Claim CC061:

French anthropologist Marcellin Boule said that the skulls of Peking Man (Sinanthropus, now classified with Homo erectus) are "monkey-like." Others have pointed out that this was based on a poor translation, but the monkey quote does not misrepresent Boule's text.

Source:

Gish, Duane T., 1979. Evolution: The Fossils Say No! 3rd ed. San Diego: Creation-Life Publishers, pp. 139-140.
Gish, Duane T., 1997. Gish responds to critique. The Skeptic 5(2): 37-41. http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/gish-response.html

Response:

  1. Without question, calling the skulls monkey-like is a major misrepresentation of Boule. In the pages immediately following the quote in question, Boule emphasized that he was not dismissing Peking Man as a monkey.

    Some creationists have rationalized that the French word singe used by Boule can mean either monkey or ape, but it is clear from context that the ape meaning was intended.

  2. Events surrounding use of this quote show the poor behavior by several creationists:
    • O'Connell (1969) misrepresented Boule's ideas, apparently deliberately, by mistranslating him.
    • Gish (1979) failed to reference O'Connell when repeating his mistranslation.
    • Gish and others show abysmally poor scholarship in the first place in thinking that calling Peking Man monkey-like is even a viable scientific view.
    • When corrected about the mistranslation, Gish and Answers in Genesis attacked their correctors and refused to fully correct their errors (Foley 2003).

Links:

Foley, Jim, 2003. Creationist arguments: The monkey quote. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/monkeyquote.html

References:

  1. Foley, J. 2003. (see above)
  2. O'Connell P. 1969. Science of Today and the Problems of Genesis, 2nd ed. Hawthorne, CA: Christian Book Club of America. Cited by Foley 2003.
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created 2003-9-24