Home schoolers find complete allosaurus

[Jbuza]

gone

[Canuckster1127]

Home-schoolers find intact dinosaur skeleton
Scientist says 22-foot animal likely died during cataclysmic flood


http://www.pathlights.com/dino-find.htm

Interesting.

A professeor of ICR, with Home-schoolers.

Could it be this same Doug Phillips?

http://www.littlegeneva.com/badlands/?p=1576

Here's another comment from a paleontologist on this find,

http://www.asa3.org/archive/ASA/200205/0682.html

Not only are the purported lines of evidence for a young age and
catastrophic burial inadequate, but also their dinosaur
classification is substantially out of date. Tyrannosaurus is not
considered closely related to Allosaurus. The claim of 37
allosauruses found worldwide also sounds too low to me, unless they
are only counting decent specimens rather than isolated teeth.
Allosaurus is quite common (by dinosaur standards) in the Jurassic of
the western U.S. and occurs in many other parts of the world.


Dr. David Campbell
Old Seashells
University of Alabama
Biodiversity & Systematics
Dept. Biological Sciences
Box 870345
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487 USA
bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com

Here's a letter from the owner of the property where this was found,

http://mtblanco.com/BlancoBlog/BlancoBlog.html

This email was forwarded to Mt. Blanco Fossil Museum, concerning the facts of the "Raising of the Allosaur" video. The author of this letter, Dana Forbes, is the owner of the property where the allosaur was discovered and is an eyewitness of the events which transpired during its discovery and excavation.



Dear ***********,



Your e-mail of 8/11/2003 was passed on to me by someone who was involved in the 2001-2002 excavation of the allosaur from my property. I was the landowner the film refers to, and thought it might be helpful, even though some time has elapsed, to pass along what transpired.



I quote from your email: "I watched the documentary on the Allosaurus. It was the DeRosas and Doug Phillips' team that excavated it. I also understand that there was an agreement that what Doug Phillips' team found they could have. As far as I know Joe Taylor was not involved. The site is owned by a Christian home schooling couple, and the DeRosas have the fossil rights."



First of all the Vision Forum group that came out was just a tour group. They were given an opportunity to dig some at a site that I had found the year before. We had already excavated some field jackets encasing parts of the allosaur's spine in 2001. This was done under Joe Taylor's direction and supervision. The DeRosas were there helping, but so were a number of others. The VF group in general was a fantastic group of people who helped move a lot of dirt and helped locate some important bones. They did no actual removal of significant bone material. During their digging they uncovered a neck vertebra at which point they were done. Joe Taylor came out after the VF people left and conducted the excavation of the vertebral column including the skull. The DeRosas were clearly involved, but they did not direct the removal of anything from the site. Joe did. (By the way, the vertebra that the Vision Forum group uncovered was removed in a separate jacket from the skull and was a dirt load of distance from it). Doug Phillips and VF had no rights to any of the bone material excavated. The DeRosas, Joe Taylor and my family all had a stake in the allosaur.

It is amazing that Joe's team, the main ones responsible for "raising the allosaur”, are given no credit in the film at all. Joe's Mt. Blanco team is not mentioned. Let me repeat, those most responsible for quote "making the film” based on its given title received NO credit whatsoever. Additionally certain necessary others involved and our family as well are not listed in the credits. However, home schooled boys and girls out on an adventure with their parents are said to “raise from the ground what appears to be the most complete Allosaur…ever found in the history of paleontology (gross overstatement of bone percentage), including the monster's giant skull.” * And Doug Phillips' name is listed everywhere. (*Taken verbatim from the back cover of the “Raising the Allosaur” video. Italics are mine.)

Other major problems with the film include the comment that I found the bones with a scintillator. The awareness of bones on the property came from a local old-timer and my actual discovery of my first bones came as a direct answer to prayer. Later, I did use a handheld scintillator in an effort to help find new sites, but this mostly led to dead ends. Most of my discoveries came from what I believe to be a God given ability to see the bone material and then the ability to follow it up to its source. The site that is called the "behemoth site" was discovered by my son, Evan. A paleontology student from Mesa College in Grand Junction discovered what the DeRosas have termed the “steg site”. I found the allosaur site and had removed other bone from it before any excavators were ever on the property.

We were never involved with the Grand Junction Museum or the Museum of the Rockies. One of the world's largest dinosaur fossil museums did express an interest in partnering with me, but that is a far cry from "major, major museums…chasing after" me. There are other less glaring, yet important technical inaccuracies.

The video certainly conveys the idea that the DeRosas and Doug "did it all". It also incorrectly describes the landowner's story. I communicated with Doug Phillips about the problems with the film, but he never connected with me. Later, when I questioned Doug, based on the allosaur “documentary”, about his qualifications to host a Christian film contest which cited integrity as a major standard, I received angry accusations from his establishment that I was simply looking out for my own gain.

Personally, we do not view this film as a documentary. It has too many flaws and promotes fantastical PR for VF and Creation Expeditions. Frankly I believe it has done a tremendous amount of harm. Not only does the film reduce the scientific value of the discovery because of lack of true reporting of the facts, but it also in the long run hurts the home school movement that the producer indicated that he was trying to promote. Hyperbolism does not sit well with science and does not belong in the creationist's toolbox. Exaggeration eats away at the foundations of integrity and virtue that we are trying to instill in the upcoming generation. There are other issues as well that I prefer not to go into here.

Vision Forum could tell their own story, but they had no right to tell or make any one else's story their own. For us, the film promotes a falsehood that masquerades as truth. I think you would find it hard if not impossible to find anyone who was originally part of the dig project on the Forbes Ranch that did not feel that way or worse about the film. This is of course magnified when one realizes the amount of money that VF probably made on the film as well as the other doors of opportunity flung open because of the falsely placed notoriety gained from it.

Hope this corrects some of the misunderstandings surrounding the history of the site. I am copying this statement to those that were indicated as having received your original statement.



Dana Forbes

I note the film making the claims has been pulled and is no longer for sale.

Finding a dinosaur is wonderful. That doesn't make the finder's interpretations correct. In this case it's pretty obvious that there was some questionable practices and evident motives also at work.

Jbuza, do you actually check all the information on this stuff before you throw it up or are you just interested in finding something positive for your side regardless of its credibility?

Just asking.

Bart

[Jac3510]

Maybe I'm missing something here. Was there more in the OP than the link in your first quote, Canuckster? It seems to me that the email you quote - while certain damaging to Phillips' reputation - has more to do with the film than with the article posted. Apparently, VF presented the case as if they were the ones who made the discovery, did the digging and excavation, etc., and worse, without any credit to the scientific teams who did the work both before and after VF arrived.

But, the article linked by Jbuza doesn't say the same thing, although you can perhaps get that impression if you are looking for it. It says:

The DeRosas, who have a contract on the fossil rights to the property and own the right to the material they excavate, had been working the site well in advance of the arrival of the home-school expedition. Their preliminary work over a period of months led them to believe that they had an allosaurus, but it was not until the home-schoolers arrived and performed the heavy lifting of moving a lot of dirt that evidence was found to validate their suspicions

And also,

Last week, DeRosa brought in a fresh team of professional excavators to remove the skull from the ground for preservation. It is not yet known when the skull will be available for viewing.

Anyway, what I would be interested in is the actual scientific data surrounding the finding itself. Ms. Forbes is a YEC, mind you, and it seems her argument is with the film, rather than with the article linked.

So, I may have misunderstood something, but I'm not sure what the big problem on either side is. The original link is too scant of info, and the email posted seems to be unrelated to the relevant data.

[sandy_mcd]

Could it be this same Doug Phillips?

Nice set of background links. I went to the VisionForum website. It seems to be primarily set up for sales. The only "search" I could find was a "search for products".
Along with the misstatements pointed out in the article, I don't much evidence given for these statements:

Scientist says 22-foot animal likely died during cataclysmic flood
a discovery that organizers say helps debunk the theory of evolution.

[Canuckster1127]

Maybe I'm missing something here. Was there more in the OP than the link in your first quote, Canuckster? It seems to me that the email you quote - while certain damaging to Phillips' reputation - has more to do with the film than with the article posted. Apparently, VF presented the case as if they were the ones who made the discovery, did the digging and excavation, etc., and worse, without any credit to the scientific teams who did the work both before and after VF arrived.

But, the article linked by Jbuza doesn't say the same thing, although you can perhaps get that impression if you are looking for it. It says:

The DeRosas, who have a contract on the fossil rights to the property and own the right to the material they excavate, had been working the site well in advance of the arrival of the home-school expedition. Their preliminary work over a period of months led them to believe that they had an allosaurus, but it was not until the home-schoolers arrived and performed the heavy lifting of moving a lot of dirt that evidence was found to validate their suspicions

And also,

Last week, DeRosa brought in a fresh team of professional excavators to remove the skull from the ground for preservation. It is not yet known when the skull will be available for viewing.

Anyway, what I would be interested in is the actual scientific data surrounding the finding itself. Ms. Forbes is a YEC, mind you, and it seems her argument is with the film, rather than with the article linked.

So, I may have misunderstood something, but I'm not sure what the big problem on either side is. The original link is too scant of info, and the email posted seems to be unrelated to the relevant data.

I think that is fair Jac.

It kinda goes back to the idea that unfortunately many YEC organizations do not monitor and regulate themselves in terms of their claims.

There's no peer review. There's often no sharing of their evidence with other scientists.

The e-mail and other supporting material demonstrates the credibility of the source which is fair game. There's a lot about Phillips to look up in other areas as well.

A year later he made another "find" with similar claims in terms of its prooving YEC claims.

When you make such a find and don't properly substantiate, and preserve the evidence share it with other professionals and instead head for distributing videos, promoting your name in the YEC non-peer reviewed periodicals and you make these "finds" on a regular basis where-ever you go, then yes, my skeptical alarm goes off.

It's an isolated issue and it doesn't speak to anything other than the situation itself.

It does illustrate some of the poor science and sometimes unsavory characters who utilize the field for self-agrandizement.

That's a human quality that is not unique to YEC and God knows there are similar issues with Old Earth people at times too.

I just think there needs to be some care in just throwing stuff up because it's in print, and that is what I sensed was happening.