Date: 19 Feb 94 06:13:16
From: Wesley R. Elsberry
To: Peter Arnall
Subject: Nebraska Man, Take Two.
AREA:EVOLUTION
In a msg on , Peter Arnall of 1:134/67 writes:

PA> Greetings,

PA> I asked about Nebraska Man last fall, and received some helpful
PA> responses. However my correspondent has replied with further
PA> information about this toothy event, and I'd appreciate any
PA> comment:

> Nebraska Man was given a scientific name, Hesperopithecus
> haroldcooki.

So far, so good.

> It was used as factual evidence in the Scopes
> Monkey Trial.

This is a point of contention. If your correspondent will give the date and witness, I'll look it up in my copy of the court transcript to give a supported/unsupported determination. Until the SciCre-ists document this, I think it is in error.

> Some references written about this are The
> Ape-Man of the Western World in The Illustrated London News,
> June 24, 1922, and the Evolution of Man, London, Oxford
> University Press, 1924, by G.Elliot Smith. The Pedigree of
> the Human Race, 1926, by Harris H. Wilder. Hesperopithecus,
> The First Anthropoid Primate Found in America, by Henry
> Fairfield Osborn, in 1922, published in Science, Vol. 60
> - also published in American Museum Noviates, No. 37 1922,
> and Nature, Vol. 110, 1922.

PA> I had the impression that someone found a fossilised peccary
PA> tooth, and for a while thought that it might have had human
PA> origin; then he changed his mind.

PA> Anyone know more?

You've got it pretty much right. H.F. Osborn was involved in the original description of Hesperopithecus, which took place in 1922. Osborn organized expeditions to find more evidence. Those expeditions took place in 1925 and 1926, and they found much more evidence -- their "hominid" was really an extinct peccary. A retraction of the hominid claim resulted, which was published in Science in 1927.

Note the dates of your correspondent's references: all within the period when Hesperopithecus was considered to be valid. No references arguing validity for Hesperopithecus are given after 1927. Again, this is a great example of the self-correcting nature of science -- mistakes are corrected, not worshipped.

A post of mine from a while back: Area : EVOLUTION
From : Wesley R. Elsberry 1:347/103 25 Jan 93 02:18:00
To : All
Subj : Gould on Nebraska Man

More literature search followed by reading...

930124

Gould, Stephen Jay. Jan 1989. An Essay on a Pig Roast. Natural History, Jan., pp. 14-25.

ABSTRACT

A description is presented of the 1922 trial between William Jennings Bryan and Henry Fairfield Osborn on evolution vs. creationism. The trial began events which culminated in the more famous Scopes trial.

"The story of Hesperopithecus was certainly embarrassing to Osborn and Gregory in a personal sense, but the sequence of discovery, announcement, testing, and refutation -- all done with admirable dispatch, clarity, and honesty -- shows science working at its very best. Science is a method for testing claims about the natural world, not an immutable compendium of absolute truths. The fundamentalists, by "knowing" the answers before they start, and then forcing nature into the straitjacket of their discredited preconceptions, lie outside the domain of science -- or any honest intellectual inquiry. The actual story of Hesperopithecus could teach creationists a great deal about science as properly practiced if they chose to listen, rather than to scan the surface for cheap shots in the service of debate for immediate advantage, rather than interest in truth."

Among other items in the article, I found out that while Osborn organized and participated in the follow-up expedition to Nebraska, his name was not on the article retracting the claims of primate affinity for Hesperopithecus. That honor he left for his colleague Gregory.

So, while Osborn did not actually go into print retracting his earlier claims, he certainly was foremost in coming up with the evidence and interpretation that showed the earlier claims to be false.

Osborn did engage in self-correction, but not quite to the extent that I had previously indicated in a message on the Science Echo.

A timetable:

February 25, 1922:

Harold Cook informs Henry Fairfield Osborn of his find of a fossil tooth "that closely approaches the human type."

April 25, 1922:

Osborn presents papers describing Hesperopithecus haroldcookii based upon Harold Cook's specimen and a previously unidentified tooth in the American Museum of Natural History's collections.

1923:

William Gregory publishes two articles on Hesperopithecus, noting the bad condition of the specimens and stating uncertainties of affiliation.

1922-1925:

Osborn sends molds of the Hesperopithecus tooth to colleagues worldwide.

Summer, 1925 and 1926:

Osborn mounts paleontological expeditions to the formations in Nebraska to find more specimens.

December 16, 1927: William Gregory publishes retraction of Hesperopithecus, classifying the original teeth and subsequently discovered material as belonging to the genus Prosthennops. (Prosthennops had been described by W.D. Matthews and Harold Cook in 1909.) Prosthennops is an extinct genus related to modern peccaries, or wild pigs.

Gould challenged SciCre-ists to retract their Paluxy man-tracks claims in his article. While some have already done so, much of the literature of the SciCre-ists has not been revised to reflect this. In the case of "Nebraska man" which the SciCre-ists are so fond of citing, the claim-test-retract cycle took just over five and one-half years. One wonders how long it will take the SciCre-ists to remove even the claims concerning Paluxy from their rhetoric. They have had almost twice the entire cycle time of Hesperopithecus already.

-- Wesley R. Elsberry

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