Scientist Flubs and Flops, #4

               

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• There is little evidence of widespread adaptive evolution in our own species...Hominids appear to have undergone very little adaptive evolution." -- Biologist Adam Eyrie Walker, 2006, "The Genomic Rate of Adaptive Evolution." 
• "What gambler would be crazy enough to play roulette with random evolution? The probability of dust carried by the wind reproducing Durer's 'Melancholia' is less infinitesimal than the probability of copy errors in the DNA molecule leading to the formation of the eye...There is no law against daydreaming, but science must not indulge in it." -- Biologist Pierre-Paul Grasse (link). 
• "Natural selection acting on populations is incapable of guiding evolution." -- Biologist Pierre-Paul Grasse (link). 
• "The Lamarckian and Darwinian theories, in whatever form, do not resolve the major evolutionary problem -- that of the genesis of the main systematic units, the fundamental organizational schemes." --Biologist Pierre-Paul Grasse, "Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation" (link). 
•  "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged." -- Statement signed by about 1000 scientists (link).
• "The open-ended generation of novelty does not fit cleanly in the paradigmatic frameworks of either biology or physics."  -- A paper by six scientists. 
• To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion the carries the same validity as a bedtime story -- amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific."  -- Evolutionary biologist Henry Gee (link).
• "Countries where fossil fakes are common include Peru, Colombia, Russia, USA, Germany, France, and (especially) Morocco and China. The biggest markets for these fakes are in the USA, Morocco and China. The US market is also the leader in the trade of fakes and the Internet provides a ready source for them. Sale and auction websites on the Internet are an ideal way for selling fake fossils. Other outlets for selling fake fossils are the numerous mineral and fossil fairs organised around the world, and the more important the fair, the larger the number of fakes.... An important fact to emphasise is that, since China became open to commerce, fakes have increased by more than 500% as a result of the massive demand for Chinese fossils. The variety and magnitude of Chinese fake fossils is endless. They include every kind of forgery, from fakes made of pieces of different specimens (dinosaurs, turtles and crocodiles), to copies made completely of plaster (turtles, crocodiles and sabre-toothed cat skulls)." -- Two natural history museum curators (link).