How Coherent Is the Human Evolution Story?

Institute for Creation Research ^ | William Hoesch, M.S.

[Sopater]

"Australopithocines evolved into Homo erectus around 1.5 million years ago and Homo erectus, in turn, evolved into Homo sapiens around 400,000 years ago." This is presented to school children as no less certain than Washington's crossing of the Delaware. The statement makes dual claims: (1) there are fundamental anatomical differences between these three categories, and (2) each occurs in the right time frame. Let us examine these claims.

The anatomical differences between these three groups must be very substantial for the statement to have any meaning. Any anthropologist should be able to spot a Homo erectus on a crowded subway train, even clean-shaven and in a business suit, as different from modern humans. Not so. In fact, leading anthropologists Milford H. Wolpoff (University of Michigan), William S. Laughlin (U. of Connecticut), Gabriel Ward Lasker (Wayne State U.), Kenneth A. R. Kennedy (Cornell), Jerome Cybulski (National Museum of Man, Ottawa), and Donald Johanson (Institute of Human Origins) find the differences between these fossil categories to be so small that they have wondered in print if H. sapiens and H. erectus are one and the same. Fossils classified as H. erectus all share a set of "primitive" traits including a sloping forehead and large brow ridges, yet these all fall comfortably within the range of what are called normal humans today. For example, the very same traits are found in some modern people groups, including Eskimos! Eskimos might not like being referred to as "primitive" humans, yet evolutionists must do so if they are to be consistent. There are a lot of problems with the continued use of this taxon, yet it is essential to the evolution story.

The second truth claim embedded within the statement given to school kids has to do with these fossils occurring in the right time frame. For example, fossils with a H. erectus anatomy should be found exclusively in rocks that are older than those with its youthful descendents, "anatomically-modern" humans. This is decidedly not the case. Putting aside the validity of age-dates for a moment, the range for H. erectus is usually given at between about 1.5 million years and 400,000 years. Studiously avoided in most museum depictions is the fact that fossils with a H. erectus anatomy that are younger than 400,000 years number well over 100, including some as young as 6000 years. Even more amazing is this: fossil humans that are easily interpreted as "anatomically modern" (i.e., non-H. erectus) have been found in rocks that are much older than 1.5 million years. From a dozen different sites have come cranial fragments, including one good skull, teeth, several arm and leg bones, a fossil trackway, and stone structure that each screams out "modern human." The trackways at Laetoli, Tanzania, dated at 3.6 million years, and tibia (leg bone) and humerus (arm bone) from Kanapoi, Kenya, dated at 3.5 million, are especially significant for these pre-date even "Lucy," the celebrated upright-walking ape. These embarrassments have been revised, reinterpreted, and re-dated, but will not go away.

Keep these things in mind the next time you hear of a "missing link" being reported, for example, between H. erectus and modern man (as has been in the recent popular press). God made His creatures to reproduce "after their own kind," and it appears from the fossils that they have done just that.

* William A. Hoesch, M.S. geology, is an ICR Research Assistant in Geology.

[Dimensio]

Run, evos run. You'll never outrun the avalanch of falling cards from the house of darwin.

Do you have information that shows the theory of evolution to be false?

[freedumb2003]

Run, evos run. You'll never outrun the avalanch of falling cards from the house of darwin.

Yes, like those who are running from the avalanche of "euclidean cards" and "newtonian cards." Oh and those doggone "mathematics witches" and "arodynamics nutsos."

But thanks for your posts. They always score a great laugh for me and mine.

[F.J. Mitchell]

Show me your geniuses and I'll show you my geniuses.

[Dimensio]

Show me your geniuses and I'll show you my geniuses.

A listing of scientists named "Steve" or some variant thereof can be found here. Note, of course, that as a listing only of individuals named "Steve", it is not a comprehensive list of all with relevant scientific backgrounds who accept the theory.

[F.J. Mitchell]

LOL! and that was likely on one of his/her nicer days.

[F.J. Mitchell]

Does rationality count?

[Coyoteman]

LOL! and that was likely on one of his/her nicer days.

This is a private conversation with DaveLoneRanger.

You clearly have no clue as to my posting history and style. It might be prudent for you to remain silent on matters of which you know nothing.

[Dimensio]

Does rationality count?

In what respect do you mean this?

[spatso]

"Yes, like those who are running from the avalanche of "euclidean cards" and "newtonian cards."

Not sure why anyone would bring Newton into discussion. He tends to do serious damage to both sides on this thread. Newton more than any other scientist undermined the idea that Creation actually worked in accordance with the description given in scripture. Yet, in his personal life he was deeply religious. Today, his beliefs would be very comfortably with the ideas of Intelligent Design.

[Virginia-American]

strain in animals that is capable of producing fertle offspring in their own "species" but not with members of their origin "species".

Teacup poodles and wolves.

[F.J. Mitchell]

LOL! You used up almost the entire alphabet before you finally found support for your claims? Being the fair and generous guy that I am, I feel compelled to give you at least another twenty four hours to vainly and desperately search the internet for accomplices, before I reveal my own geniuses.

I am not one to gloat about being right.

[Coyoteman]

Sorry, I've been at work.

You're always nice? Like when you called me an a**hole?

I have searched my posts back to late December, and I find no such offending comments. Should I search farther back?

I take this seriously. I always try to post with fact, logic, and evidence, mixed, as needed, with some biting sarcasm and an occasional pun, but I do try to avoid profanity and invective.

Again, if I have failed in this I apologize. But I have not yet found an offending post.

[Dimensio]

You used up almost the entire alphabet before you finally found support for your claims?

This claim is a non-sequitur.

Being the fair and generous guy that I am, I feel compelled to give you at least another twenty four hours to vainly and desperately search the internet for accomplices, before I reveal my own geniuses.

You did not ask for "accomplices". You asked for an analog of my request to you, and I have provided you with more than six-hundred names. It is not an unfair request to ask that you support your previous claim.

[F.J. Mitchell]

"In what respect do you mean by this?"

I would love to explain, but if you had to ask this question, you would not understand the answer.

[Coyoteman]

Teacup poodles and wolves.

See post #88 for an earlier example.

[Echo Talon]

What exactly am I attempting to ram down anyone's throat? How am I attempting to do this? Please be specific.

Read this thread... believe what we do or you're a dumb @**, look at these bones, they look similar to X so therefore they must be related. You know that kind of faith.

[Brucifer]

Right on SkyDancer. I work with liberal professors every day. Pink twitted Newts are running, and ruining academia, among other things.

[Brucifer]

Right on SkyDancer. I work with liberal professors every day. Pink twitted Newts are running, and ruining academia, among other things.

[Coyoteman]

look at these bones, they look similar to X so therefore they must be related. You know that kind of faith.

Are you sure that some of that is not well-reasoned science?

What is the basis for your skepticism? Is it religious, or scientific, in origin.

If religious, fine.

If scientific, I would like to hear your reasoning behind your dismissal of tens of thousands of fossils, and the interrelationships between and among them which many thousands of scientists have arrived at over about 150 years of research.

You dismiss them out of hand. Is your reason religious or scientific?

[F.J. Mitchell]

I am on Dave's ping list and I will butt out only when and if he declares it a private conversation.

I feel insulted that you can presume that you know more about any matter on earth, than anyone one else on earth, and so does everyone else on earth.