Re: MOST IMPORTANT FOSSIL (A human skull as old as coal!)

Paul Myers (myers@netaxs.com)
Sat, 02 Nov 1996 10:04:09 -0500

In article <55fg16$5hm@news.ptd.net>, edconrad@prolog.net (Ed Conrad) wrote:

> Paul V. Heinrich (heinrich@intersurf.com) passed along
> the following distress message to his shipmates aboard
> the Titanic II (at sci.anthropology, sci.anthropology.paleo,
> sci.archaeology and alt.archaeology):
>
> > Ed Conrad (edconrad@prolog.net) wrote:
> >
> > The WORLD'S MOST IMPORTANT FOSSIL, unquestionably,
> > is a petrified human skull embedded in a boulder which was
> > discovered between anthracite veins in Carboniferous
> > strata near Shenandoah, Pa.
>
> These so-called fossils have been objectively and honestly
> studied by Andrew MaCrea and others in detail and found to
> be nothing more than siderite nodules mistaken by an
> overactive imagination to be fossils.
>
> In simple English, they are rocks composed of sand and
> silt cemented by iron carbonate.
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~
> >> Paul:
> >> Unfortunately, you're blowing is hot air -- again!.
> >> Andrew Macrae and ``others" certainly have NOT operated
> >> with honesty and integrity in this matter.

As one of the "others", I can say that you WERE dealt with in a
perfectly above board and honest manner. The _fact_ that we saw
things (or a lack of things) in your specimens is your sole reason
for the calumny you are using.

>
> >> He -- and they -- continue to conceal a scientific fact
> >> that bone, when it petrifies, retains only the Haversian canals
> >> because the structure surrounding the Haversian canals
> >> has been displaced by the petrification process.
>
> >> Hence, for you -- and them -- to insist that the cellular structure
> >> of non-petrified bone MUST be a mirror image of the cellular structure
> >> of petrified bone is downright deceiptful and dishonest.

Nobody has EVER insisted on this. You have been told over and over and
over again that perfect fidelity of reproduction is never expected or
required, yet you persist in pretending that that ridiculous demand has
been made. I call THAT deceit and dishonesty.

>
> >> Need I remind you once again -- for the umpteeth time --
> >> of the rather eloquent words of Thomas A. Edison:
>
> >> ``The right to search for truth implies also a duty;
> >> one must not conceal any part of what one
> >> has recognized to be true."
>

Think about that quote a little more deeply, Ed. You have posted multiple
copies of this message independently to umpteen different newsgroups. There
have been several commentaries and refutations made in talk.origins, at least,
which, because of the way you spam these things into the net, do not appear
in most of the other newsgroups. It seems to me that you have been making a
willful effort to conceal any dissent. This is particularly evident in that
you refuse to include any links to Andrew MacRae's substantial efforts to
analyze your specimens in your web page.

Heinrich made his comments in several anthropology and archaeology newsgroups
that I see are absent from the distribution of this particular message --
I suspect, though, that you will have also sent this same complaint to those
newsgroups independently, in the hope that the familiar derision you get
on talk.origins and sci.skeptic will not find their way to your other
venues. Sorry, guy, but we're going to use this "open forum for the free
exchange of ideas" that you like so much to track you down and make sure
the truth is distributed, as well as your delusions.

> >> Meanwhile, Paul, your reference -- once again -- to my specimens
> >> of petrified bone being siderite nodules can only make me wonder
> >> if it's at all possible that a portion of the human brain can be
transformed
> >> to a siderite nodule while that individual is still alive.

-- 

Paul Myers                               Department of Biology

myers@netaxs.com                         Temple University

http://fishnet.bio.temple.edu/           Philadelphia, PA 19122