Can I Get a Design Inference?

Intelligent design advocates are fond of trying to claim archaeology is a fellow design science – basically the part of archaeology that deals with identifying whether an item is an artifact (and hence designed) or a product of natural processes. The rest of archaeology – the part where archaeologists use the patterned distribution of artifacts […]

Stupid Creationist Quote of the Week

Today we have comments by two commenters at UD. First up is a commenter named Barb. Barb left a rather lengthy comment talking about Lucy. The part that earned her a “stupid creationist quote” award is this: The paucity of fossil evidence makes knowing all of human evolutionary history impossible. The best evidence for Lucy […]

Know Your Anthropology Literature: Ecobotanical Contexts for African Hominids

Ecobotanical Contexts for African Hominids, by O’Brien and Peters, was published in a book edited by J. Desmond Clark entitled Cultural Beginnings: Approaches to Understanding Early Hominid Life-Ways in the African Savanna. O’Brien and Peters describe the work they are doing on a project called “Survey of the Wild Edible Plants of Africa”. The point […]

Sunday Need to Read: The Backlog Keeps Growing

I seem to be acquiring papers quicker than I can read them. It doesn’t help the my printer is out of ink and I hate reading pdfs on the computer…a problem which should be remedied later this week.

What We Can Learn From Bones: Paleodiets, Early Hominins, and Mole Rats, Part Two

Before going further, let me remind readers of the purpose behind “What We Can Learn From Bones.” Creationists like to make two main claims about paleoanthropology. First, they claim that all we have are bone fragments and teeth, and by implication, that we can learn nothing from bone fragments and teeth. Second, they claim that […]

Note to DaveScot: Hominin Fossils Would Fill a Coffin Many Times Over

Over at UD DaveScot makes a claim profoundly at odds with reality (no surprise there, eh). Specifically, in the thread that about MacCallum’s PLOS article Davescot says: All the hominid fossils we have wouldn’t fill a single coffin. I guess DaveScot doesn’t know that over 400 Neanderthal fossils have been discovered. Many such as at […]

Intelligent Design and Human Evolution: Part II (One from the Archives)

Having provided the necessary background (which Luskin conviniently omitted) I continued my series… Turning to the next section is like a breath of fresh air – even though it’s completely wrong at least it’s capable of being understood.

Intelligent Design and Human Evolution: Part II

Turning to the next section is like a breath of fresh air – even though it’s completely wrong at least it’s capable of being understood. Limitations of Paleoanthropological Methods, Datasets, and Studies In this sections Luskin purports to critique palaeoanthropology. He starts out with a quote by Gould to the effect that “most hominid fossils…are […]