Posted on 06/01/2006 1:12:18 PM PDT by 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.
Christianity has had no shortage of charlatons. Still do.
Such as?
First of all, PROVE that the Biblical account of creation is more accurate than the Hindu one.
Honost question; Have we been able to produce a genetic strain in animals that is capable of producing fertle offspring in their own "species" but not with members of their origin "species".
That would be pretty convincing proof, but I don't believe it has been done.
It is believe me or you're an uneducated idiot, just like the "scientists" and darwinists say
I guess those other people are all heathens, so you can't believe them... :^D
Hmmm, interesting story. Makes about as much sense as Darwin. (Plus, you could say, it's got beat and you can dance to it!)
Mastiff vs. Chihuahua. They could not mate without assistance.
I prefer you read sources of your own choosing. The traits are well-documented, and can be found in any decent science source.
I'm not getting drawn into someone's cause or misapprehension.
Its what primates do.. shaking limbs and making noises..
LoL...
No, it's believe me, drop money into my collection plate or you're going to burn in Hell for all eternity.
I'm still waiting for the proof that the Christian version of creation is more valid than that of any of the other world's religions, such as the Hindu one:
The most celebrated of these is the hymn that contains the earliest known reference to varna. Creation is the result of the sacrifice of Purusha (Man), the primeval being, who is all that exists, including “whatever has been and whatever is to be.” When Purusha, who had “a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, a thousand feet” was sacrificed, the clarified butter that resulted was made into the beasts which inhabit the earth. This same sacrifice produced the gods, Indra (the menacing king of gods), Agni (Fire), Vayu (Wind), as well as the Sun and the Moon. From Purusha’s navel the atmosphere was born; his head produced the heaven; his feet produced the earth; his ear the sky. The four varnas were born too: the mouth was the brahman (priest); the arms the kshatriya (warrior); the thigh the vaishya (general populace); the feet the shudra (servant).
The Hindus say that the all the world's animals were created from clarified butter. Where's the proof they weren't?
Sounds like you are now basing your argument upon faith in what you believe and a smidgen of what is in your opinion "hard evidence". In which case, evolution is no more a science than Christianity and offers no promises of things ever improving, while Christianity offers the hope of Salvation through the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ and eternal life.
If we are wrong, we end up no worse off than you, whereas if you are wrong........................
And vice versa.
I'm still waiting for the proof that this is less valid than the creation story in the Bible.
After all, if God really is all-powerful, who's to say He didn't create the animal kingdom from clarified butter?
Hindu's have faith in a higher power, Christians have faith in a higher power, and Darwinists have faith in man
As I previously wrote, Christianity says, believe what I say, drop money in my collection plate or burn in Hell for all eternity.
Sounds more like the IRS.
No. They merely lack your ignorance of the subject.
I wasn't implying you were either of those I mentioned, but they're present on the thread.
Suffice it to say that I think the language, the spiritualism, the difference in the treatment of women, and the overall abilities of the modern humans are what set them apart demonstrably from Neanderthal, who remained virtually unchanged for tens of thousands of years.
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