Evolutionists often repeat the slogan that "there are mountains of evidence for Evolution". Yet, even today, the majority of "evidence" for Evolution is either based on faulty data, or worse, is an outright fraud. Let's have a brief look at Evolution's highlight reel.
Lucy
Lucy is the name of an ape fossil that was discovered in 1974. She is often touted as the "missing link" between humans and apes, and is one of the things I was taught about when I was in school. However, she is hugely incomplete. As Richard Leaky remarked, most of her skull is "imagination made of plaster of paris". (1) What little we do know of Lucy is that she was significantly different from both modern apes and humans. Australopithecines, the species to which Lucy belongs, are as much a missing link between humans and apes as a 50p is between a nickel and a dime.
Nebraska Man
More amusing than Lucy is the famous Nebraska Man. Nebraska man was a caveman like creature that was presented to the public as "the first American anthropoid ape", and it was even given the Latin name Hesperopithecus haroldcookii. Its entire life, from where it lived, how it looked and even how its family looked, was widely published, and can now be immediately seen with a quick Google search. The problem? All this hype was based on a single tooth, discovered in 1917 by Harold Cook. And it turns out, this tooth didn't even come from anything remotely human-like. Rather, it came from an extinct pig, not radically different from the living Chacoan peccary.
Pakicetus
Then you come to pakicetus, another incomplete fossil given a complete makeover. Despite being known from little more than a few skull fragments, pakicetus was often depicted diving into the water and catching fish. Why? Because it was supposed to be an ancestor of whales. Nothing below the skull had been discovered, yet pakicetus was displayed as having limbs on the way to becoming flippers. That is until 2001, when more pakicetus remains were discovered. We now know that pakicetus was a land mammal, fully capable of running with only its feet touching the ground.
Iffyosaurus
Moving on from mistakes, let's talk about fakes. I really had to limit myself here, but let's start with the lovingly named "iffyosaurus". Iffyosaurus was on display in the National Museum of Wales for no less than 116 years. But one day, the curators decided it needed a brush up, leading them to discover that they, like many before them, had been had. Iffyosaurus is a mixture of two ichthyosaurs species, some fake parts, a little plaster and a lot of paint. When I first wrote this article, it was still on display at the museum, but as an example of Victorian fakery instead. I haven't verified if it still is. Now, food for thought: How many more fake fossils remain to be discovered?
Piltdown Man
116 years of a fake icthyosaur has no effect on Evolution, so although it has some implications about the Creation/Evolution debate, it's not quite as serious as Piltdown Man. Piltdown Man is a skull that was heralded as a transitional form between apes and man for 40 whole years. It was very well publicised, and helped cement Evolution into pop culture. The problem? Evolutionists were quick to publicise it, but not to actually study it. After 40 years, it was finally studied closely and proven to be an elaborate hoax. It was a fully human skull attached to an orangutan jawbone. Modern Evolutionists are quick to downplay the significance of Piltdown Man.
Archaeoraptor
Much like Piltdown Man, Archaeoraptor is a mixture of more than one animal. Specifically, it is the tail of a dromeosaur attached to the skeleton of a bird. Unlike Piltdown Man, Archaeoraptor was not widely publicised, nor was it especially significant in establishing Evolution's foothold on the culture, but it was published in National Geographic. To their credit, they printed a retraction once the hoax was discovered, so Archaeoraptor never became mainstream. Nevertheless, it happened, and is a powerful reminder that scientific fraud is commonplace, and even "trustworthy" sources can be quick to fall for it.
Shinichi Fujimura
The works of Shinichi Fujimura, however, did become mainstream. One of Japan's most prominent archaelogists, Fujimura used to be known as "God's Hands", because he consistently made startling archaeological discoveries, including Japan's "oldest sites of civilisation". Turns out, "God's Hands" were actually Satan's hands, as he was secretly filmed sneaking onto dig sites to bury artefacts, which he would then "discover" later. Fujimura admitted to having placed more than 50 artefacts. His fraudulent activity seriously undermines Japan's "known" history. (2).
Embryonic recapitulation
Finally, there's the hoax that just won't die: Embryonic recapitulation. In the 19th century, Ernst Haeckel took the drawings of various embryos made by other scientists and edited them to increase the resemblance between them. Haeckel then used this fraud to back up his theory of embryonic recapitulation, i.e. the embryo of a species repeats its Evolutionary history. Human embryos, for example, allegedly have gills and fins, then a tail like a monkey and so on and so forth. Even in Haeckel's own time, this fraud was well known among his peers (Haeckel pretended someone else drew the fake images), but in 1997, actual photos of embryos were released, demonstrating just how much Haeckel had changed the embryos. Increasingly advanced ultrasound technology is further blowing the hoax out of the water. But despite this fraud having been well known for over 140 years, it continues to be taught in schools as real science.
All of the above forces us to ask the question: If Evolution is so solid, why is it held up by utter fakes? The things that have consistently been used to con the public into accepting Evolution are not real evidence. They are either highly exaggerated, dead at the scholarly level, or complete frauds. From its inception to the modern day, Evolution has been propelled entirely by falsehoods! The logical conclusion is that Evolution relies so heavily on fraudulent evidence because it is, itself, a fraud. It relies on imagination because it is, itself, imaginary. It relies on mistakes because it is a particularly embarrassing mistake. Without propaganda and censorship tactics, Evolution would not have lasted a decade in the public eye.
References
1. The Weekend Australian, May 7–8, 1983
2. BBC, Archaeologist exposed as fraud (link)