There is no proof that we evolved from apes. Period

the Sunday Telegraph ^ | 9/11/05 | Vij Sodera

[flevit]

Simon Schama appears to have little understanding of biology (Opinion, September 4). With an ostrich mindset that tries to ignore reality, pseudo-scientists continue in the vain hope that if they shout loud and long enough they can perpetuate the fairy story and bad science that is evolution.

You don't have to be a religious fundamentalist to question evolution theory - you just have to have an open and enquiring mind and not be afraid of challenging dogma. But you must be able to discern and dodge the effusion of evolutionary landmines that are bluster and non sequiturs.

No one denies the reality of variation and natural selection. For example, chihuahuas and Great Danes can be derived from a wolf by selective breeding. Therefore, a chihuahua is a wolf, in the same way that people of short stature and small brain capacity are fully human beings.

However, there is no evidence (fossil, anatomical, biochemical or genetic) that any creature did give rise, or could have given rise, to a different creature. In addition, by their absence in the fossil record for (supposed) millions of years along with the fact of their existence during the same time period, many animals such as the coelacanth demonstrate the principle that all creatures could have lived contemporaneously in the past.

No evidence supports the notion that birds evolved from dinosaurs, nor that whales evolved from terrestrial quadrupeds, nor that the human knee joint evolved from a fish pelvic fin. And the critically-positioned amino acids at the active sites within enzymes and structural proteins show that the origination of complex proteins by step-wise modifications of supposed ancestral peptides is impossible. In other words, birds have always been birds, whales have always been whales, apes did not evolve into humans, and humans have always been humans.

But you might protest that it has been proved that we evolved from apes. In fact, the answer is a categorical No. Australopithecines, for example, were simply extinct apes that in a few anatomical areas differed from living apes. If some of them walked bipedally to a greater degree than living apes, this does not constitute evidence that apes evolved into humans - it just means that some ancient apes were different from living apes.

[Coyoteman]

how do you know the skulls collected weren't anomolies or disfigurations of humans or apes? it's like putting leaves next to each other. a maple leaf is certainly going to look different than a pine needle

The first Neanderthal in the mid-1800s was originally thought to be just that. But when you have seen tens of thousands of skulls, from all range of animals and fossils, you get some idea of what is what.

Some people spend their entire professional careers just studying bones--they get pretty good after a while (I studied under one of those). In grad school I could identify the eight wrist bones by feel behind my back and tell if they were right or left. That was after a semester. The real bone types are much better.

[From many - one.]

Ana! = Aha!
had't = hadn't

Sorry 'bout that.

[editor-surveyor]

"Someone should have checked out talkorigins before writing this. I believe just about every point is soundly refuted there."

Verbage and shouting refute nothing, and that's all there is to be found on any web site that has ever been touted here in the name of the god of evolution. Refutation requires evidence, not musings and baseless hypotheses.

The discovery of the genetic code was the death rattle of the theory of evolution. Deal with it.

[BikerNYC]

Now you are arguing that something even RARER than fossilization, the fossilization of multiple organisms together, is a good "evidence" that evolution correctly describes the history of speciation.

What creationists have to get their heads around is that species are found in layers of Earth that are of different ages. There is no doubt that this fact supports the conclusion that, at various periods of time during the Earth's history, some species but not others existed, and at later times, other species but not the former existed.

And the problem for the vast majority of creationists is that they would prefer that all species were "created" at the same time.

[Baraonda]

My great, great, grampa was no ape.

[editor-surveyor]

Coyoteman, those skulls that you love to post are absolute proff of the vacuousness of belief in the god of evolution.

[ml1954]

Simon Schama appears to have little understanding of biology

Little doubt there. From what I've read, he's an historian. Why has everyone become a self appointed expert in biology all of a sudden?

[Coyoteman]

Coyoteman, those skulls that you love to post are absolute proff of the vacuousness of belief in the god of evolution.

Really? I kind of like them. And you can learn a lot from them too.

---

Fossil: KNM-WT 15000

Site: Nariokotome, West Turkana, Kenya (1)

Discovered By: K. Kimeu, 1984 (1)

Estimated Age of Fossil: 1.6 mya * determined by Stratigraphic, faunal & radiometric data (1, 4)

Species Name: Homo ergaster (1, 7, 8), Homo erectus (3, 4, 7, 10), Homo erectus ergaster (25)

Gender: Male (based on pelvis, browridge) (1, 8, 9)

Cranial Capacity: 880 (909 as adult) cc (1)

Information: Most complete early hominid skeleton (80 bones and skull) (1, 8)

Interpretation: Hairless and dark pigmented body (based on environment, limb proportions) (7, 8, 9). Juvenile (9-12 based on 2nd molar eruption and unfused growth plates) (1, 3, 4, 7, 8). Juvenile (8 years old based on recent studies on tooth development) (27). Incapable of speech (based on narrowing of spinal canal in thoracic region) (1)

Nickname: Turkana Boy (1), Nariokotome Boy

See original source for notes:
Source: http://www.mos.org/evolution/fossils/fossilview.php?fid=38

[bvw]

Given enough skulls -- it might well be able to line up a collection of modern human skulls that look almost exactly like those in the pictures linked to by Coyoteman. There's considerable variance between skulls, if my half-century of day-to-day observation of the passing parade of fellow humans is any guide.

[kindred]

[People who refuse to recognize evolution have a Quranic mindset which shuts out the vast amount of evidence which clearly indicates that life DID evolve...]

The same could be said of those who blindly follow after the pseudo science of evolution that is simply not true.If life forms did evolve, when did they stop evolving ? Again, why are so many species dying out and no new species being evolved.
Evolution is a fable of those who hate the truth and are afraid to study ALL THE FACTS THAT REFUTE EVOLUTION. Evolutionist theory adherents remind me of the religious Hindu's who would rather starve than eat a cow that could be one of their ancestors. They have a common zealotry which refutes science.

[bvw]

A Modern Human Skull. Really. Honest.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"If life forms did evolve, when did they stop evolving ?"

They didn't.

"Again, why are so many species dying out and no new species being evolved."

They are.

" Evolution is a fable of those who hate the truth and are afraid to study ALL THE FACTS THAT REFUTE EVOLUTION."

What facts would these be?

BTW, caps don't make your statement any more powerful.

[VadeRetro]

The skull series in Coyoteman's post looks like the perfect picture of evolution. Sodera's wave-away is an exercise in not seeing what is right before. I am reminded of how this dialogue tends to go on FR threads.

1. Tap-Dancing Science-Denier declares that the fossil record lacks instances of things changing in an orderly series from some Thing A to Thing Z. As this kind of evidence is to be expected, the lack of it must weigh against evolution having happened. By the very statement of this objection we are invited to believe the Tap-Dancing Science-Denier would accept such evidence IF ONLY IT EXISTED but the thing is it doesn't exist.
2. Someone who disagrees demonstrates many instances well known in the literature of fossil series intermediate in form and time between some Thing A and some Thing Z.
3. The Tap-Dancer then declares fossil series evidence to be irrelevant. How do we know ... various things? The dates of the fossils? Whether fossil A lies exactly on the ancestral line of fossil B?

But wasn't the evidence valid when it was supposedly missing?

There's crazy amounts of evidence. Sodera is lying about that by pretending he can't see or believe it. Above and beyond the fossil evidence, there's biochemical evidence in the DNA of apes and humans that just doesn't make sense except as common descent. I specifically exclude common design, unless you'd like to be the first to explain why a designer is putting retroviral infection scars in the DNA of his creations.

[kindred]

[without having to kill innocent fetuses in pregnant women,]

Please. Liberals use the term fetuses in place of the word babies so they don't have to admit they are guilty of killing children.

[Phsstpok]

One simple (and obvious) truth that resolves all arguments:

God created evolution

Any errors in interpretation our ours, not His.

What's so hard about that to understand?

To any Darwinist "purists:" please prove me wrong. But you must cite evidence, not theory or conjecture.

To any so called "fundamentalists:" please prove me wrong. But you must provide rational argument, not some 14th century dogma.

[Ichneumon]

The inept reporting makes it sound like he was shot while running to the cockpit screaming "I have a bomb," with the marshals supposedly believing they were saving the plane. In reality, he was shot on the jetway after running off the plane. It's not a comment about the marshals, but about the reporter.

Er -- wrong thread, perhaps?

[Coyoteman]

Looks like a normal case of cranial deformation.

[Coyoteman]

What about the missing Link? Wasn't that proved to be a hoax?

Most of the "missing links" have been found. Piltdown Man was a hoax.

All of the details, and much more, are found in PatrickHenry's List-O-Links.

[zeeba neighba]

Yawn. Your medical doctors today are just pill pushers with a portfolio.