Posted on 07/29/2002 6:35:04 PM PDT by 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
I agree, there is a logic to it. I would rather believe it's because there's a common creator. And it stands to reason that we are all made up of the same substance so we can benefit from all of creation. Like amino acids being common to all living things. If we didn't share them with plants and animals, how could we eat?
Basically, if someone should believe in evolution yet understand that Christ died for him, I wouldn't hammer him on his evolutionary belief, although it is quite good to present him with questions such as the one just presented by yourself.
Thanks. And I agree again. Accepting Christ is the beginning of a lifetime of knowledge and growth, it's not like God flips a switch and the work is done. And hey, I'm the last person to claim to have it all figured out. I'm thinking that someday, we'll be schooled on ALL of this, and our puny hypotheses will pale in comparison to what God has done throughout the ages.
Yupp, and the mud puddle has just the right shape to fit in that hole in the ground. If it's shape was just a little bit different if wouldn't fit any more.
Oh, and our legs are just as long as to reach to the ground. Unimaginable if they were too short or even too long :(
Why do we need to eat at all if we are made in the image of God?
Eating necessitates the death of something, be it a plant or animal; Adam and Eve could eat the fruit of any tree but one in the Garden of Eden. Fruit contains seeds for the propogation of future plants. Eating that fruit potentially killed those future plants -- and did kill the individual cells making up the fruit. Yet, we are told, death did not come into the world until man sinned.
I have to count to ten (or more) before I post to G3K because he has this habit of calling me and others liars. VR's been dealing with him longer than I have, I'm not surprised he loses patience occasionally.
As an aside, the conic sections correspond to rhetorical flourishes: ellipse = ellipsis ("falling short"), parabola = parable ("matched"), hyperbola = hyperbole ("going past"). (Check a good dictionary for exact etymologies)
Well suppose I am an associate professor of astronomy at a local university and I put together a course in basics astronomy for an undergraduate class. Not only do I publish what the class will cover, but also I use the latest findings/discoveries in my lectures, such as the solar neutrino problem.
Now you as a student decide to take my class and I (instead of teaching an introduction to big bang cosmology) decide to teach the biblical story of the Ark. Am I being fair and honest to my students?
This is no different that you biology teacher straying from teaching biology.
I notice that while you insult, you cannot refute my statement on post#222! I thought you were the genius around here. I have yet to see you post anything but insults and Christian bashing on these threads. Let me give you and your friends another chance to refute my statement that your buddy Darwin was a total fraud:
Absolute garbage. Biology has completely demolished the theory of evolution. The charlatan Darwin never got anything correct. His theory of traits melding into progeny was just made up bunk, his theory of cells was simple minded. His postulation that man descended from monkeys has been proven false, his claim that man only differs from monkeys in degree an absolute lie. His racist brachyocephalic index was also proven false. His eugenics was completely backwards, it is not the unfortunates who end up with genetic defects, but the parents that are the carriers of them. His claim that organisms recapitulate evolution in development, a completely made up lie.
So how come you folk who are sooooo smart, cannot refute his statements? Is evolution such a stupid theory that even geniuses like yourselves cannot refute the most moronic statements against it?
Quite correct. Evolution is still mired in the middle 19th century. It has absolutely no concept of the biological process and when it makes statements about it, it is proven completely wrong. There is one big hole in evolutionary theory, and that is how does a species transform itself into a new more complex species. The only answer they know is 'natural selection'. However, this cannot be the agent for such a transformation since natural selection does not create anything, it only destroys. So what is the source of the new genetic information which is needed for a bacteria to be turned into a man? They have no answer except mutations. Problem with mutations is that they are invariably harmful. Problem with mutations is that evolutionists cannot find a non-harmful process by which the numerous mutations needed to accomplish such transformations would be possible. Each new finding of biology proves evolution more and more impossible.
Another Patrick Henry 'refutation'. Another baseless insult that is.
You mean we should throw out all the articles the evolutionists posts from magazines and newspapers? And of course everything ever written in TalkOrigins and by Vade's favorite 'source' Don Lindsay? I guess we should also throw out the drivel spewed by Gould and Dawkins in the popular press too!
Evolution is NOT a law. It is a theory (model) that best describes the progression of life here on earth based on observations, experiments, and discoveries. If anyone tries to pass it off as a "law" they are wrong.
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