Creationist wants $60,000 for rare mastodon - January 08, 2008
In something of a no-win situation for science a creationist fossil hunter is selling of a massive – and massively rare – fossil mastodon for tens of thousands of dollars. So either a valuable specimen disappears into private hands or public research money goes to a man whose museum proudly declares it is “Digging up the facts of God’s Creation: One fossil at a time.”
The fossil in question is a four-toothed mastodon head of a size never before uncovered - roughly a metre on each side. Opening bids must be at least $60,000. and online bids are now being taken. A floor auction is scheduled for 20 January in Dallas (auction page).
The mastodon is currently in the possession of the impressively bearded Joe Taylor, director and curator of the Mt. Blanco Fossil Museum in Crosbyton, Texas, and “the world’s only creationist field palaeontologist”. His views are unorthodox enough that at first I thought his museum’s website was a spoof. For a start it provides the opportunity to purchase casts of ‘ancient Peruvian burial stones’ that prove humans and dinosaurs co-existed. Then there’s this:
We believe that evolution is an old-fashioned theory not substantiated by facts, and that what the Bible says is more scientifically accurate. Our museum shows that there was a worldwide flood only a few thousand years ago.
...
Q. Do you think Noah took dinosaurs on the ark?
A. Absolutely. We can show you why.
So how important is this fossil? The man behind the *Megalania1859 blog says only two other known mastodon fossils have the extra vestigial tusks, a hangover from “shovel-tusker” ancestors. It is, he says, “Truly a remarkable find.”
Sadly, as PZ Myers points out, “We can’t win this one. Even if it’s bought by a reputable museum and studied scientifically, it still means that this creationist is going to get a huge chunk of change to use in promoting more lies.”
Interestingly, according to the Help Joe Taylor website a previous disagreement over the ownership of a fossil find means he needs rather a lot of money.
Pictures of the beast and more on the Mt Blanco website.
Comments
Oh, so Creationists tell lies, and Evolutionists don't?
PZ Myers wrote: "this creationist is going to get a huge chunk of change to use in promoting more lies"
Do Evolutionists want this specimen for free, so that they can spread their false propaganda that their theories are facts?
The trail of Evolutionary 'science' is littered with fraud and falsehood.
Just think of Piltdown man to start off with.
Then for example, Evolutionists indoctrinate students with Haeckel's fraudulent re-capitulation teaching. Neanderthal nonsense has been and possibly is still being taught - that they were missing links. You Evolutionists would probably be saying the same thing about Aborigines — if they became extinct (perish the thought) — if they as a people had never been documented or encountered before.
Evolutionary science has not been able to explain many things which contradict its basic tenets. Evolutionists either believe in Spontaneous Generation over billions of years of slime and chance, or in 'starwars' Panspermia. At 'varsity we were taught that primordial soup was the answer.
And you have the nerve to criticize Creationists?
Posted by: David | January 9, 2008 09:08 AM
Sounds like David has been imbibing some of his "primordial soup".
Evolution has peer review to ensure any frauds and falsehoods are eventually discovered, as indeed those mentioned (Piltdown, Haeckel) have been.
Sadly, the lies and falsehoods of creationism are writ in stone (as it were) in the form of the first five books of the Bible - a collection of bronze-age myths and thereby unfalsifiable and unscientific.
And David has the nerve to say critcize "Evolutionists" (whatever they are)
Posted by: Peasemold | January 9, 2008 12:57 PM
Actually, he said he only knew of two other specimens like it. There are probably a couple others. But it is sad. Lousy creationists.
Posted by: Warren Roberts | January 15, 2008 03:47 AM
If the skull can be had for a bargain price than I say a museum (or a group intending to donate it to a museum) should buy it. Scientific knowledge stands on it's own merits, not on economic competition against creationism and I.D. groups.
Posted by: Brad | January 18, 2008 05:18 AM