Sometimes I think I've seen all creationism has to offer. That I've heard all the arguments and seen all the deplorable tactics.
But just when I think I might have to go and find another psuedoscience to entertain me, creationism reaches a new low.
Today is now different, with Creation Ministries International exploiting a tragic case of mistaken identity to push their agenda.
The argument part
Phil Robinson - the author for CMI - attempts to argue that evolutionary anthropology is untrustworthy. This argument is based on the fact that an anthropologist incorrectly identified a skull found in an Idaho river. They claimed it was a Native American male, when it was actually a Caucasian female.
When such a large mistake can be made about bones that were less than two years old then surely people should question some of the all-knowing grandiose claims made by evolutionary paleoanthropologists? After all, they are examining bones which are thousands of years older in far less context!
Now, those of you with at least a nanogram of common sense might be wondering whether or not a single mistake by a single anthropologist is enough to dismiss an entire scientific discipline. Well, your skepticism is foolish! FOOLISH! Phil explains how this problem is far more widespread than that.
History has shown that a large number of bones in the past 100 years have been misidentified and wrongly used to aid the evolutionary story, for example: Nebraska Man, Montana Man, Peking Man or Java Man II. . . There was also the deliberate hoax of Piltdown Man, and even the most recent finds in relation to ancestral human remains by evolutionists, such as Homo naledi, continue to divide experts within their own camp as to whether or not they help the evolution story.
All in all, Phil identifies half a dozen hoaxes and mistakes from anthropological history (not counting H. naledi, which is only a case of mistaken identity if you rely on creationists to identify it). All bar one of these is more than 50 years old. Rattling off a list of mistakes like this might sound rather damning, unless you actually look at the numbers.
In reality, we've found tens of thousands of fossils of hominins, representing thousands of individuals spread across dozens of species. There are also literally trillions of stone tools that attest to the story of human evolution as well. Amongst all that, Phil has only been able to find one mistake in the past 50 years.
Whilst there have been a few more than that in reality, hopefully this shows just how much of a non-issue Phil's objection is.
The exploitative part
Of course, this vacuous argument started with that case of mistaken identify. A female skull, misidentified as a Native American male.
The skull actually came from a woman who disappeared whilst rafting. The skull was found shortly thereafter, but misidentified by the resident anthropologist. It wasn't until genetic testing revealed this mistake that the case was finally resolved and the family found closure.
It's a tragic tale. A tale Phil must have read and thought "oh those gosh darned evil utionists". He must have read about the bittersweet nature of this discovery. How it reawakened the grieving process in the family. And his mind soon identified the best way to use this tragedy to push his own agenda.
Clearly creatioism is operating on a whole different level. A level even lower than I could have ever anticipated.
tl;dr
Anthropologists make some mistakes, so you should totally never believe anything they say.