ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the subject of the science of positing origins and ancestor scenarios versus the non-science of origins myths, and how to tell the difference, with an observation statement and several thesis statements. It argues that the burrowing origins hypothesis is a non-science myth story that needs to be permanently deposited in the wastebasket of the history of science. The burrowing origins myth describing the origin of snake lizards must be discarded as the inductive, phylogenetically unsupported, antiquated, and dogmatic story paradigm that it is. Even a mildly scholarly reading of the literature shows that terrestrial origins hypotheses based on phylogenetic hypotheses have been on the table since Cope. The history of hypotheses, data, and conclusions, informing people on snake lizard origins, evolution, and phylogeny, as happens in all sciences, is buried beneath the weight of its chaotic and accretionary history.
