Below are snippets taken from an article in New Scientist written by Jason Palmer titled: Deer-like fossil is a missing link in whale evolution.
-A racoon-sized mammal which lived in India about 48 million years ago, may represent one of the missing links in whale evolution, suggests a new fossil study.
-Researchers studying 48-million-year-old fossils of Indohyus, an extinct animal which may have looked like a small deer, from ancient riverbeds in Kashmir suggest that the fossils represent a likely ancestor of the cetaceans.
-Indohyus belongs to a family known as raoellids and would have lived around the same time as early cetaceans, both having descended from a common ancestor, they suggest. Indohyus belongs to a family known as raoellids and would have lived around the same time as early cetaceans, both having descended from a common ancestor, they suggest.
-Now Thewissen’s study of fossils of the artiodactyl Indohyus may have filled this evolutionary hole.
Shall I go on? I think I will stop there.
You can read the entire article here.
A question:
-If an article is written in such a way as to use language as this, what are the author/researchers really saying?
5 comments:
Probably something like "I'm trying to sound intelligent but I really have no evidence supporting what I'm saying so I'll use words like 'may' and 'suggest' to compensate for the deficit".
Hey J-razz...all I wanted to say was that we were watching "One Night With the King" tonight and all I could really think about for a little while was how much the guy who plays Haman looks like you. Well, except for the weird thing he wears on his finger. I don't think you have one of those.
They're not really saying anything until someone challenges their presuppositions on which the edifice of evolution is built.
Then what they believe becomes gospel truth and pity the soul that asks any questions or raises any doubt.
Then those who don't believe in heretics all of a sudden start dropping the label on those that disagree with the establishment's well-guarded ideas.
I speak from personal experience...
Laz,
How have you maintained your job believing what you do and yet working in a field that appears to be hostile to such beliefs?
j razz
I have probably maintained my job since I'm not faculty, and I cannot be since I do not have a have PhD.
Given the typical attitude towards those of us without doctorates ("Oh what do they know they're not as educated as we are and thus they are ignorant"), our views on such things are not taken as seriously by our more highly educated colleagues.
My views on evolutionary theory (even when understood properly, often they're not because, well evolutionists have a way of letting emotion get in the way of discussion) are dismissed as the reveries of someone who is not as educated, and thus cannot shed any light on anything. I've found that it's not good to ask awkward questions if you want to avoid getting yelled at.
Not trying to garner pity, just relating my experience and observations.
To be sure, I know of at least 2 creationists who are faculty (they have scientific PhDs) and are actually conducting research here (one in leukemia and the other in endocrinology). Neither sees any conflict (I've asked them) between the Christian faith and their research (gasp!)
Of course I don't think they have made their views known to their esteemed evolutionist colleagues, the fact that they're still here might testify to my assumption.
Perhaps Ben Stein's movie might shed some light on this.
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