Ancient Human Footprints Look Modern

ICR ^ | March 6, 2009 | Brian Thomas, M.S.

[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.

[Cedric]

Translation: Ya got no game.

[Natural Law]

"Translation: Ya got no game."

I'll engage in a serious discussion but will not rise to the bait of ignorance and name calling. Besides, this was an A - B correspondence between the woolly one and me so "C" your way out of it....Oh, snap!

[demshateGod]

I guess I typically assume they’re just misguided folks who have just believed the default epistemology, or their victims of the zeitgeist, the prince and power of the air. I assume they’re really conservatives in which case, reasonable. So I try to explain to them, using my little pea-sized brain, that those teachers they’ve entertained my not be as authoritative as those teachers professed.

They always have these questions that I typically read as requesting an answer. I guess their questions are really just rhetorical and often bait. “What about light years?” or “what about dinosaurs on the ark” and “How did ‘Moses’ get all those full grown animal of ever species on the ark.”

I’m uncomfortable just flaming these people but.. well, I should probably use my time better either way, flaming or instructing, both are vain.

[Cedric]

My, my, not one, but two concrete reasons legitimizing intellectual cowardice.

[jimmyray]

getting a plethora of ignorant petty comments that do nothing to dispell anything brought up in the article

Why bother actually reading the article? Evolution, and scientific theories like it, are not falsifiable, any more than the existence of God is, thus, how can it be science? We have never observed the development of a new genus in the laboratory, even after 1000's of generations: E.Coli is still E.Coli and fruit flies are still fruit flies. The theory, then, must be flexible, like a reed in the wind, to adapt to any new developments and data that falsifies previously held notions. It is constantly revised, updated and enhanced, for this is the very nature of "science". It's supreme flexibility to acommodate any new data is it's greatest advantage, hence the ToE evolves!

As such, the theory will never die, but is with us until The Day, when it's absurdity will be made obvious when the Rider splits the clouds!

[GodGunsGuts]

These days, I don’t have enough time to reply to all the usual suspects. I don’t even really have the time to post the original papers and articles, but I made a commitment to myself and to God to try and at least remain faithful to establishing a regular presence of scientists who present the evidence for God’s creation, and against the idea that we are purposeless blobs of randomly generated tissue.

[org.whodat]

Get over it.

If you had read past the head line you would see the number of posts calling it old news. You get over it!!!

[org.whodat]

Forgot to add that the old story about the wrestler was at least news and not a childish rehash of old studies.

[Ha Ha Thats Very Logical]

I just wish I had Brian Thomas, M.S.’s job: get up every day, look for science articles about evolution, misunderstand them (intentionally or not), and repackage my misunderstanding for credulous readers. And it seems to be recession-proof!

Case in point: he writes that “despite museum depictions of the extinct ape Australopithecus having fully human feet, fossils show that they had typical ape feet.” But the article he links to in his footnote clearly says the Australopithecus foot may have been flat (no arch), like an ape, but its big toe lined up with the other toes, like modern humans. Is Thomas misunderstanding or misrepresenting?

[Natural Law]

Please be quiet when the grown-ups are talking.

[evets]

Lol... 6,000 year old shoes!

[DallasMike]

I'll admit I was disinclined to believe it was possible until I noted that the proof was presented by the legendary Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews.

Come now. Do you really think it looks like a shoeprint? It's not narrow at the heel like a real human shoe print is. Look at the soles of any shoe in any store. Do they look like this "footprint." It's been completely rebutted.

Do any of these footprints resemble the oblong shape of the "fossil?" No, they don't.

 

 

 

 

[Cedric]

You guys are lucky your not female, you’d be pregnant ALL the time!

[DallasMike]

Actually, the article does bring up a good point about 3.4 million-year old footprints being anatomically identical to 1.5 million year old footprints.

The reason I point this out is that it’s unusual for an article from ICR not to lie, distort the truth, misinterpret science, or propose wild fantasy theories proving that the earth is 6,000 years old. I’m sure the poor author will have to find another job soon.

[DallasMike]

I just wish I had Brian Thomas, M.S.’s job: get up every day, look for science articles about evolution, misunderstand them (intentionally or not), and repackage my misunderstanding for credulous readers. And it seems to be recession-proof!

Really, the article is actually quite a bit better than most of the crazy stuff posted at that and similar sites. Look for people to quote the respected scientist, Dr. Russell Humphreys, who believes that God created the universe as a big ball of water several light years across. The earth formed at the very center of this ball of water because, as we all know, the Bible says that the earth is at the center of the universe.

[Cedric]

Ya, I hate fakes and fabrications!

Piltdown man.

Java Man.

Lucy.

Hahnhfersand Man.

Binshof-Speyer Woman.

Paderborn-Sande Man.

Archaeoraptor Liaoningensis

Haekel’s faked embryonic drawings

[DallasMike]

The article isn’t ICR’s- it was posted in a science journal- but keep throwing spitwads hoping people will just back away and not quesiton the religion of Darwin.

Um, the article is by ICR. It is a review of an article posted in a science journal.

[DallasMike]

I hate fabrications, too. What’s your point?

[Natural Law]

"You guys are lucky your not female"

You guys are lucky you're not female. There, fixed it for you. Let me guess, public school education?

[Cedric]

Ya fell for another one!

I'm gonna hafta get heavier test line.