ere's a newspaper editorial from Kentucky sure to bring amusement to biologists and anthropologists everywhere.

If some people want to believe they descended from apes, it's their business. We don't believe it, and even if we did, we wouldn't want to know it. It isn't that we have anything against apes in their place. We just don't believe they have a place in our family tree.

Change all mentions of "apes" to "earth revolving around the sun" and party like it's 1399!

The article is sort of pointless to analyze, (it's a bit like debating a political position essay written by a 10 year old) since the author makes no pretense of discussing things from a scientific angle. So just a couple of observations.  The author's central point seems to be that the recent human ancestor fossil finds (and by extension all fossil finds?) are suspect since the scientists digging for them found them where they were looking for them.

We refer to such people as archaeologists and paleontologists who dig around in god-forsaken places in search of God knows what and usually find it, which gives us pause.

This is to say that these people often have a preconceived notion about what they will find, and after much digging, there it will be.

Is that some tortured sentence structure/verb tense usage there, or what? Hope his English teacher doesn't read it. Anyway, he is saying that all archaeological digs end in discovery of useful fossils, and by implication that the scientists plant or invent whatever it is they are finding. I'm sure any veteran archeologist would weep at the thought of every expedition coming home with new finds; as far as I know there are hundreds or thousands of major digs going on every year, and maybe a dozen find something really remarkable. The author also seems to be suggesting that locations for digs are picked at random, when that's obviously absurd.  Quite a few fossil finds are just picked up on the surface, where erosion has exposed things buried for millions of years.  It's just a matter of finding them.

The funny thing is that he appears to have reservations about human evolution only based on the fact that fossils are found by people who are looking for them.

Harvard anthropologist Dan Lieberman calls the skull a major find but says it raises "a wheelbarrow full of questions," which may be a gross understatement. Why, for instance, were scientists digging in what has been described as a remote, wind-swept stretch of desert dunes where the skull was found?

Answer: They started with an assumption, and all else falls neatly in place. That's what gives us pause.

I'm sure one could find extensive information about how the dig location was selected; based on past fossil finds, geological analysis, age testing of surrounding strata, etc. So if that were provided, would the author of the article be satisfied?  Somehow I doubt it.

In related science news:

“I can’t really explain it; it’s a dialect you can’t understand,” Berry said about the cryptic pattern of speech known as speaking in tongues. “But, without a doubt, it’s evidence of being filled with the Holy Spirit.”

Funny, I have no problem coming up with plenty of doubts. Though I guess it depends on how you define "Holy Spirit" or "speaking in tongues".