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Fraud, deception or an honest mistake?
A puzzled reader writes to AiG

Sirs -

There are some things about your on-line article "Sue" the T-rex: another "missionary lizard" b
y Jonathan Sarfati that puzzle me. In the article is this passage -

     
... if you click on the rib in the picture in Ref. 1, you will find:

"There's evidence that one rib was broken badly and never healed properly. Some experts say this suggests a potentially fatal struggle between Sue and another T. rex."

The main text says:

"Long before dying, Sue suffered a broken left leg that was slow to heal; Embedded in Sue's ribcage is the tooth of another T. rex.   The left side of the skull is smashed, with holes along her jaw."

Then, a bit further along, another sighting of reference 1 -

If you click on the skull in the picture in Ref. 1, the following
text appears:

"It's thought the animal was washed into this position by a flood, though scavengers may also have moved it."

Reference 1 is a footnote leading, after a bit of warning about an immanent encounter with the outer world, to this hypertext location on the internet at the conjunction of the Microsoft and General Electric corporate empires. There one finds the posting titled "Sue the T. rex, a roaring business", dated 16 May 2000. The only picture at that location seems to be of janitors employed by the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, USA, erecting a banner advertising the exhibition of Sue's remains.

I can find no distinguishable ribs or skulls to "click on" in order to visualise the underlying text noted above and thus realize the full impact and import of the article.

An evolutionary apostate of my acquaintance insists that, approximately 45 days ago, the article contained a photograph, perhaps labelled "Figure 1", of a replica of the "Sue" skeleton located at a woodworking shop somewhere in the state of Kentucky [USA]; and that, furthermore, the clicking on rib and skull originally referenced that now-missing picture. This person suggests some underlying fraud or deliberate deception on your part, whereas I myself prefer the view that the situation results from an innocent error by someone in the preparation of your otherwise flawless internet site. This is, after all, a post-Fall world and we can scarcely expect perfection from mere mortal humans.

I await your response in order to clarify this unfortunate situation.

Sincerely

Franklin Koch
fk@aone.com

AiG Responds to Mr Koch

But once again they are not being entirely honest.  The caption, at least, for the Sue replica, was at AiG's web site - not at the Microsoft and General Electric site.

Dear Mr. Koch:

Please accept my apology for taking so long to get you a response to your query.  I thought that since you wanted answers about a Jonathan Sarfati article, he would be the best person to respond.  He was on a two-week speaking tour and has just returned.  He sends you the following response.

"Internet articles often change, especially if they [are] from News sites.  That's why those links no longer work.  But they did when the article was current, and none of the facts in the article need changing."

I hope this response clears up the problems you were having with his article.

Judi Hahn
Communications Coordinator
Multimedia Communications Division-AIG

 

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