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EDITOR:

I am glad to see that Gilroy High may be offering a class in evolution to its students.  I am sure that the parents would like a sample of some of the great science the students will be learning.

In 1922, a single tooth was found in Nebraska.  With a little imagination, the tooth was connected to a mythical jawbone which in turn was connected to a skull, and in its turn fastened to an entire skeleton.
It was fleshed out; and, named after is (sic) discoverer, a certain geologist Harold Cook, Hesperopithecus haroldcookii.  It was heralded as positive proof that primitive man was here in the United States - the equal of any o' Neanderthal!  The press gave it the catchy name "Nebraska man," and by the time The Illustrated London News picked up the story and ran it on 6/24/1922, there was not only a picture of Nebraska man but also pictured was "Nebraska mom."  All of this from one tooth.

Some time later, an identical tooth of Nebraska man was found.  This time, however, it was attached to an actual jawbone of an actual skull of an actual skeleton.  This discovery proved once and for all what women have always known: Man ascended from pigs.

The skeleton was that of a wild boar.  This either proves that humans developed from earlier species, or Nebraska man is simply what it is: a scientific myth.

Then there is Piltdown man (Eoanthropus dawsoni), an out-and-out scientific fraud.  In Charles Dawson and Professor Sir Aurthur Smith-Woodward, found a human skull in association with a jawbone which showed ape-like properties.  One of the teeth was worn flat and resembled a human tooth.  The scientists believed that they had found positive proof of the "fact" that humans developed from earlier species, and around 500 scientific publication shave appeared extolling this wonderful find.

It was not until 1953 when Dr. J. S. Steiner, K. P. Oakley, and Professor Le Gros Clark published a joint paper on Piltdown man that the fraud was discovered.  They found that the skull was indeed a fossilized human skull but the jawbone was that of a modern ape.  The jawbone had been stained with potassium bichromate and iron salts to make it look old, and x-ray photos of its teeth showed that they had been filed down with carborundum.

The instigators of this hoax were never found, but it is interesting to note that Professor Smith-Woodward allowed very few other scientists to study the original skull or even to handle it.  Inquiring scientists were given plaster casts to study; plaster casts to do show the fine detail nor the chemical makeup of the original.

This is a prime example of how scientists will actually manufacture "evidence" to prove the well-established fact of evolution.

One can go on and on about the mythical and fraudulent find of scientific evolution, too numerous to mention here in 500 words or less.  If students in this new class are indeed taught critical thinking and given ALL the facts, they may well arrive at the same conclusion I have: evolution is a belief system wholly without any sort of verifiable scientific substance.