Archaeoraptor was a fake
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Claim
Archaeoraptor was touted by scientists as the dinosaur-bird transition, but it was revealed as a fake.
Source
- Austin, S.A., 2000 (Mar). Archaeoraptor: Feathered dinosaur from National Geographic doesn't fly. Impact #321. [1]
Responses
- Archaeoraptor was indeed not a legitimate fossil. However, it was never included in textbooks and never supported as valid in biology journals (in fact, just the opposite: it was attacked). Articles making claims about it were rushed into publication by a popular consumer science magazine, but the magazine retracted when archaeoraptor's authenticity was debunked and since then took steps to avoid rushing to conclusions in the future.
- Furthermore, it was evolutionary scientists who did the debunking: policing their own field and doing a good job of it (a far better job than creationists generally do with, for instance, correcting the falsehoods alleged by this particular claim.)
- The fossils that composed the Archaeoraptor chimera were, in and of themselves, legitimate fossils of the bird Yanornis and the dinosaur Microraptor. That these two species were used to create a fake fossil does not diminish their own status as legitimate species anymore than the fact that people once mounted a Camerosaurus skull onto the skeleton of Apatosaurus to make it look presentable does not negate the fact that those are two legitimate genera of dinosaurs.
- Creationists fail to, or refuse to realize that for a scientist to deliberately fake data for a his own research, whether it is the manufacture of a chimerical dinosaur or falsified results in human cloning attempts, is to destroy his own career and reputation as a scientist.
- add more responses
Fallacies contained in this claim
- Suppressed Evidence (not "scientists" but journalists published this; scientists, and not creationists, debunked Archaeoraptor)
References
- Simmons, Lewis M., 2000 (Oct.). Archaeoraptor fossil trail. National Geographic 198(4): 128-132.
