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Ancient Human Footprints Look Modern
ICR ^ | March 6, 2009 | Brian Thomas, M.S.

Posted on 03/06/2009 8:10:07 AM PST by GodGunsGuts

Ancient Human Footprints Look Modern

by Brian Thomas, M.S.*

Some scientists have estimated that sets of human footprints found on two separate but close sedimentary layers in Kenya are around 1.51 and 1.53 million years old1 and were made by humans like the “Turkana Boy,” an anatomically human fossil discovered within the same general area in 1984.2 But do these footprints clarify or confound the standard evolutionary explanations?

The obvious “humanness” of these footprints highlights the fact that clear distinctions exist between humans and other creatures. LiveScience reported that these prints have “modern foot features such as a rounded heel, a human-like arch and a big toe that sits parallel to other toes…By contrast, apes have more curved fingers and toes made for grasping tree branches.”2 For example, despite museum depictions of the extinct ape Australopithecus having fully human feet, fossils show that they had typical ape feet.3

The LiveScience article also noted that “modern feet mark just one of several dramatic shifts in early humans.”2 What is not mentioned is that the evolutionary “shifts” are not recorded in these footprints or any other fossils. Either the shifts were too “dramatic” in speed to have left any evidence, or they never occurred. Judging strictly by the fossil record, it is as if apes and humans never changed from one to the other, but instead retained the stable basic forms from their beginnings. Anthropologist John Harris of Rutgers University remarked after considering the creatures that left these tracks, “We’re seeing a very different hominid at this stage.”2 Indeed, the human form is “very different” from apes and always has been.4

This new find will also, according to Harris, “bring up controversy again about the Laetoli prints,”2 discovered in Tanzania in 1976 and considered at the time the earliest evidence for bipedal (upright) walking. One question never resolved is why such clearly human foot features would have existed on a creature that supposedly lived over 3 million years ago.5 Paleoanthropologist Russell Tuttle of the University of Chicago concluded, “In sum, the 3.4 million-year-old footprint trails at Laetoli site G resemble those of habitually unshod modern humans. None of their features suggest that the Laetoli hominids were less capable bipeds than we are.”6 In other words, even after 3.4 million years of evolution, human feet remain virtually the same.

The Laetoli tracks are not considered human, a conclusion that is not based primarily on diagnostic observations but rather on the evolutionary reasoning that human features should not have existed so long ago in rocks that predate humanity’s alleged ancestors. But if they were made by humans, as would be apparent to an unbiased observer, then they present a contradiction to evolutionary assumptions: How could humans have existed prior to the creatures from which they evolved?7

Despite fossil interpretations that deliberately exclude the historical framework provided by God in the Bible, the evidence stubbornly insists that human evolution never took place, and that people were created fully-formed and fully-functional from the beginning.

References

  1. Bennett, M. R., et al. 2009. Early Hominin Foot Morphology Based on 1.5-Million-Year-Old Footprints from Ileret, Kenya. Science. 323 (5918): 1197-1201.
  2. Hsu, J. The Shoe Fits! 1.5 Million-Year-Old Human Footprints Found. LiveScience. Posted on livescience.com on February 26, 2009, accessed February 27, 2009.

  3. Wong, K. August 1, 2005. Footprints to Fill: Flat feet and doubts about makers of the Laetoli tracks. Scientific American, 18-19.
  4. Morris, J. 1995. What Distinguishes Man from Ape? Acts & Facts. 24 (11).
  5. Morris, J. 1997. Who or What Made the Laetoli Footprints? Acts & Facts. 26 (2).

  6. Tuttle, R.,H. 1990. The Pitted Pattern of Laetoli Feet. Natural History. 99: 64.
  7. Lubenow, M. 1992. Bones of Contention. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 172.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: creation; evolution; goodgodimnutz; intelligentdesign; kenya
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1 posted on 03/06/2009 8:10:07 AM PST by GodGunsGuts
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To: metmom; DaveLoneRanger; editor-surveyor; betty boop; Alamo-Girl; MrB; GourmetDan; Fichori; ...

ping!


2 posted on 03/06/2009 8:13:04 AM PST by GodGunsGuts
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To: GodGunsGuts

Evolution is still just a “theory” because the preponderance of the evidence fits. There has been no conclusive scientific proof proving or disproving the theory, only subtly modifying it.


3 posted on 03/06/2009 8:13:51 AM PST by Natural Law
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To: GodGunsGuts

Articles from ICR are neither News nor Activism.


4 posted on 03/06/2009 8:15:28 AM PST by Plutarch
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To: GodGunsGuts

Evolutionists have it all backwards.

Animals did not become human, but humans are becoming animals.


5 posted on 03/06/2009 8:16:33 AM PST by Semper Mark (Communism is Socialism with a gun to your head.)
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To: GodGunsGuts

I just hate it when evidence gets in the way of a good story! Just ONCE I’d like to see real evidence of evolution in the human species.


6 posted on 03/06/2009 8:19:59 AM PST by April Lexington (Study the constitution so you know what they are taking away!)
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To: GodGunsGuts

Modern?

You mean, like, “Air Jordan” can be seen written backwards on the print?


7 posted on 03/06/2009 8:20:23 AM PST by WayneS (Respect the 2nd Amendment; Repeal the 16th)
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To: Natural Law

under that standard we could theorize that evolutionists have only half a brain, based upon...

Silly comments
nobody has seen it in it’s entirety.
No concrete evidence exists to prove you have a full brain.
and we are unable to conclusively open your head to visually inspect it.

..but we can modify our theory as they post more information...though it will remain a theory.

::rolls eyes::


8 posted on 03/06/2009 8:21:16 AM PST by woollyone (I believe God created me- you believe you're related to monkeys. Of course I laughed at you!)
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To: Markos33
As members of the kingdom Animalia, humans are animals :)
9 posted on 03/06/2009 8:21:23 AM PST by Boxen (There is no wealth like knowledge, no poverty like ignorance.)
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To: Boxen

As defined by whom?

Oh...the same folks that believe they are related to primates.
Yeah, those people.

circular reasoning at best.


10 posted on 03/06/2009 8:23:44 AM PST by woollyone (I believe God created me- you believe you're related to monkeys. Of course I laughed at you!)
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To: woollyone
"under that standard we could theorize that evolutionists have only half a brain,"

Perhaps you could explain to us how "scientific process" deals with any hypothesis and how that should be different in the case of evolution.

11 posted on 03/06/2009 8:24:35 AM PST by Natural Law
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12 posted on 03/06/2009 8:25:39 AM PST by evets (Beer beer beer.)
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To: GodGunsGuts
More slow news day crackhead BS.
13 posted on 03/06/2009 8:27:41 AM PST by org.whodat (Auto unions bad: Machinists union good=Hypocrisy)
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To: Boxen
We are “man”, with no link to the “kingdom of Animalia”.
14 posted on 03/06/2009 8:28:33 AM PST by Semper Mark (Communism is Socialism with a gun to your head.)
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To: Natural Law

I’ll be gracious and accept your premise for the sake of asking:

If evolution is a “theory” why is it presented and guarded by education fascists as “fact”?


15 posted on 03/06/2009 8:29:43 AM PST by Cedric
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To: Plutarch; org.whodat
Today, under “Breaking News” we're treated to a story about how “wrastling” legend, 92 year old Vern Gagne, body slammed a fellow nursing home resident and killed him.

This thread has at least as much merit.

Get over it.

16 posted on 03/06/2009 8:35:25 AM PST by Cedric
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To: GodGunsGuts

Inneresting.


17 posted on 03/06/2009 8:35:31 AM PST by El Sordo
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To: woollyone
Wait. Wait wait wait. Are you seriously trying to tell me that you believe that we homo sapiens are not animals? The Random House Dictionary defines animals as

comprising multicellular organisms that have a well-defined shape and usually limited growth, can move voluntarily, actively acquire food and digest it internally, and have sensory and nervous systems that allow them to respond rapidly to stimuli

Where do you disagree?

Really, I was just trying to inject a smart-assed little joke into this thread. You know, nothing too serious.

18 posted on 03/06/2009 8:36:09 AM PST by Boxen (There is no wealth like knowledge, no poverty like ignorance.)
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To: GodGunsGuts

Thanks for the ping!


19 posted on 03/06/2009 8:38:10 AM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: GodGunsGuts

Ping


20 posted on 03/06/2009 8:45:30 AM PST by Gordon Greene (www.fracturedrepublic.com - It is possible to be so open minded that your brains leak out.)
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