| THE ORIGIN OF MAN Darwin put forward his claim that human beings and apes descended from a common ancestor in his book The Descent of Man, published in 1871. From that time until now, the followers of Darwin's path have tried to support this claim. But despite all the research that has been carried out, the claim of "human evolution" has not been backed up by any concrete scientific discovery, particularly in the fossil field. The man in the street is for the most part unaware of this fact, and thinks that the claim of human evolution is supported by a great deal of firm evidence. The reason for this incorrect opinion is that the subject is frequently discussed in the media and presented as a proven fact. But real experts on the subject are aware that there is no scientific foundation for the claim of human evolution. David Pilbeam, a Harvard University paleoanthropologist, says: If you brought in a smart scientist from another discipline and showed him the meagre evidence we've got he'd surely say, "forget it; there isn't enough to go on."181 And William Fix, the author of an important book on the subject of paleoanthropology, makes this comment: As we have seen, there are numerous scientists and popularizers today who have the temerity to tell us that there is 'no doubt' how man originated. If only they had the evidence...182
This claim of evolution, which "lacks any evidence," starts the human family tree with a group of apes that have been claimed to constitute a distinct genus, Australopithecus. According to the claim, Australopithecus gradually began to walk upright, his brain grew, and he passed through a series of stages until he arrived at man's present state (Homo sapiens). But the fossil record does not support this scenario. Despite the claim that all kinds of intermediate forms exist, there is an impassable barrier between the fossil remains of man and those of apes. Furthermore, it has been revealed that the species which are portrayed as each other's ancestors are actually contemporary species that lived in the same period. Ernst Mayr, one of the most important proponents of the theory of evolution in the twentieth century, contends in his book One Long Argument that "particularly historical [puzzles] such as the origin of life or of Homo sapiens, are extremely difficult and may even resist a final, satisfying explanation."183 But what is the basis for the human evolution thesis put forward by evolutionists? It is the existence of plenty of fossils on which evolutionists are able to build imaginary interpretations. Throughout history, more than 6,000 species of ape have lived, and most of them have become extinct. Today, only 120 species live on the earth. These 6,000 or so species of ape, most of which are extinct, constitute a rich resource for the evolutionists. On the other hand, there are considerable differences in the anatomic makeup of the various human races. Furthermore, the differences were even greater between prehistoric races, because as time has passed the human races have to some extent mixed with each other and become assimilated. Despite this, important differences are still seen between different population groups living in the world today, such as, for example, Scandinavians, African pygmies, Inuits, native Australians, and many others. There is no evidence to show that the fossils called hominid by evolutionary paleontologists do not actually belong to different species of ape or to vanished races of humans. To put it another way, no example of a transitional form between mankind and apes has been found. After these general explanations, let us now examine the human evolution hypothesis together. The Imaginary Family Tree of Man The Darwinist claim holds that modern man evolved from some kind of ape-like creature. During this alleged evolutionary process, which is supposed to have started from 5 to 6 million years ago, it is claimed that there existed some transitional forms between modern man and his ancestors. According to this completely imaginary scenario, the following four basic categories are listed: 1. Australophithecines (any of the various forms belonging to the genus Australophithecus) 2. Homo habilis 3. Homo erectus 4. Homo sapiens Evolutionists call the genus to which the alleged ape-like ancestors of man belonged Australopithecus, which means "southern ape." Australopithecus, which is nothing but an old type of ape that has become extinct, is found in various different forms. Some of them are larger and strongly built ("robust"), while others are smaller and delicate ("gracile"). Evolutionists classify the next stage of human evolution as the genus Homo, that is "man." According to the evolutionist claim, the living things in the Homo series are more developed than Australopithecus, and not very different from modern man. The modern man of our day, that is, the species Homo sapiens, is said to have formed at the latest stage of the evolution of this genus Homo. Fossils like "Java man," "Peking man," and "Lucy," which appear in the media from time to time and are to be found in evolutionist publications and textbooks, are included in one of the four groups listed above. Each of these groupings is also assumed to branch into species and sub-species, as the case may be. Some suggested transitional forms of the past, such as Ramapithecus, had to be excluded from the imaginary human family tree after it was realised that they were ordinary apes.184 By outlining the links in the chain as "australopithecines > Homo habilis > Homo erectus > Homo sapiens," the evolutionists imply that each of these types is the ancestor of the next. However, recent findings by paleoanthropologists have revealed that australopithecines, Homo habilis and Homo erectus existed in different parts of the world at the same time. Moreover, some of those humans classified as Homo erectus probably lived up until very modern times. In an article titled "Latest Homo erectus of Java: Potential Contemporaneity with Homo sapiens in Southeast Asia," it was reported in the journal that Homo erectus fossils found in Java had "mean ages of 27 ± 2 to 53.3 ± 4 thousand years ago" and this "raise[s] the possibility that H. erectus overlapped in time with anatomically modern humans (H. sapiens) in Southeast Asia"185 Furthermore, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis (Neanderthal man) and Homo sapiens sapiens (modern man) also clearly co-existed. This situation apparently indicates the invalidity of the claim that one is the ancestor of the other. Intrinsically, all the findings and scientific research have revealed that the fossil record does not suggest an evolutionary process as evolutionists propose. The fossils, which evolutionists claim to be the ancestors of humans, in fact belong either to different human races, or else to species of ape. Then which fossils are human and which ones are apes? Is it ever possible for any one of them to be considered a transitional form? In order to find the answers, let us have a closer look at each category. Australopithecus The first category, the genus Australopithecus, means "southern ape," as we have said. It is assumed that these creatures first appeared in Africa about 4 million years ago, and lived until 1 million years ago. There are a number of different species among the australopithecines. Evolutionists assume that the oldest Australopithecus species is A. afarensis. After that comes A. africanus, and then A. robustus, which has relatively bigger bones. As for A. Boisei, some researchers accept it as a different species, and others as a sub-species of A. Robustus. All of the Australopithecus species are extinct apes that resemble the apes of today. Their cranial capacities are the same or smaller than the chimpanzees of our day. There are projecting parts in their hands and feet which they used to climb trees, just like today's chimpanzees, and their feet are built for grasping to hold onto branches. Many other characteristics-such as the details in their skulls, the closeness of their eyes, their sharp molar teeth, their mandibular structure, their long arms, and their short legs-constitute evidence that these creatures were no different from today's ape. However, evolutionists claim that, although australopithecines have the anatomy of apes, unlike apes, they walked upright like humans.
This claim that australopithecines walked upright is a view that has been held by paleoanthropologists such as Richard Leakey and Donald C. Johanson for decades. Yet many scientists who have carried out a great deal of research on the skeletal structures of australopithecines have proved the invalidity of that argument. Extensive research done on various Australopithecus specimens by two world-renowned anatomists from England and the USA, Lord Solly Zuckerman and Prof. Charles Oxnard, showed that these creatures did not walk upright in human manner. Having studied the bones of these fossils for a period of 15 years thanks to grants from the British government, Lord Zuckerman and his team of five specialists reached the conclusion that australopithecines were only an ordinary species of ape, and were definitely not bipedal, although Zuckerman is an evolutionist himself.186 Correspondingly, Charles E. Oxnard, who is another evolutionary anatomist famous for his research on the subject, also likened the skeletal structure of australopithecines to that of modern orangutans.187 That Australopithecus cannot be counted an ancestor
of man has recently been accepted by evolutionist sources. The famous
French popular scientific magazine Science et Vie made the subject
the cover of its May 1999 issue. Under the headline "Adieu Lucy"-Lucy
being the most important fossil example of the species Australopithecus
afarensis-the magazine reported that apes of the species Australopithecus
would have to be removed from the human family tree. In this article,
based on the discovery of another Australopithecus fossil known
simply as St W573, the following sentences appear:
A new theory states that the genus Australopithecus is not the root of the human race… The results arrived at by the only woman authorized to examine St W573 are different from the normal theories regarding mankind's ancestors: this destroys the hominid family tree. Large primates, considered the ancestors of man, have been removed from the equation of this family tree… Australopithecus and Homo (human) species do not appear on the same branch. Man's direct ancestors are still waiting to be discovered.188 Homo Habilis The great similarity between the skeletal and
cranial structures of australopithecines and chimpanzees, and the
refutation of the claim that these creatures walked upright, have
caused great difficulty for evolutionary paleoanthropologists. The
reason is that, according to the imaginary evolution scheme, Homo
erectus comes after Australopithecus. As the genus name Homo (meaning
"man") implies, Homo erectus is a human species, and its skeleton
is straight. Its cranial capacity is twice as large as that of Australopithecus.
A direct transition from Australopithecus, which is a chimpanzee-like
ape, to Homo erectus, which has a skeleton no different from modern
man's, is out of the question, even according to evolutionist theory.
Therefore, "links"- that is, transitional forms-are needed. The
concept of Homo habilis arose from this necessity.
The classification of Homo habilis was put forward in the 1960s by the Leakeys, a family of "fossil hunters." According to the Leakeys, this new species, which they classified as Homo habilis, had a relatively large cranial capacity, the ability to walk upright and to use stone and wooden tools. Therefore, it could have been the ancestor of man. New fossils of the same species unearthed in the late 1980s were to completely change this view. Some researchers, such as Bernard Wood and C. Loring Brace, who relied on those newly-found fossils, stated that Homo habilis (which means "skillful man," that is, man capable of using tools), should be classified as Australopithecus habilis, or "skillful southern ape," because Homo habilis had a lot of characteristics in common with the austalopithecine apes. It had long arms, short legs and an ape-like skeletal structure just like Australopithecus. Its fingers and toes were suitable for climbing. Their jaw was very similar to that of today's apes. Their 600 cc average cranial capacity is also an indication of the fact that they were apes. In short, Homo habilis, which was presented as a different species by some evolutionists, was in reality an ape species just like all the other australopithecines. Research carried out in the years since Wood and Brace's work has demonstrated that Homo habilis was indeed no different from Australopithecus. The skull and skeletal fossil OH62 found by Tim White showed that this species had a small cranial capacity, as well as long arms and short legs, which enabled them to climb trees just like modern apes do. The detailed analyses conducted by American anthropologist Holly Smith in 1994 indicated that Homo habilis was not Homo, in other words, human, at all, but rather unequivocally an ape. Speaking of the analyses she made on the teeth of Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis, Smith stated the following; Restricting analysis of fossils to specimens satisfying these criteria, patterns of dental development of gracile australopithecines and Homo Habilis remain classified with African apes. Those of Homo erectus and Neanderthals are classified with humans.189 Within the same year, Fred Spoor, Bernard Wood and Frans Zonneveld, all specialists on anatomy, reached a similar conclusion through a totally different method. This method was based on the comparative analysis of the semicircular canals in the inner ear of humans and apes, which allow them to maintain their balance. Spoor, Wood and Zonneveld concluded that: Among the fossil hominids the earliest species to demonstrate the modern human morphology is Homo erectus. In contrast, the semi-circular canal dimensions in crania from southern Africa attributed to Australopithecus and Paranthropus resemble those of the extant great apes.190 Spoor, Wood and Zonneveld also studied a Homo habilis specimen, namely Stw 53, and found out that "Stw 53 relied less on bipedal behavior than the australopithecines." This meant that the H. habilis specimen was even more ape-like than the Australopithecus species. Thus they concluded that "Stw 53 represents an unlikely intermediate between the morphologies seen in the australopithecines and H. erectus."191 This finding yielded two important results: 1. Fossils referred to as Homo habilis did not actually belong to the genus Homo, i.e., humans, but to that of Australopithecus, i.e., apes. 2. Both Homo habilis and Australopithecus were creatures
that walked stooped forward-that is to say, they had the skeleton
of an ape. They have no relation whatsoever to man.
The Misconception about Homo rudolfensis The term Homo rudolfensis is the name given to a few fossil fragments unearthed in 1972. The species supposedly represented by this fossil was designated Homo rudolfensis because these fossil fragments were found in the vicinity of Lake Rudolf in Kenya. Most paleoanthropologists accept that these fossils do not belong to a distinct species, but that the creature called Homo rudolfensis is in fact indistinguishable from Homo habilis. Richard Leakey, who unearthed the
fossils, presented the skull designated KNM-ER 1470, which he said
was 2.8 million years old, as the greatest discovery in the history
of anthropology. According to Leakey, this creature, which had a
small cranial capacity like that of Australopithecus together with
a face similar to that of present-day humans, was the missing link
between Australopithecus and humans. Yet, after a short while, it
was realized that the human-like face of the KNM-ER 1470 skull,
which frequently appeared on the covers of scientific journals and
popular science magazines, was the result of the incorrect assembly
of the skull fragments, which may have been deliberate. Professor
Tim Bromage, who conducts studies on human facial anatomy, brought
this to light by the help of computer simulations in 1992:
The evolutionary paleoanthropologist J. E. Cronin states the following on the matter: ... its relatively robustly constructed face, flattish naso-alveolar clivus, (recalling australopithecine dished faces), low maximum cranial width (on the temporals), strong canine juga and large molars (as indicated by remaining roots) are all relatively primitive traits which ally the specimen with members of the taxon A. africanus.193 C. Loring Brace from Michigan University came to the same conclusion. As a result of the analyses he conducted on the jaw and tooth structure of skull 1470, he reported that "from the size of the palate and the expansion of the area allotted to molar roots, it would appear that ER 1470 retained a fully Australopithecus-sized face and dentition."194 Professor Alan Walker, a paleoanthropologist from Johns Hopkins University who has done as much research on KNM-ER 1470 as Leakey, maintains that this creature should not be classified as a member of Homo-i.e., as a human species-but rather should be placed in the Australopithecus genus.195 In summary, classifications like Homo habilis or Homo rudolfensis, which are presented as transitional links between the australopithecines and Homo erectus, are entirely imaginary. It has been confirmed by many researchers today that these creatures are members of the Australopithecus series. All of their anatomical features reveal that they are species of apes. This fact has been further established by two evolutionist anthropologists, Bernard Wood and Mark Collard, whose research was published in 1999 in Science. Wood and Collard explained that the Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis (Skull 1470) taxa are imaginary, and that the fossils assigned to these categories should be attributed to the genus Australopithecus: More recently, fossil species have been assigned to Homo on the basis of absolute brain size, inferences about language ability and hand function, and retrodictions about their ability to fashion stone tools. With only a few exceptions, the definition and use of the genus within human evolution, and the demarcation of Homo, have been treated as if they are unproblematic. But ... recent data, fresh interpretations of the existing evidence, and the limitations of the paleoanthropological record invalidate existing criteria for attributing taxa to Homo....in practice fossil hominin species are assigned to Homo on the basis of one or more out of four criteria. ... It is now evident, however, that none of these criteria is satisfactory. The Cerebral Rubicon is problematic because absolute cranial capacity is of questionable biological significance. Likewise, there is compelling evidence that language function cannot be reliably inferred from the gross appearance of the brain, and that the language-related parts of the brain are not as well localized as earlier studies had implied...... ...In other words, with the hypodigms of H. habilis and H. rudolfensis assigned to it, the genus Homo is not a good genus. Thus, H. habilis and H. rudolfensis (or Homo habilis sensu lato for those who do not subscribe to the taxonomic subdivision of "early Homo") should be removed from Homo. The obvious taxonomic alternative, which is to transfer one or both of the taxa to one of the existing early hominin genera, is not without problems, but we recommend that, for the time being, both H. habilis and H. rudolfensis should be transferred to the genus Australopithecus.196 The conclusion of Wood and Collard corroborates the conclusion that we have maintained here: "Primitive human ancestors" do not exist in history. Creatures that are alleged to be so are actually apes that ought to be assigned to the genus Australopithecus. The fossil record shows that there is no evolutionary link between these extinct apes and Homo, i.e., human species that suddenly appears in the fossil record. Homo erectus According to the fanciful scheme suggested by evolutionists, the
internal evolution of the Homo genus is as follows: First Homo erectus,
then so-called "archaic" Homo sapiens and Neanderthal man (Homo
sapiens neanderthalensis), and finally, Cro-Magnon man (Homo sapiens
sapiens). However all these classifications are really only variations
and unique races in the human family. The difference between them
is no greater than the difference between an Inuit and an African,
or a pygmy and a European.
Let us first examine Homo erectus, which is referred to as the most primitive human species. As the name implies, Homo erectus means "man who walks upright." Evolutionists have had to separate these fossils from earlier ones by adding the qualification of "erectness," because all the available Homo erectus fossils are straight to an extent not observed in any of the australopithecines or so-called Homo habilis specimens. There is no difference between the postcranial skeleton of modern man and that of Homo erectus. The primary reason for evolutionists' defining Homo erectus as "primitive" is the cranial capacity of its skull (900-1,100 cc), which is smaller than the average modern man, and its thick eyebrow projections. However, there are many people living today in the world who have the same cranial capacity as Homo erectus (pygmies, for instance) and other races have protruding eyebrows (Native Australians, for instance). It is a commonly agreed-upon fact that differences in cranial capacity do not necessarily denote differences in intelligence or abilities. Intelligence depends on the internal organization of the brain, rather than on its volume.197 The fossils that have made Homo erectus known to the entire world are those of Peking man and Java man in Asia. However, in time it was realized that these two fossils are not reliable. Peking man consists of some elements made of plaster whose originals have been lost, and Java man is composed of a skull fragment plus a pelvic bone that was found yards away from it with no indication that these belonged to the same creature. This is why the Homo erectus fossils found in Africa have gained such increasing importance. (It should also be noted that some of the fossils said to be Homo erectus were included under a second species named Homo ergaster by some evolutionists. There is disagreement among the experts on this issue. We will treat all these fossils under the classification of Homo erectus.) The most famous of the Homo erectus specimens found in Africa is the fossil of "Narikotome Homo erectus," or the "Turkana Boy," which was found near Lake Turkana in Kenya. It is confirmed that the fossil was that of a 12-year-old boy, who would have been 1.83 meters tall in adolescence. The upright skeletal structure of the fossil is no different from that of modern man. The American paleoanthropologist Alan Walker said that he doubted that "the average pathologist could tell the difference between the fossil skeleton and that of a modern human." Concerning the skull, Walker wrote that he laughed when he saw it because "it looked so much like a Neanderthal."198 As we will see in the next chapter, Neanderthals are a modern human race. Therefore, Homo erectus is also a modern human race.
Even the evolutionist Richard Leakey states that the differences between Homo erectus and modern man are no more than racial variance: One would also see differences: in the shape of the skull, in the degree of protrusion of the face, the robustness of the brows and so on. These differences are probably no more pronounced than we see today between the separate geographical races of modern humans. Such biological variation arises when populations are geographically separated from each other for significant lengths of time.199
Professor William Laughlin from the University of Connecticut made extensive anatomical examinations of Inuits and the people living on the Aleut islands, and noticed that these people were extraordinarily similar to Homo erectus. The conclusion Laughlin arrived at was that all these distinct races were in fact different races of Homo sapiens (modern man):
When we consider the vast differences that exist between remote groups such as Eskimos and Bushmen, who are known to belong to the single species of Homo sapiens, it seems justifiable to conclude that Sinanthropus [an erectus specimen] belongs within this same diverse species.200 It is now a more pronounced fact in the scientific
community that Homo erectus is a superfluous taxon, and that fossils
assigned to the Homo erectus class are actually not so different
from Homo sapiens as to be considered a different species. In American
Scientist, the discussions over this issue and the result of a conference
held on the subject in 2000 were summarized in this way: Most of the participants at the Senckenberg conference got drawn into a flaming debate over the taxonomic status of Homo erectus started by Milford Wolpoff of the University of Michigan, Alan Thorne of the University of Canberra and their colleagues. They argued forcefully that Homo erectus had no validity as a species and should be eliminated altogether. All members of the genus Homo, from about 2 million years ago to the present, were one highly variable, widely spread species, Homo sapiens, with no natural breaks or subdivisions. The subject of the conference, Homo erectus, didn't exist.201 The conclusion reached by the scientists defending
the abovementioned thesis can be summarized as "Homo erectus is
not a different species from Homo sapiens, but rather a race within
Homo sapiens." On the other hand, there is a huge gap between Homo
erectus, a human race, and the apes that preceded Homo erectus in
the "human evolution" scenario (Australopithecus, Homo Habilis,
and Homo rudolfensis). This means that the first men appeared in
the fossil record suddenly and without any prior evolutionary history.
Neanderthals: Their Anatomy and Culture Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) were human beings who suddenly appeared 100,000 years ago in Europe, and who disappeared, or were assimilated by mixing with other races, quietly but quickly 35,000 years ago. Their only difference from modern man is that their skeletons are more robust and their cranial capacity slightly bigger. Neanderthals were a human race, a fact which is admitted by almost everybody today. Evolutionists have tried very hard to present them as a "primitive species," yet all the findings indicate that they were no different from a "robust" man walking on the street today. A prominent authority on the subject, Erik Trinkaus, a paleoanthropologist from New Mexico University, writes: Detailed comparisons of Neanderthal
skeletal remains with those of modern humans have shown that there
is nothing in Neanderthal anatomy that conclusively indicates locomotor,
manipulative, intellectual, or linguistic abilities inferior to
those of modern humans.202 On the other hand, the fossil
record shows that Neanderthals possessed an advanced culture. One
of the most interesting examples of this is a fossilized flute made
by Neanderthal people. This flute, made from the thighbone of a
bear, was found by the archaeologist Ivan Turk in a cave in northern
Yugoslavia in July 1995. Musicologist Bob Fink then analyzed it.
Fink proved that this flute, thought by radio-carbon testing to
be between 43,000 and 67,000 years old, produced four notes, and
that it had half and full tones. This discovery shows that Neanderthals
used the seven-note scale, the basic formula of western music. Fink,
who examined the flute, states that "the distance between the second
and third holes on the old flute is double that between the third
and fourth." This means that the first distance represents a full
note, and the distance next to it a half note. Fink says, "These
three notes … are inescapably diatonic and will sound like a near-perfect
fit within any kind of standard diatonic scale, modern or antique,"
thus revealing that Neanderthals were people with an ear for and
knowledge of music.203
A 26,000-year-old sewing needle, proved to have been used by Neanderthal people, was also found during fossil excavations. This needle, which is made of bone, is exceedingly straight and has a hole for the thread to be passed through.205 People who wear clothing and feel the need for a sewing needle cannot be considered "primitive." The best research into the Neanderthals' tool-making abilities is that of Steven L. Kuhn and Mary C. Stiner, professors of anthropology and archaeology, respectively, at the University of New Mexico. Although these two scientists are proponents of the theory of evolution, the results of their archaeological research and analyses show that the Neanderthals who lived in caves on the coast of southwest Italy for thousands of years carried out activities that required as complex a capacity for thought as modern-day human beings.206
Kuhn and Stiner found a number of tools in these caves. The discoveries were of sharp, pointed cutting implements, including spearheads, made by carefully chipping away layers at the edges of the flint. Making sharp edges of this kind by chipping away layers is without a doubt a process calling for intelligence and skill. Research has shown that one of the most important problems encountered in that process is breakages that occur as a result of pressure at the edge of the stones. For this reason, the individual carrying out the process has to make fine judgments of the amount of force to use in order to keep the edges straight, and of the precise angle to strike at, if he is making an angled tool. Margaret Conkey from the University of California explains that tools made in periods before the Neanderthals were also made by communities of intelligent people who were fully aware of what they were doing:
If you look at the things
archaic humans made with their hands, Levallois cores and so on,
that's not a bumbling king of thing. They had an appreciation of
the material they were working with, an understanding of their world.207 Archaic Homo sapiens, Homo heidelbergensis and
Cro-Magnon Man Archaic Homo sapiens is the last step before contemporary man in the imaginary evolutionary scheme. In fact, evolutionists do not have much to say about these fossils, as there are only very minor differences between them and modern human beings. Some researchers even state that representatives of this race are still living today, and point to native Australians as an example. Like Homo sapiens (archaic), native Australians also have thick protruding eyebrows, an inward-inclined mandibular structure, and a slightly smaller cranial capacity. The group characterized as Homo heidelbergensis in evolutionist literature is in fact the same as archaic Homo sapiens. The reason why two different terms are used to define the same human racial type is the disagreements among evolutionists. All the fossils included under the Homo heidelbergensis classification suggest that people who were anatomically very similar to modern Europeans lived 500,000 and even 740,000 years ago, in England and in Spain.
It is estimated that Cro-Magnon man lived 30,000 years ago. He has a dome-shaped cranium and a broad forehead. His cranium of 1,600 cc is above the average for contemporary man. His skull has thick eyebrow projections and a bony protrusion at the back that is characteristic of both Neanderthal man and Homo erectus. Although the Cro-Magnon is considered to be a European race, the structure and volume of Cro-Magnon's cranium look very much like those of some races living in Africa and the tropics today. Relying on this similarity, it is estimated that Cro-Magnon was an archaic African race. Some other paleoanthropological finds have shown that the Cro-Magnon and the Neanderthal races intermixed and laid the foundations for the races of our day. As a result, none of these human beings were "primitive species." They were different human beings who lived in earlier times and either assimilated and mixed with other races, or became extinct and disappeared from history. The Collapse of the Family Tree What we have investigated so far forms a clear picture: The scenario of "human evolution" is a complete fiction. In order for such a family tree to represent the truth, a gradual evolution from ape to man must have taken place and a fossil record of this process should be able to be found. In fact, however, there is a huge gap between apes and humans. Skeletal structures, cranial capacities, and such criteria as walking upright or bent sharply forward distinguish humans from apes. (We already mentioned that on the basis of recent research done in 1994 on the inner ear, Australopithecus and Homo habilis were reclassified as apes, while Homo erectus was reclassified as a fully modern human.) Another significant finding proving that there can be no family-tree relationship among these different species is that species that are presented as ancestors of others in fact lived concurrently. If, as evolutionists claim, Australopithecus changed into Homo habilis, which, in turn, turned into Homo erectus, the periods they lived in should necessarily have followed each other. However, there is no such chronological order to be seen in the fossil record. According to evolutionist estimates, Australopithecus lived from 4 million up until 1 million years ago. The creatures classified as Homo habilis, on the other hand, are thought to have lived until 1.7 to 1.9 million years ago. Homo rudolfensis, which is said to have been more "advanced" than Homo habilis, is known to be as old as from 2.5 to 2.8 million years! That is to say, Homo rudolfensis is nearly 1 million years older than Homo habilis, of which it is alleged to have been the "ancestor." On the other hand, the age of Homo erectus goes as far back as 1.6-1.8 million years ago, which means that Homo erectus appeared on the earth in the same time frame as its so-called ancestor, Homo habilis. Alan Walker confirms this fact by stating that "there is evidence from East Africa for late-surviving small Australopithecus individuals that were contemporaneous first with H. Habilis, then with H. erectus."208 Louis Leakey has found fossils of Australopithecus, Homo habilis and Homo erectus almost next to each other in the Olduvai Gorge region of Tanzania, in the Bed II layer.209 There is definitely no such family tree. Stephen Jay Gould, the paleontologist from Harvard University, explains this deadlock faced by evolution, although he is an evolutionist himself: What has become of our ladder if there are three coexisting lineages of hominids (A. africanus, the robust australopithecines, and H. habilis), none clearly derived from another? Moreover, none of the three display any evolutionary trends during their tenure on earth.210 When we move on from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens, we again see that there is no family tree to talk about. There is evidence showing that Homo erectus and archaic Homo sapiens continued living up to 27,000 years and even as recently as 10,000 years before our time. In the Kow Swamp in Australia, some 13,000-year-old Homo erectus skulls have been found. On the island of Java, Homo erectus remains were found that are 27,000 years old.211 One of the most surprising discoveries in this area was the 30,000-year-old Homo erectus, Neanderthal, and Homo sapiens fossils found in Java in 1996. The New York Times wrote in its cover story: "Until about a couple of decades ago, scientists conceived of the human lineage as a neat progression of one species to the next and generally thought it impossible that two species could have overlapped in place or time."212 This discovery reveals once again the invalidity of the "evolutionary tree" scenario regarding the origin of man. Latest Evidence: Sahelanthropus tchadensis and
The latest evidence to shatter the evolutionary theory's claim about the origin of man is the new fossil Sahelanthropus tchadensis unearthed in the Central African country of Chad in the summer of 2002. The fossil has set the cat among the pigeons in the world of Darwinism. In its article giving news of the discovery, the world-renowned journal Nature admitted that "New-found skull could sink our current ideas about human evolution."213 Daniel Lieberman of Harvard University said that "This [discovery] will have the impact of a small nuclear bomb."214 The reason for this is that although the fossil in question is 7 million years old, it has a more "human-like" structure (according to the criteria evolutionists have hitherto used) than the 5 million-year-old Australopithecus ape species that is alleged to be "mankind's oldest ancestor." This shows that the evolutionary links established between extinct ape species based on the highly subjective and prejudiced criterion of "human similarity" are totally imaginary. John Whitfield, in his article "Oldest Member of Human Family Found" published in Nature on July, 11, 2002, confirms this view quoting from Bernard Wood, an evolutionist anthropologist from George Washington University in Washington: "When I went to medical school in 1963, human evolution looked like a ladder." he [Bernard Wood] says. The ladder stepped from monkey to man through a progression of intermediates, each slightly less ape-like than the last. Now human evolution looks like a bush. We have a menagerie of fossil hominids... How they are related to each other and which, if any of them, are human forebears is still debated.215 The comments of Henry Gee, the senior editor of Nature and a leading paleoanthropologist, about the newly discovered ape fossil are very noteworthy. In his article published in The Guardian, Gee refers to the debate about the fossil and writes: Whatever the outcome, the skull shows, once and for all, that the old idea of a 'missing link' is bunk... It should now be quite plain that the very idea of the missing link, always shaky, is now completely untenable.216 The Secret History of Homo sapiens The most interesting and significant fact that nullifies the very basis of the imaginary family tree of evolutionary theory is the unexpectedly ancient history of modern man. Paleoanthropological findings reveal that Homo sapiens people who looked exactly like us were living as long as 1 million years ago. It was Louis Leakey, the famous
evolutionary paleoanthropologist, who discovered the first findings
on this subject. In 1932, in the Kanjera region around Lake Victoria
in Kenya, Leakey found several fossils that belonged to the Middle
Pleistocene and that were no different from modern man. However,
the Middle Pleistocene was a million years ago.217
Since these discoveries turned the evolutionary family tree upside
down, they were dismissed by some evolutionary paleoanthropologists.
Yet Leakey always contended that his estimates were correct.
Just when this controversy was about to be forgotten, a fossil unearthed in Spain in 1995 revealed in a very remarkable way that the history of Homo sapiens was much older than had been assumed. The fossil in question was uncovered in a cave called Gran Dolina in the Atapuerca region of Spain by three Spanish paleoanthropologists from the University of Madrid. The fossil revealed the face of an 11-year-old boy who looked entirely like modern man. Yet, it had been 800,000 years since the child died. Discover magazine covered the story in great detail in its December 1997 issue. This fossil even shook the convictions of Juan Luis Arsuaga Ferreras, who lead the Gran Dolina excavation. Ferreras said: We expected something big, something large, something inflated-you know, something primitive… Our expectation of an 800,000-year-old boy was something like Turkana Boy. And what we found was a totally modern face.... To me this is most spectacular-these are the kinds of things that shake you. Finding something totally unexpected like that. Not finding fossils; finding fossils is unexpected too, and it's okay. But the most spectacular thing is finding something you thought belonged to the present, in the past. It's like finding something like-like a tape recorder in Gran Dolina. That would be very surprising. We don't expect cassettes and tape recorders in the Lower Pleistocene. Finding a modern face 800,000 years ago-it's the same thing. We were very surprised when we saw it.218 The fossil highlighted the fact that the history of Homo sapiens had to be extended back to 800,000 years ago. After recovering from the initial shock, the evolutionists who discovered the fossil decided that it belonged to a different species, because according to the evolutionary family tree, Homo sapiens did not live 800,000 years ago. Therefore, they made up an imaginary species called Homo antecessor and included the Atapuerca skull under this classification.
Huts and Footprints There have been many findings demonstrating that Homo sapiens dates back even earlier than 800,000 years. One of them is a discovery by Louis Leakey in the early 1970s in Olduvai Gorge. Here, in the Bed II layer, Leakey discovered that Australopithecus, Homo habilis and Homo erectus species had co-existed at the same time. What is even more interesting was a structure Leakey found in the same layer (Bed II). Here, he found the remains of a stone hut. The unusual aspect of the event was that this construction, which is still used in some parts of Africa, could only have been built by Homo sapiens! So, according to Leakey's findings, Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus and modern man must have co-existed approximately 1.7 million years ago.219 This discovery must surely invalidate the evolutionary theory that claims that modern man evolved from ape-like species such as Australopithecus. Indeed, some other discoveries trace the origins of modern man back to 1.7 million years ago. One of these important finds is the footprints found in Laetoli, Tanzania, by Mary Leakey in 1977. These footprints were found in a layer that was calculated to be 3.6 million years old, and more importantly, they were no different from the footprints that a contemporary man would leave. The footprints found by Mary Leakey were later examined by a number of famous paleoanthropologists, such as Donald Johanson and Tim White. The results were the same. White wrote: Make no mistake about it,... They are like modern human footprints. If one were left in the sand of a California beach today, and a four-year old were asked what it was, he would instantly say that somebody had walked there. He wouldn't be able to tell it from a hundred other prints on the beach, nor would you.220 After examining the footprints, Louis Robbins from the University of North California made the following comments: The arch is raised - the smaller individual had a higher arch than I do - and the big toe is large and aligned with the second toe … The toes grip the ground like human toes. You do not see this in other animal forms.221 Examinations of the morphological form of the footprints showed time and again that they had to be accepted as the prints of a human, and moreover, a modern human (Homo sapiens). Russell Tuttle, who also examined the footprints, wrote: A small barefoot Homo sapiens could have made them... In all discernible morphological features, the feet of the individuals that made the trails are indistinguishable from those of modern humans.222
Impartial examinations of the footprints revealed their real owners. In reality, these footprints consisted of 20 fossilized footprints of a 10-year-old modern human and 27 footprints of an even younger one. They were certainly modern people like us. This situation put the Laetoli footprints at the center of discussions for years. Evolutionary paleoanthropologists desperately tried to come up with an explanation, as it was hard for them to accept the fact that a modern man had been walking on the earth 3.6 million years ago. During the 1990s, the following "explanation" started to take shape: The evolutionists decided that these footprints must have been left by an Australopithecus, because according to their theory, it was impossible for a Homo species to have existed 3.6 years ago. However, Russell H. Tuttle wrote the following in an article in 1990: In sum, the 3.5-million-year-old footprint traits 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. If the G footprints were not known to be so old, we would readily conclude that there had been made by a member of our genus, Homo... In any case, we should shelve the loose assumption that the Laetoli footprints were made by Lucy's kind, Australopithecus afarensis.223 To put it briefly, these footprints that were supposed
to be 3.6 million years old could not have belonged to Australopithecus.
The only reason why the footprints were thought to have been left
by members of Australopithecus was the 3.6-million-year-old volcanic
layer in which the footprints were found. The prints were ascribed
to Australopithecus purely on the assumption that humans could not
have lived so long ago. These interpretations of the Laetoli footprints demonstrate one important fact. Evolutionists support their theory not based on scientific findings, but in spite of them. Here we have a theory that is blindly defended no matter what, with all new findings that cast the theory into doubt being either ignored or distorted to support the theory. Briefly, the theory of evolution is not science,
but a dogma kept alive despite science.
The Bipedalism Problem
Apart from the fossil record that we have dealt with so far, unbridgeable anatomical gaps between men and apes also invalidate the fiction of human evolution. One of these has to do with the manner of walking. Human beings walk upright on two feet. This is a very special form of locomotion not seen in any other mammalian species. Some other animals do have a limited ability to move when they stand on their two hind feet. Animals like bears and monkeys can move in this way only rarely, such as when they want to reach a source of food, and even then only for a short time. Normally, their skeletons lean forward and they walk on all fours. Well, then, has bipedalism evolved from the quadrupedal gait of apes, as evolutionists claim?
Of course not. Research has shown that the evolution of bipedalism
never occurred, nor is it possible for it to have done so. First
of all, bipedalism is not an evolutionary advantage. The way in
which apes move is much easier, faster, and more efficient than
man's bipedal stride. Man can neither move by jumping from tree
to tree without descending to the ground, like a chimpanzee, nor
run at a speed of 125 km per hour, like a cheetah. On the contrary,
since man walks on two feet, he moves much more slowly on the ground.
For the same reason, he is one of the most unprotected of all species
in nature in terms of movement and defence. According to the logic
of evolution, apes should not have evolved to adopt a bipedal stride;
humans should instead have evolved to become quadrupedal. The immense gap between man and ape is not limited solely to bipedalism. Many other issues still remain unexplained, such as brain capacity, the ability to talk, and so on. Elaine Morgan, an evolutionary paleoanthropologist, makes the following confession in relation to this matter: Four of the most outstanding mysteries about humans are: 1) why do they walk on two legs? 2) why have they lost their fur? 3) why have they developed such large brains? 4) why did they learn to speak? The orthodox answers to these questions are: 1) 'We do not yet know;' 2) 'We do not yet know;' 3) 'We do not yet know;' 4) 'We do not yet know.' The list of questions could be considerably lengthened without affecting the monotony of the answers.225 Evolution: An Unscientific Faith Lord Solly Zuckerman is one of the most famous and respected scientists in the United Kingdom. For years, he studied the fossil record and conducted many detailed investigations. He was elevated to the peerage for his contributions to science. Zuckerman is an evolutionist. Therefore, his comments on evolution cannot be regarded as ignorant or prejudiced. After years of research on the fossils included in the human evolution scenario however, he reached the conclusion that there is no truth to the family tree that is put forward. Zuckerman also advanced an interesting concept of the "spectrum of the sciences," ranging from those he considered scientific to those he considered unscientific. According to Zuckerman's spectrum, the most "scientific"-that is, dependent on concrete data-fields are chemistry and physics. After them come the biological sciences and then the social sciences. At the far end of the spectrum, which is the part considered to be most "unscientific," are extra-sensory perception-concepts such as telepathy and the "sixth sense"-and finally human evolution. Zuckerman explains his reasoning as follows: We then move right off the register of objective truth into those fields of presumed biological science, like extrasensory perception or the interpretation of man's fossil history, where to the faithful anything is possible - and where the ardent believer is sometimes able to believe several contradictory things at the same time.226 Robert Locke, the editor of Discovering Archeology, an important publication on the origins of man, writes in that journal, "The search for human ancestors gives more heat than light," quoting the confession of the famous evolutionary paleoantropologist Tim White: We're all frustrated by "all the questions we haven't been able to answer."227 Locke's article reviews the impasse of the theory of evolution on the origins of man and the groundlessness of the propaganda spread about this subject: Perhaps no area of science is more contentious than the search for human origins. Elite paleontologists disagree over even the most basic outlines of the human family tree. New branches grow amid great fanfare, only to wither and die in the face of new fossil finds.228 The same fact was also recently accepted by Henry Gee, the editor of the well-known journal Nature. In his book In Search of Deep Time, published in 1999, Gee points out that all the evidence for human evolution "between about 10 and 5 million years ago-several thousand generations of living creatures-can be fitted into a small box." He concludes that conventional theories of the origin and development of human beings are "a completely human invention created after the fact, shaped to accord with human prejudices," and adds: To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity as a bedtime story-amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific.229 As we have seen, there is no scientific discovery supporting or propping up the theory of evolution, just some scientists who blindly believe in it. These scientists both believe in the myth of evolution themselves, although it has no scientific foundation, and also make other people believe it by using the media, which cooperate with them. In the pages that follow, we shall examine a few examples of this deceptive propaganda carried out in the name of evolution. Deceptive Reconstructions Even if evolutionists are unsuccessful in finding scientific evidence to support their theories, they are very successful at one thing: propaganda. The most important element of this propaganda is the practice of creating false designs known as "reconstructions." Reconstruction can be explained as drawing a picture or constructing a model of a living thing based on a single bone-sometimes only a fragment-that has been unearthed. The "ape-men" we see in newspapers, magazines, and films are all reconstructions. Since fossils are usually fragmented and incomplete, any conjecture based on them is likely to be completely speculative. As a matter of fact, the reconstructions (drawings or models) made by evolutionists based on fossil remains are prepared speculatively precisely to validate the evolutionary thesis. David R. Pilbeam, an eminent anthropologist from Harvard, stresses this fact when he says: "At least in paleoanthropology, data are still so sparse that theory heavily influences interpretations. Theories have, in the past, clearly reflected our current ideologies instead of the actual data."230 Since people are highly affected by visual information, these reconstructions best serve the purpose of evolutionists, which is to convince people that these reconstructed creatures really existed in the past. At this point, we have to highlight one particular point: Reconstructions based on bone remains can only reveal the most general characteristics of the creature, since the really distinctive morphological features of any animal are soft tissues which quickly vanish after death. Therefore, due to the speculative nature of the interpretation of the soft tissues, the reconstructed drawings or models become totally dependent on the imagination of the person producing them. Earnst A. Hooten from Harvard University explains the situation like this:
To attempt to restore the soft parts is an even more hazardous undertaking. The lips, the eyes, the ears, and the nasal tip leave no clues on the underlying bony parts. You can with equal facility model on a Neanderthaloid skull the features of a chimpanzee or the lineaments of a philosopher. These alleged restorations of ancient types of man have very little if any scientific value and are likely only to mislead the public … So put not your trust in reconstructions.231 As a matter of fact, evolutionists invent such preposterous stories that they even ascribe different faces to the same skull. For example, the three different reconstructed drawings made for the fossil named Australopithecus robustus (Zinjanthropus) are a famous example of such forgery. The biased interpretation of fossils and outright fabrication of many imaginary reconstructions are an indication of how frequently evolutionists have recourse to tricks. Yet these seem innocent when compared to the deliberate forgeries that have been perpetrated in the history of evolution. There is no concrete fossil evidence to support the "ape-man" image, which is unceasingly promulgated by the media and evolutionist academic circles. With brushes in their hands, evolutionists produce imaginary creatures; nevertheless, the fact that these drawings correspond to no matching fossils constitutes a serious problem for them. One of the interesting methods they employ to overcome this problem is to "produce" the fossils they cannot find. Piltdown man, which may be the biggest scandal in the history of science, is a typical example of this method. The Piltdown Man Scandal In 1912, a well-known doctor and amateur paleoanthropologist named Charles Dawson came out with the assertion that he had found a jawbone and a cranial fragment in a pit in Piltdown, England. Even though the jawbone was more ape-like, the teeth and the skull were like a man's. These specimens were labelled the "Piltdown man." Alleged to be 500,000 years old, they were displayed as an absolute proof of human evolution in several museums. For more than 40 years, many scientific articles were written on "Piltdown man," many interpretations and drawings were made, and the fossil was presented as important evidence for human evolution. No fewer than 500 doctoral theses were written on the subject.232 While visiting the British Museum in 1921, leading American paleontologist Henry Fairfield Osborn said "We have to be reminded over and over again that Nature is full of paradoxes" and proclaimed Piltdown "a discovery of transcendant importance to the prehistory of man."233
In 1949, Kenneth Oakley, from the British Museum's Paleontology Department, attempted to use "fluorine testing," a new test used for determining the date of fossils. A trial was made on the fossil of Piltdown man. The result was astonishing. During the test, it was realized that the jawbone of Piltdown man did not contain any fluorine. This indicated that it had remained buried no more than a few years. The skull, which contained only a small amount of fluorine, showed that it was only a few thousand years old. It was determined that the teeth in the jawbone, belonging to an orangutan, had been worn down artificially and that the "primitive" tools discovered with the fossils were simple imitations that had been sharpened with steel implements. In the detailed analysis completed by Joseph Weiner, this forgery was revealed to the public in 1953. The skull belonged to a 500-year-old man, and the jaw bone belonged to a recently deceased ape! The teeth had been specially arranged in a particular way and added to the jaw, and the molar surfaces were filed in order to resemble those of a man. Then all these pieces were stained with potassium dichromate to give them an old appearance. These stains began to disappear when dipped in acid. Sir Wilfred Le Gros Clark, who was in the team that uncovered the forgery, could not hide his astonishment at this situation, and said: "The evidences of artificial abrasion immediately sprang to the eye. Indeed so obvious did they seem it may well be asked-how was it that they had escaped notice before?"234 In the wake of all this, "Piltdown man" was hurriedly removed from the British Museum where it had been displayed for more than 40 years. The Nebraska Man Scandal In 1922, Henry Fairfield Osborn, the director of the American Museum of Natural History, declared that he had found a fossil molar tooth belonging to the Pliocene period in western Nebraska near Snake Brook. This tooth allegedly bore common characteristics of both man and ape. An extensive scientific debate began surrounding this fossil, which came to be called "Nebraska man," in which some interpreted this tooth as belonging to Pithecanthropus erectus, while others claimed it was closer to human beings. Nebraska man was also immediately given a "scientific name," Hesperopithecus haroldcooki.
Many authorities gave Osborn their support. Based on this single tooth, reconstructions of Nebraska man's head and body were drawn. Moreover, Nebraska man was even pictured along with his wife and children, as a whole family in a natural setting. All of these scenarios were developed from just one tooth. Evolutionist circles placed such faith in this "ghost man" that when a researcher named William Bryan opposed these biased conclusions relying on a single tooth, he was harshly criticized. In 1927, other parts of the skeleton were also found. According to these newly discovered pieces, the tooth belonged neither to a man nor to an ape. It was realized that it belonged to an extinct species of wild American pig called Prosthennops. William Gregory entitled the article published in Science in which he announced the truth, "Hesperopithecus Apparently Not an Ape Nor a Man."235 Then all the drawings of Hesperopithecus haroldcooki and his "family" were hurriedly removed from evolutionary literature. Conclusion All the scientific deceptions and prejudiced evaluations made to support the theory of evolution show that the theory is a kind of ideology, and not at all a scientific account. Like all ideologies, this one too has its fanatical supporters, who are desperate to prove evolution, at no matter what cost. Or else they are so dogmatically bound to the theory that every new discovery is perceived as a great proof of the theory, even if it has nothing to do with evolution. This is really a very distressing picture for science, because it shows that science is being misdirected in the name of a dogma. In his book Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth, the Swedish scientist Soren Lovtrup has this to say on the subject: I suppose that nobody will deny that it is a great misfortune if an entire branch of science becomes addicted to a false theory. But this is what has happened in biology: for a long time now people discuss evolutionary problems in a peculiar "Darwinian" vocabulary-"adaptation," "selection pressure," "natural selection," etc.-thereby believing that they contribute to the explanation of natural events. They do not... I believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science.236 Further proof that Darwinism is the greatest deception in the history of science is provided by molecular biology.
181
Richard E. Leakey, The Making of Mankind, Sphere Books Limited,
Barcelona, 1982, p. 43. |
