I do find it strange that you can't see when an article is based on research and fact as apposed to an ideological opinion.

I don't know how many ways to tell you, that the premise is false, wrong not true and irrelevant.

I do thank you for your efforts to help me understand but really this is not a trick question such as....When did you stop beating your wife.

Where is the false premise? that these former examples were not hoaxes?

That the latter example of G Warming is not a hoax?

That "settled Science" is really settled?

From what I recall the overall premise was The greatest hoaxes we have seen have been in science and we are on the thresh hold of a new one.