First Chimpanzee Fossils Cause Problems for Evolution

http://www.reasons.org/resources/connections/200601_connections_q1/index.shtml#how_humans_differ_from_animals ^

[truthfinder9]

First Chimpanzee Fossils Cause Problems for Evolution

by Fazale (Fuz) R. Rana, Ph.D.

Where were you on September 1, 2005? Perhaps you missed the announcement of a scientific breakthrough: the influential journal Nature published the completed sequence of the chimpanzee genome.¹

This remarkable achievement received abundant publicity because it paved the way for biologists to conduct detailed genetic comparisons between humans and chimpanzees.²

Unfortunately, the fanfare surrounding the chimpanzee genome overshadowed a more significant discovery. In the same issue, Nature published a report describing the first-ever chimpanzee fossils. This long-awaited scientific advance barely received notice because of the fascination with the chimpanzee genome. News of the two discoveries produced different reactions among scientists. Evolutionary biologists declared the chimpanzee genome as evidence for human evolution, but some paleoanthropologists were left wondering how humans and chimps could have evolved, based on where the chimpanzee fossils were found.

According to the evolutionary paradigm, humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor. About 5 million years ago, this ancestral primate spawned two evolutionary lineages that led to humans and chimpanzees. Anthropologists consider the physical, geographical separation of hominids and proto-chimpanzees to be the "driving force" for the evolution of humans and chimpanzees. They postulate that the formation of the Rift Valley isolated the hominids in East Africa (a hot, dry savannah) from chimpanzees in Central and West Africa (with warm, wet jungles). The geographical isolation of hominids and chimps, presumably, sent these two lineages along different evolutionary trajectories.

Evolutionary biologists think that fossil hominids like "Lucy," Homo erectus, and Neanderthals document the emergence of humans.⁴ Yet, until recently paleoanthropologists had no corresponding fossils for the chimpanzee lineage.

Surprisingly, the first chimpanzee fossils were discovered not in West or Central Africa, but in East Africa, near Lake Baringo, Kenya. These fossils, consisting of three teeth, dated to 500,000 years in age--meaning that chimpanzees coexisted alongside hominids. The Rift Valley provided no geographical rift for separate evolutionary histories, and therefore foils a key prediction of the human evolutionary paradigm.

Sally McBrearty, one of the paleoanthropologists who uncovered the chimpanzee fossils, noted, "This means we need a better explanation of why and how chimps and humans went their separate evolutionary ways. The discovery that chimps were living in semi-arid conditions as well as in the jungles seems to blow apart the simplistic idea that it was the shift to the savannah that led to humans walking upright."⁵

If the discovery blows apart a "simplistic idea," maybe it's time for a simple (and testable) idea--the RTB creation model for human origins.

References

1. The Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium, "Initial Sequence of the Chimpanzee Genome and Comparison with the Human Genome," Nature 437 (2005): 69-87.
2. See Fazale Rana with Hugh Ross, Who Was Adam? A Creation Model Approach to the Origin of Man (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005) for a discussion of human-chimpanzee genetic comparisons from a creation perspective.
3. Sally McBrearty and Nina G. Jablonski, "First Fossil Chimpanzee," Nature 437 (2005): 105-08.
4. See Who Was Adam? for a treatment on how the hominid fossil record creates problems for human evolution.
5. Michael Hopkin, "First Chimp Fossil Unearthed," news@nature.com (August 31, 2005), http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050829/pf/050829-10_pf.html, accessed November 30, 2005.

[Sopater]

This is about 8 Hams

For once, Mr. Professor, I have to agree with you.

[Malesherbes]

Only half of our population is related to monkeys - that half that voted for Gore and then Kerry.

[Right Wing Professor]

We all know that as an atheist you have a special agenda on these threads.

Yep. Chimp-human free love. It's what we god-deniers dream of. But I have to give Physicist credit for spotting it first.

[isrul]

"foils a key prediction of the human evolutionary paradigm."

Nonsense. Whenever these "scientists" come upon something that doesn't support their "beliefs", they simply set it aside and ignore it.

[mlc9852]

"Nonsense. Whenever these "scientists" come upon something that doesn't support their "beliefs", they simply set it aside and ignore it."

I know! The evolutionists are just shameless!

[PatrickHenry]

Archive?

[Coyoteman]

Fazale R. Rana: PhD Chemistry-Ohio U.

Here's another winner:

Long Life Spans: "Adam Live 930 Years and Then He Died": New Discoveries in the Biochemistry of Aging Support the Biblical Record by Fazale R. Rana, Hugh Ross, and Richard Deem.

[js1138]

We all know that as an atheist you have a special agenda on these threads. But it is entertaining to read your rants! LOL

Not interesting enough to cause you to offer any substantive criticism? I'm shocked.

[Sopater]

I'd just like the truth

The truth is, evolutionism is based on faith just as creationism is. All of the evidence, including the evidence that has not been submitted, supports the truth.

[Strategerist]

This is the lamest anti-evolution article *ever* on FR.

Nah, the stuff from "Creation-Evolution Headlines" makes this look like Nobel Prize-winning work.

[Strategerist]

Notice that all of these creationist guys with actual real degrees are in fields only peripherally related to evolution..No paleontologists, etc.

[Ichneumon]

This is the lamest anti-evolution article *ever* on FR.

No, although it might be the second lamest. My nomination for the first lamest is the one that argued that a discovered fossil of a transitional whale ancestor couldn't have been semi-aquatic (even though that's what the structure of the skeleton clearly shows), because:

"[It was found in a region] containing fossils of such terrestrial creatures as snails, tortoises, and crocodiles. In other words, it was part of a land stratum, not an aquatic one."

EARTH TO CREATIONISTS: Crocodiles, snails, and tortoises are all great examples of animals that live in SEMI-AQUATIC HABITATS, you FREAKING MORONS.

I haven't seen many crocodiles living in the desert, or out in the deep ocean... For pete's sake, just how STUPID are these people? Crocodiles et al live PARTLY IN THE WATER, PARTLY ON LAND -- and gosh, SO DID THE ANCESTRAL WHALE being discussed. So by what brain fart did these imbeciles manage to take the presence of *crocodiles* as somehow a "disproof" of the scenario that the ancestral whale found in the same spot had a similar way of life?

The mind *boggles* at the ability of the anti-creationists to MISS THE POINT so badly.

[Paleo Conservative]

There they go again!

[mlc9852]

I view these threads as strictly entertainment. No one is going to change their mind so why bother?

[Ichneumon]

Nonsense. Whenever these "scientists" come upon something that doesn't support their "beliefs", they simply set it aside and ignore it.

For example? (This should be *fun*!)

[js1138]

I would appreciate it if you took your own advice.

[js1138]

I would appreciate it if you took your own advice.

[shield]

BTTT

[Ichneumon]

[Chimps and humans diverged 6 million years ago, not 500,000 years ago. Nothing in evolution requires that two groups that have already speciated can't live together.]

The article had me going for a minute, but you hit the nail on the head.

Yes, bingo.

Just how stupid does a creationist have to be to think that finding humans and chimps in the same place at the same time "disproves" evolution in any way?

According to the creationists, this photo disproves evolution all by itself! *gasp*!

That's like claiming that finding a beagle and a dachshund at the same dog show "proves" that they couldn't have both been derived from the same ancestral dog lines... Idiots.

[Skooz]

I agree. Some people take this crap way too seriously.