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

John Wilkins (wilkins@wehi.edu.au)
Wed, 13 Nov 1996 10:08:53 +1100

In article <3287553b.34560842@netnews.worldnet.att.net>, fmurray@pobox.com
wrote:

|and steve "chris" price put in:
|
|>This is rich! Can anybody is the sci.* groups take Ed seriously anymore?
|
|several others added mocking words of their own...but none rose to
|meet the challenge of ed conrad's claim that:
|
|>Fact is, the few bits and pieces of what they called ``Lucy" -- to go
|>with the vast majority of manmade bonelike additions that were used to
|>fill the many gaps -- weren't even found in close proximity.
|>
|>Truth is, ``Lucy" is a mosaic of a few bones that were found over a
|>square mile.
|
|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...if ed's claim
|is substantially correct, they should so state, and then present
|arguments of interpretation...
|
|the argument that: "i don't agree with you, so you had better shut up,
|or i'll have you thrown out of here" may prevail within parts of
|academia, but this is the net....

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. That is perhaps why it was
suggested that replies should follow-up to t.o, where this sort of
egregious misrepresentation of the facts is dealt with daily.

-- 

John Wilkins, Head of Communication Services, Walter and Eliza

Hall Institute of Medical Research

<http://www.wehi.edu.au/~wilkins><mailto:wilkins@wehi.edu.au>

AUSTRALIA, n.  A country lying in the South Sea, whose industrial and

commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate

dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an island.

                            _The Devil's Dictionary_ by Ambrose Bierce