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Post by enginterzi on Mar 21, 2006 20:36:28 GMT -5
The Recapitulation Misconception
What used to be called the "recapitulation theory" has long been eliminated from scientific literature, but it is still being presented as a scientific reality by some evolutionist publications. The term "recapitulation" is a condensation of the dictum "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny," put forward by the evolutionary biologist Ernst Haeckel at the end of the nineteenth century.
This theory of Haeckel's postulates that living embryos re-experience the evolutionary process that their pseudo-ancestors underwent. He theorized that during its development in its mother's womb, the human embryo first displayed the characteristics of a fish, and then those of a reptile, and finally those of a human.
It has since been proven that this theory is completely bogus. It is now known that the "gills" that supposedly appear in the early stages of the human embryo are in fact the initial phases of the middle-ear canal, parathyroid, and thymus. That part of the embryo that was likened to the "egg yolk pouch" turns out to be a pouch that produces blood for the infant. The part that was identified as a "tail" by Haeckel and his followers is in fact the backbone, which resembles a tail only because it takes shape before the legs do.
These are universally acknowledged facts in the scientific world, and are accepted even by evolutionists themselves. Two leading neo-Darwinists, George Gaylord Simpson and W. Beck have admitted:
Haeckel misstated the evolutionary principle involved. It is now firmly established that ontogeny does not repeat phylogeny.
The following was written in an article in New Scientist dated October 16, 1999:
[Haeckel] called this the biogenetic law, and the idea became popularly known as recapitulation. In fact Haeckel's strict law was soon shown to be incorrect. For instance, the early human embryo never has functioning gills like a fish, and never passes through stages that look like an adult reptile or monkey.320
In an article published in American Scientist, we read:
Surely the biogenetic law is as dead as a doornail. It was finally exorcised from biology textbooks in the fifties. As a topic of serious theoretical inquiry it was extinct in the twenties…321
Another interesting aspect of "recapitulation" was Ernst Haeckel himself, a faker who falsified his drawings in order to support the theory he advanced. Haeckel's forgeries purported to show that fish and human embryos resembled one another. When he was caught out, the only defense he offered was that other evolutionists had committed similar offences:
After this compromising confession of 'forgery' I should be obliged to consider myself condemned and annihilated if I had not the consolation of seeing side by side with me in the prisoner's dock hundreds of fellow - culprits, among them many of the most trusted observers and most esteemed biologists. The great majority of all the diagrams in the best biological textbooks, treatises and journals would incur in the same degree the charge of 'forgery,' for all of them are inexact, and are more or less doctored, schematised and constructed.322
In the September 5, 1997, edition of the well-known scientific journal Science, an article was published revealing that Haeckel's embryo drawings were the product of a deception. The article, called "Haeckel's Embryos: Fraud Rediscovered," had this to say:
The impression they [Haeckel's drawings] give, that the embryos are exactly alike, is wrong, says Michael Richardson, an embryologist at St. George's Hospital Medical School in London… So he and his colleagues did their own comparative study, reexamining and photographing embryos roughly matched by species and age with those Haeckel drew. Lo and behold, the embryos "often looked surprisingly different," Richardson reports in the August issue of Anatomy and Embryology.
Science explained that, in order to be able to show the embryos as similar, Haeckel deliberately removed some organs from his drawings or else added imaginary ones. Later in this same article, the following information was revealed:
Not only did Haeckel add or omit features, Richardson and his colleagues report, but he also fudged the scale to exaggerate similarities among species, even when there were 10-fold differences in size. Haeckel further blurred differences by neglecting to name the species in most cases, as if one representative was accurate for an entire group of animals. In reality, Richardson and his colleagues note, even closely related embryos such as those of fish vary quite a bit in their appearance and developmental pathway. "It (Haeckel's drawings) looks like it's turning out to be one of the most famous fakes in biology," Richardson concludes.324
The Science article goes on to discuss how Haeckel's confessions on this subject were covered up from the beginning of the last century, and how the fake drawings began to be presented in textbooks as scientific fact:
Haeckel's confession got lost after his drawings were subsequently used in a 1901 book called Darwin and After Darwin and reproduced widely in English language biology texts.325
In short, the fact that Haeckel's drawings were falsified had already emerged in 1901, but the whole world of science continued to be deceived by them for a century.
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Post by enginterzi on Mar 21, 2006 20:37:44 GMT -5
The "Tree of Life" is Collapsing In the 1990s, research into the genetic codes of living things worsened the quandary faced by the theory of evolution in this regard. In these experiments, instead of the earlier comparisons that were limited to protein sequences, "ribosomal RNA" (rRNA) sequences were compared. From these findings, evolutionist scientists sought to establish an "evolutionary tree." However, they were disappointed by the results.
According to a 1999 article by French biologists Hervé Philippe and Patrick Forterre, "with more and more sequences available, it turned out that most protein phylogenies contradict each other as well as the rRNA tree."301
Besides rRNA comparisons, the DNA codes in the genes of living things were also compared, but the results have been the opposite of the "tree of life" presupposed by evolution. Molecular biologists James A. Lake, Ravi Jain and Maria C. Rivera elaborated on this in an article in 1999:
…cientists started analyzing a variety of genes from different organisms and found that their relationship to each other contradicted the evolutionary tree of life derived from rRNA analysis alone.302
Neither the comparisons that have been made of proteins, nor those of rRNAs or of genes, confirm the premises of the theory of evolution. Carl Woese, a highly reputed biologist from the University of Illinois, admits that the concept of "phylogeny" has lost its meaning in the face of molecular findings in this way:
No consistent organismal phylogeny has emerged from the many individual protein phylogenies so far produced. Phylogenetic incongruities can be seen everywhere in the universal tree, from its root to the major branchings within and among the various [groups] to the makeup of the primary groupings themselves.303
The fact that results of molecular comparisons are not in favor of, but rather opposed to, the theory of evolution is also admitted in an article called "Is it Time to Uproot the Tree of Life?" published in Science in 1999. This article by Elizabeth Pennisi states that the genetic analyses and comparisons carried out by Darwinist biologists in order to shed light on the "tree of life" actually yielded directly opposite results, and goes on to say that "new data are muddying the evolutionary picture":
A year ago, biologists looking over newly sequenced genomes from more than a dozen microorganisms thought these data might support the accepted plot lines of life's early history. But what they saw confounded them. Comparisons of the genomes then available not only didn't clarify the picture of how life's major groupings evolved, they confused it. And now, with an additional eight microbial sequences in hand, the situation has gotten even more confusing.... Many evolutionary biologists had thought they could roughly see the beginnings of life's three kingdoms... When full DNA sequences opened the way to comparing other kinds of genes, researchers expected that they would simply add detail to this tree. But "nothing could be further from the truth," says Claire Fraser, head of The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) in Rockville, Maryland. Instead, the comparisons have yielded many versions of the tree of life that differ from the rRNA tree and conflict with each other as well... Comparisons that have been made of proteins, rRNA and genes reveal that creatures which are allegedly close relatives according to the theory of evolution are actually totally distinct from each other. Various studies grouped rabbits with primates instead of rodents, and cows with whales instead of horses.
In short, as molecular biology advances, the homology concept loses more ground. Comparisons that have been made of proteins, rRNAs and genes reveal that creatures which are allegedly close relatives according to the theory of evolution are actually totally distinct from each other. A 1996 study using 88 protein sequences grouped rabbits with primates instead of rodents; a 1998 analysis of 13 genes in 19 animal species placed sea urchins among the chordates; and another 1998 study based on 12 proteins put cows closer to whales than to horses.
As life is investigated on a molecular basis, the homology hypotheses of the evolutionary theory collapse one by one. Molecular biologist Jonathan Wells sums up the situation in 2000 in this way:
Inconsistencies among trees based on different molecules, and the bizarre trees that result from some molecular analyses, have now plunged molecular phylogeny into a crisis.305
But in that case what kind of scientific explanation can be given for similar structures in living things? The answer to that question was given before Darwin's theory of evolution came to dominate the world of science. Men of science such as Carl Linnaeus and Richard Owen, who first raised the question of similar organs in living creatures, saw these organs as examples of "common design." In other words, similar organs or similar genes resemble each other not because they have evolved by chance from a common ancestor, but because they have been designed deliberately to perform a particular function.
Modern scientific discoveries show that the claim that similarities in living things are due to descent from a "common ancestor" is not valid, and that the only rational explanation for such similarities is "common design."
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Post by enginterzi on Mar 21, 2006 20:38:40 GMT -5
The Archaeopteryx Misconception
In response to the question whether there is any fossil evidence for "reptile-bird evolution," evolutionists pronounce the name of one single creature. This is the fossil of a bird called Archaeopteryx, one of the most widely known so-called transitional forms among the very few that evolutionists still defend.
Archaeopteryx, the so-called ancestor of modern birds according to evolutionists, lived approximately 150 million years ago. The theory holds that some small dinosaurs, such as Velociraptors or Dromaeosaurs, evolved by acquiring wings and then starting to fly. Thus, Archaeopteryx is assumed to be a transitional form that branched off from its dinosaur ancestors and started to fly for the first time.
However, the latest studies of Archaeopteryx fossils indicate that this explanation lacks any scientific foundation. This is absolutely not a transitional form, but an extinct species of bird, having some insignificant differences from modern birds. The thesis that Archaeopteryx was a "half-bird" that could not fly perfectly was popular among evolutionist circles until not long ago. The absence of a sternum (breastbone) in this creature was held up as the most important evidence that this bird could not fly properly. (The sternum is a bone found under the thorax to which the muscles required for flight are attached. In our day, this breastbone is observed in all flying and non-flying birds, and even in bats, a flying mammal which belongs to a very different family.) However, the seventh Archaeopteryx fossil, which was found in 1992, disproved this argument. The reason was that in this recently discovered fossil, the breastbone that was long assumed by evolutionists to be missing was discovered to have existed after all. This fossil was described in the journal Nature as follows:
The recently discovered seventh specimen of the Archaeopteryx preserves a partial, rectangular sternum, long suspected but never previously documented. This attests to its strong flight muscles, but its capacity for long flights is questionable.124
This discovery invalidated the mainstay of the claims that Archaeopteryx was a half-bird that could not fly properly.
Morevoer, the structure of the bird's feathers became one of the most important pieces of evidence confirming that Archaeopteryx was a flying bird in the true sense. The asymmetric feather structure of Archaeopteryx is indistinguishable from that of modern birds, and indicates that it could fly perfectly well. As the eminent paleontologist Carl O. Dunbar states, "Because of its feathers, [Archaeopteryx is] distinctly to be classed as a bird."125 Paleontologist Robert Carroll further explains the subject:
The geometry of the flight feathers of Archaeopteryx is identical with that of modern flying birds, whereas nonflying birds have symmetrical feathers. The way in which the feathers are arranged on the wing also falls within the range of modern birds… According to Van Tyne and Berger, the relative size and shape of the wing of Archaeopteryx are similar to that of birds that move through restricted openings in vegetation, such as gallinaceous birds, doves, woodcocks, woodpeckers, and most passerine birds… The flight feathers have been in stasis for at least 150 million years…126
Another fact that was revealed by the structure of Archaeopteryx's feathers was its warm-blooded metabolism. As was discussed above, reptiles and dinosaurs are cold-blooded animals whose body heat fluctuates with the temperature of their environment, rather than being homeostatically regulated. A very important function of the feathers on birds is the maintenance of a constant body temperature. The fact that Archaeopteryx had feathers shows that it was a real, warm-blooded bird that needed to retain its body heat, in contrast to dinosaurs.
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Post by enginterzi on Mar 21, 2006 20:40:21 GMT -5
The Myth of Horse Evolution
One important subject in the origin of mammals is the myth of the "evolution of the horse," also a topic to which evolutionist publications have devoted a considerable amount of space for a long time. This is a myth, because it is based on imagination rather than scientific findings.
Until recently, an imaginary sequence supposedly showing the evolution of the horse was advanced as the principal fossil evidence for the theory of evolution. Today, however, many evolutionists themselves frankly admit that the scenario of horse evolution is bankrupt. In 1980, a four-day symposium was held at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, with 150 evolutionists in attendance, to discuss the problems with the gradualistic evolutionary theory. In addressing this meeting, evolutionist Boyce Rensberger noted that the scenario of the evolution of the horse has no foundation in the fossil record, and that no evolutionary process has been observed that would account for the gradual evolution of horses:
The popularly told example of horse evolution, suggesting a gradual sequence of changes from four-toed fox-sized creatures living nearly 50 million years ago to today's much larger one-toed horse, has long been known to be wrong. Instead of gradual change, fossils of each intermediate species appear fully distinct, persist unchanged, and then become extinct. Transitional forms are unknown.152
While discussing this important dilemma in the scenario of the evolution of the horse in a particularly honest way, Rensberger brought the transitional form difficulty onto the agenda as the greatest difficulty of all.
Dr. Niles Eldredge, a curator at the American Museum in New York, , where "evolution of the horse" diagrams were on public display at that time on the ground floor of the museum, said the following about the exhibition:
There have been an awful lot of stories, some more imaginative than others, about what the nature of that history [of life] really is. The most famous example, still on exhibit downstairs, is the exhibit on horse evolution prepared perhaps fifty years ago. That has been presented as the literal truth in textbook after textbook. Now I think that is lamentable, particularly when the people who propose those kinds of stories may themselves be aware of the speculative nature of some of that stuff.153
Then what is the basis for the scenario of the evolution of the horse? This scenario was formulated by means of the deceitful charts devised by the sequential arrangement of fossils of distinct species that lived at vastly different periods in India, South Africa, North America, and Europe, solely in accordance with the rich power of evolutionists' imaginations. More than 20 charts of the evolution of the horse, which by the way are totally different from each other, have been proposed by various researchers. Thus, it is obvious that evolutionists have reached no common agreement on these family trees. The only common feature in these arrangements is the belief that a dog-sized creature called Eohippus (Hyracotherium), which lived in the Eocene period 55 million years ago, was the ancestor of the horse. However, the fact is that Eohippus, which became extinct millions of years ago, is nearly identical to the hyrax, a small rabbit-like animal which still lives in Africa and has nothing whatsoever to do with the horse.154
The inconsistency of the theory of the evolution of the horse becomes increasingly apparent as more fossil findings are gathered. Fossils of modern horse species (Equus nevadensis and Equus occidentalis) have been discovered in the same layer as Eohippus.155 This is an indication that the modern horse and its so-called ancestor lived at the same time.
The Evolution of the Horse exhibition in London's Natural History Museum. This and other "evolution of the horse" diagrams show independent species which lived at different times and in different places, lined up one after the other in a very subjective presentation. In reality, there are no scientific discoveries regarding the evolution of the horse.
The evolutionist science writer Gordon R. Taylor explains this little-acknowledged truth in his book The Great Evolution Mystery:
But perhaps the most serious weakness of Darwinism is the failure of paleontologists to find convincing phylogenies or sequences of organisms demonstrating major evolutionary change... The horse is often cited as the only fully worked-out example. But the fact is that the line from Eohippus to Equus is very erratic. It is alleged to show a continual increase in size, but the truth is that some variants were smaller than Eohippus, not larger. Specimens from different sources can be brought together in a convincing-looking sequence, but there is no evidence that they were actually ranged in this order in time.156
All these facts are strong evidence that the charts of horse evolution, which are presented as one of the most solid pieces of evidence for Darwinism, are nothing but fantastic and implausible fairy tales. Like other species, horses, too, came into existence without ancestors in the evolutionary sense.
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Post by enginterzi on Mar 21, 2006 20:41:56 GMT -5
The Myth of Vestigial Organs
For a long time, the concept of "vestigial organs" appeared frequently in evolutionist literature as "evidence" of evolution. Eventually, it was silently put to rest when this was proved to be invalid. But some evolutionists still believe in it, and from time to time someone will try to advance "vestigial organs" as important evidence of evolution.
The notion of "vestigial organs" was first put forward a century ago. As evolutionists would have it, there existed in the bodies of some creatures a number of non-functional organs. These had been inherited from progenitors and had gradually become vestigial from lack of use.
The whole assumption is quite unscientific, and is based entirely on insufficient knowledge. These "non-functional organs" were in fact organs whose "functions had not yet been discovered." The best indication of this was the gradual yet substantial decrease in evolutionists' long list of vestigial organs. S. R. Scadding, an evolutionist himself, concurred with this fact in his article "Can vestigial organs constitute evidence for evolution?" published in the journal Evolutionary Theory:
Since it is not possible to unambiguously identify useless structures, and since the structure of the argument used is not scientifically valid, I conclude that 'vestigial organs' provide no special evidence for the theory of evolution.312
The list of vestigial organs that was made by the German Anatomist R. Wiedersheim in 1895 included approximately 100 organs, including the appendix and coccyx. As science progressed, it was discovered that all of the organs in Wiedersheim's list in fact had very important functions. For instance, it was discovered that the appendix, which was supposed to be a "vestigial organ," was in fact a lymphoid organ that fought infections in the body. This fact was made clear in 1997:
Other bodily organs and tissues-the thymus, liver, spleen, appendix, bone marrow, and small collections of lymphatic tissue such as the tonsils in the throat and Peyer's patch in the small intestine-are also part of the lymphatic system. They too help the body fight infection.313
It was also discovered that the tonsils, which were included in the same list of vestigial organs, had a significant role in protecting the throat against infections, particularly until adolescence. It was found that the coccyx at the lower end of the vertebral column supports the bones around the pelvis and is the convergence point of some small muscles and for this reason, it would not be possible to sit comfortably without a coccyx.
In the years that followed, it was realized that the thymus triggered the immune system in the human body by activating the T cells, that the pineal gland was in charge of the secretion of some important hormones such as melatonin, which inhibits secretion of luteinizing hormone, that the thyroid gland was effective in providing steady growth in babies and children and in metabolism and body activity, and that the pituitary gland controlled skeletal growth and the proper functioning of the thyroid, adrenals, and reproductive glands. All of these were once considered to be "vestigial organs." Finally, the semi-lunar fold in the eye, which was referred to as a vestigial organ by Darwin, has been found in fact to be in charge of cleansing and lubricating the eyeball.
There was a very important logical error in the evolutionist claim regarding vestigial organs. As we have just seen, this claim was that the vestigial organs in living things were inherited from their ancestors. However, some of the alleged "vestigial" organs are not found in the species alleged to be the ancestors of human beings! For example, the appendix does not exist in some ape species that are said to be ancestors of man. The famous biologist H. Enoch, who challenged the theory of vestigial organs, expressed this logical error as follows:
Apes possess an appendix, whereas their less immediate relatives, the lower apes, do not; but it appears again among the still lower mammals such as the opossum. How can the evolutionists account for this?314
Beside all of this, the claim that an organ which is not used atrophies and disappears over time carries a logical inconsistency within it. Darwin was aware of this inconsistency, and made the following confession in The Origin of Species:
There remains, however, this difficulty. After an organ has ceased being used, and has become in consequence much reduced, how can it be still further reduced in size until the merest vestige is left; and how can it be finally quite obliterated? It is scarcely possible that disuse can go on producing any further effect after the organ has once been rendered functionless. Some additional explanation is here requisite which I cannot give.315
Simply put, the scenario of vestigial organs put forward by evolutionists contains a number of serious logical flaws, and has in any case been proven to be scientifically untrue. There exists not one inherited vestigial organ in the human body.
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Post by enginterzi on Mar 21, 2006 20:42:41 GMT -5
The Fall of the Homology in Tetrapod Limbs
We have already examined homology's morphological claim-in other words the invalidity of the evolutionist claim based on similarities of form in living things-but it will be useful to examine one well-known example of this subject a little more closely. This is the "fore- and hindlimbs of quadrupeds," presented as a clear proof of homology in almost all books on evolution.
Quadrupeds, i.e., land-living vertebrates, have five digits on their fore- and hindlimbs. Although these may not always look like fingers or toes, they are all counted as "pentadactyl" (five-digit) due to their bone structure. The hands and feet of a frog, a lizard, a squirrel, or a monkey all have this same structure. Even the bone structures of birds and bats conform to this basic design.
Evolutionists claim that all living things descended from a common ancestor, and they have long cited pentadactyl limb as evidence of this. But they know that this claim actually possesses no scientific validity.
Even today, evolutionists accept the feature of pentadactylism in living things among which they have been able to establish no evolutionary link. For example, in two separate scientific papers published in 1991 and 1996, evolutionary biologist M. Coates reveals that pentadactylism emerged two separate times, each independently of the other. According to Coates, the pentadactyl structure emerged independently in anthracosaurs and amphibians.289
This discovery is a sign that pentadactylism is no evidence for a "common ancestor."
Another matter which creates difficulties for the evolutionist thesis in this respect is that these creatures have five digits on both their fore- and hindlimbs. It is not proposed in evolutionist literature that fore- and hindlimb descended from a "common limb"; rather, it is assumed that they developed separately. For this reason, it should be expected that the structure of the fore- and hindlimbs should be different, the result of different, chance mutations. Michael Denton has this to say on the subject:
[T]he forelimbs of all terrestrial vertebrates are constructed according to the same pentadactyl design, and this is attributed by evolutionary biologists as showing that all have been derived from a common ancestral source. But the hindlimbs of all vertebrates also conform to the pentadactyl pattern and are strikingly similar to the forelimbs in bone structure and in their detailed embryological development. Yet no evolutionist claims that the hindlimb evolved from the forelimb, or that hindlimbs and forelimbs evolved from a common source… Invariably, as biological knowledge has grown, common genealogy as an explanation for similarity has tended to grow ever more tenuous… Like so much of the other circumstantial "evidence" for evolution, that drawn from homology is not convincing because it entails too many anomalies, too many counter-instances, far too many phenomena which simply do not fit easily into the orthodox picture.290
But the real blow dealt to the evolutionist claim of the homology of pentadactylism came from molecular biology. The assumption of "the homology of pentadactylism," which was long maintained in evolutionist publications, was overturned when it was realized that the limb structures were controlled by totally different genes in different creatures possessing this pentadactyl structure. Evolutionary biologist William Fix describes the collapse of the evolutionist thesis regarding pentadactylism in this way:
The older textbooks on evolution make much of the idea of homology, pointing out the obvious resemblances between the skeletons of the limbs of different animals. Thus the `pentadactyl' [five bone] limb pattern is found in the arm of a man, the wing of a bird, and flipper of a whale, and this is held to indicate their common origin. Now if these various structures were transmitted by the same gene couples, varied from time to time by mutations and acted upon by environmental selection, the theory would make good sense. Unfortunately this is not the case. Homologous organs are now known to be produced by totally different gene complexes in the different species. The concept of homology in terms of similar genes handed on from a common ancestor has broken down.291
On closer examination, William Fix is saying that evolutionist claims regarding "pentadactylism homology" appeared in old textbooks, but that the claim was abandoned after molecular evidence emerged. But, unfortunately, some evolutionist sources still continue to put it forward as major evidence for evolution.
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Post by enginterzi on Mar 21, 2006 20:43:44 GMT -5
The True Story of Industrial Melanism
When evolutionist sources are examined, one inevitably sees that the example of moths in England during the Industrial Revolution is cited as an example of evolution by natural selection. This is put forward as the most concrete example of evolution observed, in textbooks, magazines, and even academic sources. In actuality, though, that example has nothing to do with evolution at all.
Let us first recall what is actually said: According to this account, around the onset of the Industrial Revolution in England, the color of tree barks around Manchester was quite light. Because of this, dark-colored moths resting on those trees could easily be noticed by the birds that fed on them, and therefore they had very little chance of survival. Fifty years later, in woodlands where industrial pollution has killed the lichens, the bark of the trees had darkened, and now the light-colored moths became the most hunted, since they were the most easily noticed. As a result, the proportion of light-colored to dark-colored moths decreased. Evolutionists believe this to be a great piece of evidence for their theory. They take refuge and solace in window-dressing, showing how light-colored moths "evolved" into dark-colored ones. However, although we believe these facts to be correct, it should be quite clear that they can in no way be used as evidence for the theory of evolution, since no new form arose that had not existed before. Dark colored moths had existed in the moth population before the Industrial Revolution. Only the relative proportions of the existing moth varieties in the population changed. The moths had not acquired a new trait or organ, which would cause "speciation."13 In order for one moth species to turn into another living species, a bird for example, new additions would have had to be made to its genes. That is, an entirely separate genetic program would have had to be loaded so as to include information about the physical traits of the bird.
This is the answer to be given to the evolutionist story of Industrial Melanism. However, there is a more interesting side to the story: Not just its interpretation, but the story itself is flawed. As molecular biologist Jonathan Wells explains in his book Icons of Evolution, the story of the peppered moths, which is included in every evolutionary biology book and has therefore, become an "icon" in this sense, does not reflect the truth. Wells discusses in his book how Bernard Kettlewell's experiment, which is known as the "experimental proof" of the story, is actually a scientific scandal. Some basic elements of this scandal are:
- Many experiments conducted after Kettlewell's revealed that only one type of these moths rested on tree trunks, and all other types preferred to rest beneath small, horizontal branches. Since 1980 it has become clear that peppered moths do not normally rest on tree trunks. In 25 years of fieldwork, many scientists such as Cyril Clarke and Rory Howlett, Michael Majerus, Tony Liebert, and Paul Brakefield concluded that in Kettlewell's experiment, moths were forced to act atypically, therefore, the test results could not be accepted as scientific.14
- Scientists who tested Kettlewell's conclusions came up with an even more interesting result: Although the number of light moths would be expected to be larger in the less polluted regions of England, the dark moths there numbered four times as many as the light ones. This meant that there was no correlation between the moth population and the tree trunks as claimed by Kettlewell and repeated by almost all evolutionist sources.
- As the research deepened, the scandal changed dimension: "The moths on tree trunks" photographed by Kettlewell, were actually dead moths. Kettlewell used dead specimens glued or pinned to tree trunks and then photographed them. In truth, there was little chance of taking such a picture as the moths rested not on tree trunks but underneath the leaves.15
These facts were uncovered by the scientific community only in the late 1990s. The collapse of the myth of Industrial Melanism, which had been one of the most treasured subjects in "Introduction to Evolution" courses in universities for decades, greatly disappointed evolutionists. One of them, Jerry Coyne, remarked:
My own reaction resembles the dismay attending my discovery, at the age of six, that it was my father and not Santa who brought the presents on Christmas Eve.16
Thus, "the most famous example of natural selection" was relegated to the trash-heap of history as a scientific scandal-which was inevitable, because natural selection is not an "evolutionary mechanism," contrary to what evolutionists claim.
In short, natural selection is capable neither of adding a new organ to a living organism, nor of removing one, nor of changing an organism of one species into that of another. The "greatest" evidence put forward since Darwin has been able to go no further than the "industrial melanism" of moths in England.
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Post by enginterzi on Mar 21, 2006 20:47:01 GMT -5
mutations
Mutations are defined as breaks or replacements taking place in the DNA molecule, which is found in the nuclei of the cells of a living organism and which contains all its genetic information. These breaks or replacements are the result of external effects such as radiation or chemical action. Every mutation is an "accident," and either damages the nucleotides making up the DNA or changes their locations. Most of the time, they cause so much damage and modification that the cell cannot repair them.
Mutation, which evolutionists frequently hide behind, is not a magic wand that transforms living organisms into a more advanced and perfect form. The direct effect of mutations is harmful. The changes effected by mutations can only be like those experienced by people in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Chernobyl: that is, death, disability, and freaks of nature…
The reason for this is very simple: DNA has a very complex structure, and random effects can only damage it. Biologist B. G. Ranganathan states:
First, genuine mutations are very rare in nature. Secondly, most mutations are harmful since they are random, rather than orderly changes in the structure of genes;any random change in a highy ordered system will be for the worse, not for the better. For example, if an earthquake were to shake a highly ordered structure such as a building, there would be a random change in the framework of the building, which, in all probability, would not be an improvement.19
Not surprisingly, no useful mutation has been so far observed. All mutations have proved to be harmful. The evolutionist scientist Warren Weaver comments on the report prepared by the Committee on Genetic Effects of Atomic Radiation, which had been formed to investigate mutations that might have been caused by the nuclear weapons used in the Second World War:
Many will be puzzled about the statement that practically all known mutant genes are harmful. For mutations are a necessary part of the process of evolution. How can a good effect-evolution to higher forms of life-result from mutations practically all of which are harmful?20
Every effort put into "generating a useful mutation" has resulted in failure. For decades, evolutionists carried out many experiments to produce mutations in fruit flies, as these insects reproduce very rapidly and so mutations would show up quickly. Generation upon generation of these flies were mutated, yet no useful mutation was ever observed. The evolutionist geneticist Gordon Taylor writes thus:
It is a striking, but not much mentioned fact that, though geneticists have been breeding fruit-flies for sixty years or more in labs all round the world- flies which produce a new generation every eleven days-they have never yet seen the emergence of a new species or even a new enzyme.
Another researcher, Michael Pitman, comments on the failure of the experiments carried out on fruit flies:
Morgan, Goldschmidt, Muller, and other geneticists have subjected generations of fruit flies to extreme conditions of heat, cold, light, dark, and treatment by chemicals and radiation. All sorts of mutations, practically all trivial or positively deleterious, have been produced. Man-made evolution? Not really: Few of the geneticists' monsters could have survived outside the bottles they were bred in. In practice mutants die, are sterile, or tend to revert to the wild type.22
The same holds true for man. All mutations that have been observed in human beings have had deleterious results. All mutations that take place in humans result in physical deformities, in infirmities such as mongolism, Down syndrome, albinism, dwarfism or cancer. Needless to say, a process that leaves people disabled or sick cannot be "an evolutionary mechanism"-evolution is supposed to produce forms that are better fitted to survive.
The American pathologist David A. Demick notes the following in a scientific article about mutations:
Literally thousands of human diseases associated with genetic mutations have been catalogued in recent years, with more being described continually. A recent reference book of medical genetics listed some 4,500 different genetic diseases. Some of the inherited syndromes characterized clinically in the days before molecular genetic analysis (such as Marfan's syndrome) are now being shown to be heterogeneous; that is, associated with many different mutations... With this array of human diseases that are caused by mutations, what of positive effects? With thousands of examples of harmful mutations readily available, surely it should be possible to describe some positive mutations if macroevolution is true. These would be needed not only for evolution to greater complexity, but also to offset the downward pull of the many harmful mutations. But, when it comes to identifying positive mutations, evolutionary scientists are strangely silent.23
The only instance evolutionary biologists give of "useful mutation" is the disease known as sickle cell anemia. In this, the hemoglobin molecule, which serves to carry oxygen in the blood, is damaged as a result of mutation, and undergoes a structural change. As a result of this, the hemoglobin molecule's ability to carry oxygen is seriously impaired. People with sickle cell anemia suffer increasing respiratory difficulties for this reason. However, this example of mutation, which is discussed under blood disorders in medical textbooks, is strangelyevaluated by some evolutionary biologists as a "useful mutation."
They say that the partial immunity to malaria by those with the illness is a "gift" of evolution. Using the same logic, one could say that, since people born with genetic leg paralysis are unable to walk and so are saved from being killed in traffic accidents, therefore genetic leg paralysis is a "useful genetic feature." This logic is clearly totally unfounded.
It is obvious that mutations are solely a destructive mechanism. Pierre-Paul Grassé, former president of the French Academy of Sciences, is quite clear on this point in a comment he made about mutations. Grassé compared mutations to "making mistakes in the letters when copying a written text." And as with mutations, letter mistakes cannot give rise to any information, but merely damage such information as already exists. Grassé explained this fact in this way:
Mutations, in time, occur incoherently. They are not complementary to one another, nor are they cumulative in successive generations toward a given direction. They modify what preexists, but they do so in disorder, no matter how…. As soon as some disorder, even slight, appears in an organized being, sickness, then death follow. There is no possible compromise between the phenomenon of life and anarchy.24
So for that reason, as Grassé puts it, "No matter how numerous they may be, mutations do not produce any kind of evolution."
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Post by enginterzi on Mar 21, 2006 20:50:27 GMT -5
Miller's Experiment
The most generally respected study on the origin of life is the Miller experiment conducted by the American researcher Stanley Miller in 1953. (The experiment is also known as the "Urey-Miller experiment" because of the contribution of Miller's instructor at the University of Chicago, Harold Urey.) This experiment is the only "evidence" evolutionists have with which to allegedly prove the "chemical evolution thesis"; they advance it as the first stage of the supposed evolutionary process leading to life. Although nearly half a century has passed, and great technological advances have been made, nobody has made any further progress. In spite of this, Miller's experiment is still taught in textbooks as the evolutionary explanation of the earliest generation of living things. That is because, aware of the fact that such studies do not support, but rather actually refute, their thesis, evolutionist researchers deliberately avoid embarking on such experiments.
Stanley Miller's aim was to demonstrate by means of an experiment that amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, could have come into existence "by chance" on the lifeless earth billions of years ago. In his experiment, Miller used a gas mixture that he assumed to have existed on the primordial earth (but which later proved unrealistic), composed of ammonia, methane, hydrogen, and water vapor. Since these gases would not react with each other under natural conditions, he added energy to the mixture to start a reaction among them. Supposing that this energy could have come from lightning in the primordial atmosphere, he used an electric current for this purpose.
Miller heated this gas mixture at 100°C for a week and added the electrical current. At the end of the week, Miller analyzed the chemicals which had formed at the bottom of the jar, and observed that three out of the 20 amino acids which constitute the basic elements of proteins had been synthesized.
This experiment aroused great excitement among evolutionists, and was promoted as an outstanding success. Moreover, in a state of intoxicated euphoria, various publications carried headlines such as "Miller creates life." However, what Miller had managed to synthesize was only a few inanimate molecules.
Encouraged by this experiment, evolutionists immediately produced new scenarios. Stages following the development of amino acids were hurriedly hypothesized. Supposedly, amino acids had later united in the correct sequences by accident to form proteins. Some of these proteins which emerged by chance formed themselves into cell membrane-like structures which "somehow" came into existence and formed a primitive cell. These cells then supposedly came together over time to form multicellular living organisms.
However, Miller's experiment has since proven to be false in many respects.
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Post by Ryan Thames on Mar 21, 2006 20:54:40 GMT -5
this is a debate i could just sit back and relax engin is doing a fine job
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Post by enginterzi on Mar 21, 2006 21:07:06 GMT -5
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 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.
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Post by enginterzi on Mar 21, 2006 21:07:25 GMT -5
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.
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Post by enginterzi on Mar 21, 2006 21:08:25 GMT -5
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.
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Post by enginterzi on Mar 21, 2006 21:09:07 GMT -5
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:
When it [KNM-ER 1470] was first reconstructed, the face was fitted to the cranium in an almost vertical position, much like the flat faces of modern humans. But recent studies of anatomical relationships show that in life the face must have jutted out considerably, creating an ape-like aspect, rather like the faces of Australopithecus .192
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.
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Post by enginterzi on Mar 21, 2006 21:19:02 GMT -5
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.
Homo erectus AND THE ABORIGINES
The Turkana Boy skeleton shown at the side is the best preserved example of Homo erectus that has so far been discovered. The interesting thing is that there is no major difference between this 1.6 million-year-old-fossil and people of our day. The Australian aboriginal skeleton above particularly resembles Turkana Boy. This situation reveals once again that Homo erectus was a genuine human race, with no "primitive" features.
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):
Homo erectus 'S SAILING CULTURE "Ancient mariners: Early humans were much smarter than we suspected" According to this article in the March 14, 1998, issue of New Scientist, the people that evolutionists call Homo erectus were sailing 700,000 years ago. It is impossible, of course, to think of people who possessed the knowledge, technology and culture to go sailing as primitive.
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.
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