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profile.gif David Ng is Director of the Advanced Molecular Biology Laboratory at the University of British Columbia - this is a just a fancier way of calling himself a science teacher.

profile.gifBenjamin Cohen is an Asst. Professor of Science, Tech., and Society at the University of Virginia. He studies the place of S & T in environmental history, policy, and ethics. He also writes other stuff.

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Archaeopteryx lithographica tangles with the devil

Category: The Art/Science (Non?)Divide Building
Posted on: August 1, 2008 8:00 AM, by Benjamin Cohen

Proof of "a threshold species between modern birds and their prehistoric dinosaur relatives" hanging out with Mephistopheles in Flight. Though don't take my use of the word "proof" too sincerely.

archLWconv.jpg
Archaeopteryx lithographica
(Berlin Specimen)
[Convergences #33]


mephLWconv.jpg

Eugène Delacroix, Mephistopheles in Flight


An excerpt from R.A. Villanueva, the contributor of the images and mini-narrative to Lawrence Weschler's Convergences series:

Those who, generally speaking, follow the gospel of Darwin assign special significance to the Archaeopteryx as a liminal fossil--proof of a threshold species between modern birds and their prehistoric dinosaur relatives quite literally "set in stone." One might be surprised to note, then, that many of the websites devoted to posting images of the skeleton are not scientific but overtly anti-evolution.

It would seem that creationists have vilified the Archaeopteryx, casting it as a "hoax," a "fraud." What appears to be a feathered reptile pressed into Solnhofen limestone, they counter, is nothing more than a poorly designed "forgery" on par with the Piltdown skull, a conspiracy by scientists who would abuse authority for profit and personal gain....

Full work up: here.

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