Re: LUCY: ``Yes, we have no bananas!"

Paul Z. Myers (myers@astro.ocis.temple.edu)
Thu, 14 Nov 1996 10:05:44 -0500

In article <3289792b.3697880@netnews.worldnet.att.net>, fmurray@pobox.com wrote:

>On Wed, 13 Nov 1996 10:08:53 +1100, wilkins@wehi.edu.au (John Wilkins)
>wrote:
>
>>In article <3287553b.34560842@netnews.worldnet.att.net>, fmurray@pobox.com
>>wrote:
>
>>>|i suggest that if these worthies are to continue to post to sci.
>>>|groups, they should take that "sci." seriously, drop the ad hominem
>>>|attacks on ed, and post evidence refuting ed's claim..
>
>>And it was refuted in talk.origins, with the usual amount of t.o ad homina,
>>but citing sources. IIRC, Lucy was found within an area of 11 square feet.
>>I suppose one could argue that on an astronomical scale it's within an
>>order of magnitude of one square mile.
>>
>>Conrad has taken a real licking in t.o because there are too many people
>>there familiar with the primary literature.
>
>and yet despite this familiarity with the primary literature we find
>that:
>
>steve geller refuted ed by writing:
>>A "square mile" should be more like 10 square meters or so.
>
>graeme kennedy refuted ed by writing:
>>The consensus is that this is a 40% complete skeleton, including symmetry.
>>Johanson's "Lucy" describes the finding of the bones for this individual:
>>the largest distance between pieces was about eleven feet.
>
>socrates (presumably a late version) refuted ed by writing:
>>ACtually 70% of the entire skeleton was found and all within a few
>>hundered yards. Also since then several other examples of the same
>>species have been found. We now have several examples with well over
>>50% of the skeleton.
>
>jim foley refuted ed by writing:
>>Lucy was found within a small area. A knee joint found a year earlier
>>and about 1.5 km away was a separate find and has never been claimed to
>>be a part of Lucy, creationist claims to the contrary notwithstanding.
>
>what i find interesting here is that the ratio of the largest
>refuter's figure to the smallest refuter's figure is larger than the
>ratio of ed's figure to the largest refuter's figure...this becomes
>true if we take socrates "few hundred yards" to mean a figure above
>approx. 132 feet...as we use a larger value for socrate's "few hundred
>yards" (his phrase justifies using a larger value), the ratio between
>the largest of the refuter's figure and the smallest of the refuter's
>figures becomes a multiple of the ratio between ed's figure and the
>largest of the refuter's figures....
>
>perhaps something might be wrong with the refuter's figures??...
>
>frank

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-- 
Paul Z. Myers myers@astro.ocis.temple.edu
Dept. of Biology myers@netaxs.com
Temple University http://fishnet.bio.temple.edu/
Philadelphia, PA 19122 (215) 204-8848