I really don’t keep up with creationist explanations for the fossil record. As best as I can tell, they only have three basic ones: they’re deformed humans (very common), they existed with man (and therefore man didn’t come from them), or they’re another ape with no relation to man.
It’s not science not because they don’t believe in evolution but because they reject even the possibly of it because of the bible.
And of course there is debate in paleontology but remember that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. There’s debate in physics too but you better bring some ironclad proof (and probably a gun) if you’re going to say the Earth doesn’t revolve around the sun.
We have in the fossil record a series of physiologically and chronologically differentiated fossils of apes that show a clear progression toward becoming more primitive and less intelligent the further we go into the past. A theory that excludes the idea that one comes from the other would have to account as to why that dispersion isn’t random in the record. Until creationists do that, they have no case.
I personally lean toward H. Sapiens, isolated and attempting to adapt, but that still doesn't make them a different species. In order to be a different species, your branch loses the ability to readily reproduce with the branch you left. On the other hand, the argument for forced adaptation is pretty easy, considering the history of the region. The little buggers are surrounded by just too much hype right now for more than just spirited argument, though my biologist daughter and I have kept up on the Floriensis news ever since their discovery was broke in the news.
I’d like to show the creationists this quote from “The Catholic Children’s Bibly bySister Mary Theola, S.S.N.D.
“He (God) inspired holy men to tell us the great, profound truths of creation in simple, imaginative stories....The Biblical writer describes God as talking, consulting and resting. He knew that God did not do these things. God simply willed and things came into existence. But this manner of telling the story helps us to understand more easily the great truth that God created the world.
“The six-day arrangement of creation is a plan the writer used, hoping thereby to impress Jewish people with the holiness of the Sabbath, their day of rest. God rested; so it was right tha the Jews rest on the seventh day.
“Again, the author had no intention, when speaking of a ‘day’ to limit the work of any creative act to 24 hours. He just arranged an orderly way of telling us how the many creatures of this wonderful world came into being.
“The story of creation is a story about religion and not about science. Therefore, creation as told in the Bible does not offend against science. It is true, though, that in His creative act God set masterful forces of science into motion.”
It is nice to see that the Catholics do not try to “limit” god. Now if only others would be as reasonable.