A bone to pick: Missing link is evolutionists' weakest

Houston Chronical via WorldNetDaily ^ | July 26 | Jeff Farmer

[Tribune7]

Printer-friendly format July 26, 2002, 6:11PM

A bone to pick: Missing link is evolutionists' weakest By JEFF FARMER

It has been said that if anyone wants to see something badly enough, they can see anything, in anything. Such was the case recently, but unlike some ghostly visage of the Madonna in a coffee stain, this was a vision of our ancestral past in the form of one recently discovered prehistoric skull, dubbed Sahelanthropus tchadensis.

Papers across the globe heralded the news with great fanfare. With words like "scientists hailed" and "startling find" sprinkled into the news coverage, who couldn't help but think evolutionists had finally found their holy grail of missing links?

For those of us with more than a passing interest in such topics as, "Where did we come from? And how did we get here?," this recent discovery and its subsequent coverage fall far short of its lofty claims. A healthy criticism is in order.

Practically before the fossil's discoverer, the French paleoanthropologist Michel Brunet, could come out of the heat of a Chadian desert, a number of his evolutionary colleagues had questioned his conclusions.

In spite of the obvious national pride, Brigitte Senut of the Natural History of Paris sees Brunet's skull as probably that of an ancient female gorilla and not the head of man's earliest ancestor. While looking at the same evidence, such as the skull's flattened face and shorter canine teeth, she draws a completely different conclusion.

Of course, one might be inclined to ask why such critiques never seem to get the same front-page coverage? It's also important to point out that throughout history, various species, such as cats, have had varying lengths of canine teeth. That does not make them any closer to evolving into another species.

A Washington Post article goes on to describe this latest fossil as having human-like traits, such as tooth enamel thicker than a chimpanzee's. This apparently indicates that it did not dine exclusively on the fruit diet common to apes. But apes don't dine exclusively on fruit; rather, their diet is supplemented with insects, birds, lizards and even the flesh of monkeys. The article attempted to further link this fossil to humans by stating that it probably walked upright. Never mind the fact that no bones were found below the head! For all we know, it could have had the body of a centaur, but that would hardly stop an overzealous scientist (or reporter) from trying to add a little meat to these skimpy bones. Could it not simply be a primate similar to today's Bonobo? For those not keeping track of their primates, Bonobos (sp. Pan paniscus) are chimpanzee-like creatures found only in the rain forests of Zaire. Their frame is slighter than that of a chimpanzee's and their face does not protrude as much. They also walked upright about 5 percent of the time. Sound familiar?

Whether it is tooth enamel, length of canines or the ability to walk upright, none of these factors makes this recent discovery any more our ancestral candidate than it does a modern-day Bonobo.

So why does every new fossil discovery seem to get crammed into some evolutionary scenario? Isn't it possible to simply find new, yet extinct, species? The answer, of course, is yes; but there is great pressure to prove evolution.

That leads us to perhaps the most troubling and perplexing aspect of this latest evolutionary hoopla. While on one hand sighting the evolutionary importance of this latest discovery, a preponderance of these articles leave the notion that somehow missing links are not all that important any more.

According to Harvard anthropologist Dan Lieberman, missing links are pretty much myths. That might be a convenient conclusion for those who have been unable to prove evolution via the fossil record. Unfortunately for them, links are absolutely essential to evolution. It is impossible for anything to evolve into another without a linear progression of these such links.

The prevailing evolutionary view of minute changes, over millions of years, is wholly inadequate for the explanation of such a critical piece of basic locomotion as the ball-and-socket joint. Until such questions can be resolved, superficial similarities between various species are not going to prove anything. No matter how bad someone wants to see it.

Farmer is a professional artist living in Houston. He can can be contacted via his Web site, www.theglobalzoo.com

[balrog666]

As someone who is not committed to evolution, I can take a more dispassionate approach to this find. First, I have to be persuaded that the skull is human as opposed to ape.

Given its age, it is almost certainly neither. Whether it's a precursor to humans or apes, both, or neither is unknown.

Second, if human, I would have to be shown that this represents an evolutionary link.

See above. However, it certainly represents a link between its ancestors and its descendents or, at worst, a sample from the population of its species at the time - which is one more sample than we had last year.

Third, I would like to see more than a single example of this link.

Well, wouldn't we all - the more samples we have, the more clear the story will be. And isn't that why these people are out in the desert looking for such finds?

Even you would not claim that evolution of a species went through single individuals.

Other than that all populations are made up of individuals who live and breed and die.

For people who haven an emotional attachment to evolution, singularities may not be a problem. For me, they are.

I know of no one with an "emotional attachment" to evolution, unless you consider the "Morton's Demon" crowd. As for singularities, that's all the more reason to look for more samples.

[VadeRetro]

I suggest you have no actual familiarity with creationist arguments and what the scientific problems are with evolution theory.

I've been reading your side's BS for about 3 1/2 years now as a hobby. I've seen your hard-core YEC sillies, your stealth "wedge strategy" Intelligent Design ruse, every manner of stonewalling obfuscation and distraction against the mountains of evidence for evolution. There's nothing you can show me I haven't seen. Nothing.

Creationists include numerous scientists with impeccable credentials, and contrary to your sweeping dismissal of their arguments, in fact evolutionists have had a great deal of difficulty rebutting them.

Creationists don't number enough to show in the demographics of professional biology or geology. Many of their credentials are highly suspect. More to the point, creationists make no useful contribution to science. They screech at us that we'll never find another fossil species or understand this or that process. Thank you, that was so useful!

Some of the evos themselves admit they don't have good rebuttals.

Let me guess that you refer here to creationist quote salads. If that's science, Joseph Goebbels should have been a Nobel Prize winner.

There are creationists like Duane Gish who regularly debate evos and demolish them.

Ah! Duane Gish! I've already mentioned how he's still on the ICR site quoting Colbert from about 1954 that there is no fossil history for whales. It's no longer true, but he's still trying to make people believe it.

A live debate with a creationist is a drive-by shooting. It's trying to clean up after a guy who's taking a dump with every step. Your problem is that it takes far more time to rebut a lie than to tell one. (And when are you supposed to make your own case?) Now throw in that the crowd is probably jammed with the local fundie faithful to the exclusion of anyone who can spell "Australopithecus."

The article that started this whole thread is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. It's claimed that this skull that was found was not simply an ape species but some sort of humanoid.

The characteristics of the skull are not really in question. They're more human than the average ape. The question is whether--let's see if I can put this in terms you'll understand--you can ascribe the situation to "normal variation within ape kind." (See, I told you I know the lingo. I just think you folks are utterly full of crap.)

As the author of the article makes clear, this appears to be complete BS. They claimed it walked upright and all they have is the skull.

For the last time, "muscle attachments, location of."

They claim the teeth somehow make it human, yet as the author shows that's BS too. There's probably all these evos running around touting this "discovery" as yet more proof of ape - man evolution and yet more proof that the creationists don't know what they're talking about. Maybe you are one of them.

All that's getting through your filters is what you wanted to hear, that someone somewhere said "BS" about something so you can wipe another embarrassing piece of evidence off the board. As if you hadn't already done so anyway.

[agrace]

Who says He is creating new species on earth?

[agrace]

They most certainly are contradictory. One can't believe in the Bible, namely the gospel, and believe in evolution.

The gospel states that sin and death first entered the world by one man, the first Adam, and can only be removed by another, the last Adam, Jesus Christ. Yet evolution teaches that much death, decay and destruction occurred for millennia before man appeared on the scene.

How are Christians able to reconcile the two ideas?

[Junior]

Hmmmmmm! You ever going to admit you error on ellipses?

He cannot. It falls in the same category as admitting the book of Genesis may be an allegory and not be literally true. If he were to admit either it would yank the central support from his carefully constructed house of cards and it would all come tumbling down. Such minds are extremely rigid and cannot survive such a paradigm shift. Hell, I'm still waiting for LBB to recant on the hippo-whale and coyote-whale thingies from months ago; it'll never happen for the reasons cited above.

[Junior]

WHAT error on elipses?

LBB claimed circles were not elipses, and that the planets had "wildly eliptical" orbits. In reality the orbits have very low eliptical values and can be considered as circles for many calculations -- with the exceptions of Mercury and Pluto. Remember, this all came about because of the discussion on your theory that the Earth orbited Saturn before moving into its current position, and how it was pointed out that such a move would result in a highly eliptical orbit rather than a near circular one.

[moneyrunner]

”Given its age, it is almost certainly neither. Whether it's a precursor to humans or apes, both, or neither is unknown.”

I’m puzzled by your response. According to the article, the skull is supposed (by its finders and a large part of the scientific community) to belong to an ancestor of humanity. If the issue is as much in the air as you state, why did the find make virtually every major newspaper in the United States? The articles I read (in the Virginian Pilot, my newspaper) stated that this find will make major changes in the theory of evolution. Perhaps you can enlighten me on this.

”However, it certainly represents a link between its ancestors and its descendents or, at worst, a sample from the population of its species at the time - which is one more sample than we had last year.”

Well, yes. But that could also be stated about the skull of my great grandfather. I assume that you will not claim that is one more proof of evolution?

”I know of no one with an "emotional attachment" to evolution, unless you consider the "Morton's Demon" crowd.”

I would certainly number VadeRetro among those who have an emotional attachment to evolution. I am not a professional psychologist, but a pretty good judge of human nature. No one can be that vehement about his hobby horse without being emotionally attached. I will go out on a limb and judge that most atheists have an emotional attachment to evolution. Atheists … as opposed to agnostics.

Love and peace.

[jwh_Denver]

"religious answers on his test questions?

Ha! Yeah, like I had choosing evolution or evolution. Religious answers never appeared on any of his tests. Never mentioned in his class. He was a ho for evolution and I should have put a long scratch on the desk everytime I thought "what a crock!"

[f.Christian]

Now picture Chuck Darwin walking into this scene and telling all of these people that they're sitting around worrying over nothing, and that the only moral law in nature is "The Survival of the Fittest". Can you not see all of those peoples' eyes lighting up, their hair standing straight up, and somebody screaming "By Jove, I think he's got it?"

I mean, it doesn't even matter what led Darwin to devise the theory of evolution. In any normal time or set of circumstances, he'd have either been laughed to scorn, hanged, or burned. He succeeded precisely because he solved several major problems for the Godfathers of 100 years ago. In other words, there's more than a little truth to my claim that someone has to be stoned to buy off on this BS.

[Stultis]

This is type of thing that has made me skeptical of evolution.

I don't get it? The article highlights the healthy scepticism of scientists versus the sensationalism of reporters. It should make you skeptical of newspaper evolutionism (or any science reporting by reporters who have not earned your trust, or of preliminary results not yet subjected to scientific peer review) but should reassure you that science itself is still working according to it's normal hard-nosed, put-up-or-shut-up precepts.

[PetiteMericco]

"That's ridiculous. You figure it out!"

No, what's ridiculous here is evos like you arranging things in linear progessions based on their appearances. That's not proof for anything. I could arrange spoons and forks in a linear progression, use sporks as a missing link, but that would not prove that forks came from spoons or that spoons gradually grew tines over millenia of time. See what I'm getting at?

Speciation also is not evidence for evolution accounting for biodiversity. No one disputes that changes take place at the species level. One the one hand you start with...a bird and a salamander. You end up with...a bird and a salamander. This does not prove that birds and salamanders once shared a common ancestor through their progression from prebiotic soup. It says nothing about their origins as a class. Like I said, your sales pitch is for something entirely different from what you are actually selling. Try that in business and see what happens.

As for your "transitional fossils FAQ, it's been addressed elsewhere, and when Theobald couldn't support his work, that was addressed too.

Have a nice day.

[longshadow]

Sure shows that evolutionists will discuss anything but their stupid theory does it not? Well, let's bring the discussion back to the subject at hand.

Nice attempt to change the subject, now that it reflects badly on you. For the benefit of the lurkers, we will review the relevant history for a moment:

In #185, you BOLDLY proclaim: "You have yet to prove me wrong on anything." So I responded in #201 with a few of your more famous bone-headed mistakes, which include your Geometrically-challenged assertion that "No, a circle is not an ellipse....". This dazzling example of your lack of knowledge on subjects you bring up was the product of an earlier discussion in which you jumped "Junior" when he remarked that most planets have "nearly circular" orbits. You immediately savaged "Junior," claiming that the planets have "wildly elliptical" orbits, and then insulted him by making the astounding assertion that he "junior" "didn't know beans about Astronomy."

Needless to say, "RadioAstronomer" was gracious enough to post a table of planetary orbital data for your benefit, which clearly showed that "junior's" original comment was absolutely correct, and that your assertion that the planets had "wildly elliptical" orbits was... well, "wildly elliptical" for lack of a better term.

Needless to say, after having been conclusively and athoritatively proven wrong, you STILL refused to retract your assertion and your insult to "junior's" Astronomical knowledge, and refused to admit your mistake.

But you were not content to let matters rest there, oh no!

You later tried to wiggle out of the mess you had made for yourself by claiming that all you meant was that the planets' orbits were elliptical, and that "junior" was wrong because he said they were circular. Well, of course this wasn't exactly true, now was it? "Junior" clearly said "nearly circular" not "circular," but that didn't stop you from trying to find an escape route through the rhetorical smoke-screen you were putting up.

So while we once again tried to explain to you that "nearly circular" IS elliptical, YOU compounded your already dazzling display of ignorance of conic sections by asserting: "No, a circle is not an ellipse....," which anybody who has managed to get through a high school Math course that includes Analytic Geometry knows is completely FALSE!

And so, once again, we spent dozens and dozens of posts patiently trying to explain to you that a circle is simply a degenerate ellipse with eccentricity equal to zero, but you, as usual, would have none of it.

So, in conclusion, YOU started this mess by attacking "Junior" post about planetary orbits, you were wrong, you never admitted it, and you compounded your first error with yet another blunder, which you also have yet to admit to, and then you ad insult to injury by having the audacity to proclaim that you haven't been proven wrong on anything.

So, we aren't the ones changing the subject; you are! YOU BROUGHT THOSE TOPICS UP, YOU BLEW IT, AND NOW YOU WANT TO PRETEND IT NEVER HAPPENDED.

There are only two possible conclusions the lurkers can come to regarding your continued denial of your past errors, and that you indeed HAVE been "proven wrong," and neither explanation is flattering to you.

Now, at long last, do you understand why virtually no educated person takes anything you post seriously?

[balrog666]

I’m puzzled by your response. According to the article, the skull is supposed (by its finders and a large part of the scientific community) to belong to an ancestor of humanity.

Million year+ hominid finds are extremely rare and exact lines of descent are not clear. This one is older and more primitive than any known and so is heralded as a probable ancestor. The problem, as you alluded to above, is the singular sample for an entire worldwide population over some two million years.

Compare these fossils to the large quantity of eohippus-to-equus fossils and the historical path to a resolution of their lines of descent.

If the issue is as much in the air as you state, why did the find make virtually every major newspaper in the United States? The articles I read (in the Virginian Pilot, my newspaper) stated that this find will make major changes in the theory of evolution. Perhaps you can enlighten me on this.

Any homonid find makes the news, the scientists are heralded by their peers, important papers are written ... and the journalists do their usual fine job of accurate reporting and precise quoting of scientific hedging and sprinkling of caveats. Science is never certain but journalists rarely grasp that fact or choose to ignore it for the sake of their readers.

Finally, while VadeRetro may appear to have a strong emotional attachment to evolution, his defense of it is based on facts, logic, and the scientific method. Given that, how would you distinguish between an emotionally-attached VedeRetro and a dispassionate, objective VadeRetro?

[ZULU]

"They most certainly are contradictory. One can't believe in the Bible, namely the gospel, and believe in evolution"

You can and I do, and if you can't the Bible is in trouble.

"The gospel states that sin and death first entered the world by one man, the first Adam, and can only be removed by another, the last Adam, Jesus Christ."

It refers to spiritual death, not physical death.

"Yet evolution teaches that much death, decay and destruction occurred for millennia before man appeared on the scene."

Facts indicate corporeal death, decay and destruction existed before man. Pick up a basic text on geology, anthropolgy, biology, paleontology, etc, and read about gepgraphic strata, fossils, and dating methodology.

[f.Christian]

[13] For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.
[14] For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
[15] But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.
[16] This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
[17] For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
[18] But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.
[19] Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
[20] Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
[21] Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
[22] But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
[23] Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
[24] And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.
[25] If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
[26] Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.

---

Gal.6
[1] Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.
[2] Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.

[PetiteMericco]

"More to the point, creationists make no useful contribution to science."

Neither did Richard Dawkins, but the swooning sycophants at your talk.origins don't hesitate to quote him as one of their messiahs.

I've been reading YOUR side for well over four years as a hobby. I've seen the same bait-and-switch tactics, pushing of bad science, tantrums over critiques, condescention, style-over-substance BS at every site you and yours use as a reference (and I've seen just about all of them). It's ridiculous. There are NO "mountains" of evolution, much less "overwhelming evidence" for the overinflated just-so stories peddled to the masses. You'll cling to any and every minute bone fragment unearthed in Africa in a desperate attempt to show that everything we see came from nothing.

Your tenacity of purpose in trying to show there is no purpose is astounding.

[agrace]

It refers to spiritual death, not physical death.

It refers to BOTH. I'll cite some references if you would like.

Are you suggesting that the return of Christ will NOT herald the eradication of disease, pain and death? What exactly then, is the point of a new heavens and a new earth? Do you believe that things will always be as physically destructive as they have been to this point? Do you disagree that the agony of this world is not a result of the evil that exists among us?

Besides, according to evolution, Adam was NOT the first man, so are you saying that there was no "spiritual death" among hominids before him? They all got a pass? Were they perfect before God? Did they live perfect lives?

[Junior]

That's not proof for anything. I could arrange spoons and forks in a linear progression, use sporks as a missing link, but that would not prove that forks came from spoons or that spoons gradually grew tines over millenia of time. See what I'm getting at?

Okay. So let's take three fossils. Fossil A is found in ancient strata, fossil B is found in more recent strata and Fossil C is found in the most recent strata. Fossil B resembles fossil A, sharing a number of similar features, but obviously a different critter. Fossil C bears the same relationship to fossil B. No examples of fossil B are mixed in with examples of fossil A or fossil C, and neither are examples of fossil C mixed in with fossil A.

So, we can draw one of a number of conclusions based upon this simplified model: Fossil B is a descendent of fossil A and fossil C is a descendent of fossil B or

God pops in from time to time and zaps new critters into existence that bear an uncanny resemblance to earlier critters (remember, these fossils are not mixed up, so they did not exist contemporaneously).

If you have any other ideas on how the critters came to be -- ideas supported by the evidence -- what, praytell, are they?

[PatrickHenry]

If you have any other ideas on how the critters came to be -- ideas supported by the evidence -- what, praytell, are they?

Has it ever occurred to you, oh you wretched mouthpiece for the Darwinian conspiracy, that those distorted, hideous fossils are the remains of Satan's servants?

[PatrickHenry]

Now, at long last, do you [g3k] understand why virtually no educated person takes anything you post seriously?

Not to mention his hilarious "discovery" that no one had ever won a Nobel Prize for evolution. When it was pointed out to him that there is no Nobel Prize category for biology, he just slimed around that it should have found its way into other categories. And he had no response for the counter-propostion that nobody has ever won a Nobel Prize (or indeed, any seriously-regarded prize) for so-called creation science either. Well, we can always award them the booby-prize.