Science Disproves Evolution

Missing Trunk 3


Evolution predicts that minor variations should slowly accumulate, eventually becoming major categories of organisms. Instead, the opposite is found. Almost all of today’s plant and animal phyla—including flowering plants (c), vascular plants (d), and vertebrates (e)—appear at the base of the fossil record.

c. “... it is well known that the fossil record tells us nothing about the evolution of flowering plants.” Corner, p. 100.

A. K. Ghosh and A. Bose, “Occurrence of Microflora in the Salt Pseudomorph Beds, Salt Range, Punjab,” Nature, Vol. 160, 6 December 1947, pp. 796–797.

A. K. Ghosh, J. Sen, and A. Bose, “Evidence Bearing on the Age of the Saline Series in the Salt Range of the Punjab,” Geological Magazine, Vol. 88, March–April 1951, pp. 129–133.

J. Coates et al., “Age of the Saline Series in the Punjab Salt Range,” Nature, Vol. 155, 3 March 1945, pp. 266–267.

Clifford Burdick, in his doctoral research at the University of Arizona in 1964, made discoveries similar to those cited in the four preceding references. [See Clifford Burdick, “Microflora of the Grand Canyon,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 3, May 1966, pp. 38–50.] Burdick was denied a doctor’s degree at the University of Arizona because of these discoveries. [See Jerry Bergman, “Clifford Burdick: Unjustly Expelled Twice,” Parts I and II, Creation Matters, September/October and July/August 2010.

d. S. Leclercq, “Evidence of Vascular Plants in the Cambrian,” Evolution, Vol. 10, No. 2, June 1956, pp. 109–114.

e. John E. Repetski, “A Fish from the Upper Cambrian of North America,” Science, Vol. 200, 5 May 1978, pp. 529–531.

“Vertebrates and their progenitors, according to the new studies, evolved in the Cambrian, earlier than paleontologists have traditionally assumed.” Richard Monastersky, “Vertebrate Origins: The Fossils Speak Up,” Science News, Vol. 149, 3 February 1996, p. 75.

“Also, the animal explosion caught people’s attention when the Chinese confirmed they found a genus now called Yunnanzoon that was present in the very beginning. This genus is considered a chordate, and the phylum Chordata includes fish, mammals and man. An evolutionist would say the ancestor of humans was present then. Looked at more objectively, you could say the most complex animal group, the chordates, were represented at the beginning, and they did not go through a slow gradual evolution to become a chordate.” Paul Chien (Chairman, Biology Department, University of San Francisco), “Explosion of Life,” www.origins.org/articles/chien_explosionoflife.html, p. 3. Interviewed 30 June 1997.

“At 530 million years, the 3-centimeter-long Haikouichthys appears to be the world’s oldest fish, while another new specimen, Myllokunmingia, has simpler gills and is more primitive. To Conway Morris and others, the presence of these jawless fish in the Early Cambrian suggests that the origin of chordates lies even farther back in time.” Erik Stokstad, “Exquisite Chinese Fossils Add New Pages to Book of Life,” Science, Vol. 291, 12 January 2001, p. 233.

“The [500] specimens [of fish] may have been buried alive, possibly as a result of a storm-induced burial....The possession of eyes (and probably nasal sacs) is consistent with Haikouichthys being a craniate, indicating that vertebrate evolution was well advanced by the Early Cambrian.” D. G. Shu et al., “Head and Backbone of the Early Cambrian Vertebrate Haikouichthys,” Nature, Vol. 421, 30 January 2003, pp. 527, 529.

D. G. Shu et al., “Lower Cambrian Vertebrates from South China,” Nature, Vol. 402, 4 November 1999, pp. 42–46.

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown]

Missing Trunk 4


Many more phyla are found in the Cambrian than exist today (f). Complex species, such as fish (g) worms, corals, trilobites, jellyfish (h) sponges, mollusks, and brachiopods appear suddenly, with no sign anywhere on earth of gradual development from simpler forms. Insects, a class comprising four-fifths of all known animal species (living and extinct), have no known evolutionary ancestors (i). Insects found in supposedly 100-million-year-old amber look like those living today (j). The fossil record does not support evolution (k).

f. “Compared with the 30 or so extant phyla, some people estimate that the Cambrian explosion may have generated as many as 100.” Roger Lewin, “A Lopsided Look at Evolution,” Science, Vol. 241, 15 July 1988, p. 291.

“A simple way of putting it is that currently we have about 38 phyla of different groups of animals, but the total number of phyla discovered during that period of time [Cambrian] (including those in China, Canada, and elsewhere) adds up to over 50 phyla. That means [there are] more phyla in the very, very beginning, where we found the first fossils [of animal life], than exist now.

“Stephen Jay Gould has referred to this as the reverse cone of diversity. The theory of evolution implies that things get more complex and get more and more diverse from one single origin. But the whole thing turns out to be reversed—we have more diverse groups in the very beginning, and in fact more and more of them die off over time, and we have less and less now.” Chien, p. 2.

“It was puzzling for a while because they [evolutionary paleontologists] refused to see that in the beginning there could be more complexity than we have now. What they are seeing are phyla that do not exist now—that’s more than 50 phyla compared to the 38 we have now.” Ibid., p. 3.

g. “But whatever ideas authorities may have on the subject, the lung-fishes, like every other major group of fishes that I know, have their origins firmly based in nothing, a matter of hot dispute among the experts, each of whom is firmly convinced that everyone else is wrong...I have often thought of how little I should like to have to prove organic evolution in a court of law.” Errol White, “A Little on Lung-Fishes,” Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, Vol. 177, Presidential Address, January 1966, p. 8.

“The geological record has so far provided no evidence as to the origin of the fishes...” J. R. Norman, A History of Fishes, 3rd edition (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1975), p. 343.

“All three subdivisions of the bony fishes first appear in the fossil record at approximately the same time. They are already widely divergent morphologically, and they are heavily armored. How did they originate? What allowed them to diverge so widely? How did they all come to have heavy armor? And why is there no trace of earlier, intermediate forms?” Gerald T. Todd, “Evolution of the Lung and the Origin of Bony Fishes—A Causal Relationship?” American Zoologist, Vol. 20, No. 4, 1980, p. 757.

h. Cloud and Glaessner, pp. 783–792.

i. “There are no fossils known that show what the primitive ancestral insects looked like...Until fossils of these ancestors are discovered, however, the early history of the insects can only be inferred.” Peter Farb, The Insects, Life Nature Library (New York: Time, Inc., 1962), pp. 14–15.

“There is, however, no fossil evidence bearing on the question of insect origin; the oldest insects known show no transition to other arthropods.” Frank M. Carpenter, “Fossil Insects,” Insects (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1952), p. 18.

j. “For the most part, an ant [trapped in amber] living 100 million years ago looks like an ant today.” Paul Tafforeau, as quoted by Amy Barth, Discover, July/August 2009, p. 38.

k. “If there has been evolution of life, the absence of the requisite fossils in the rocks older than the Cambrian is puzzling.” Marshall Kay and Edwin H. Colbert, Stratigraphy and Life History (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1965), p. 103.

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown]

Out-of-Sequence Fossils 1


Frequently, fossils are not vertically sequenced in the assumed evolutionary order (a).

a. Walter E. Lammerts has published eight lists totaling almost 200 wrong-order formations in the United States alone. [See “Recorded Instances of Wrong-Order Formations or Presumed Overthrusts in the United States: Parts I–VIII,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, September 1984, p. 88; December 1984, p. 150; March 1985, p. 200; December 1985, p. 127; March 1986, p. 188; June 1986, p. 38; December 1986, p. 133; and June 1987, p. 46.]

“In the fossil record, we are faced with many sequences of change: modifications over time from A to B to C to D can be documented and a plausible Darwinian interpretation can often be made after seeing the sequence. But the predictive (or postdictive) power of theory is almost nil.” David M. Raup, “Evolution and the Fossil Record, Science, Vol. 213, 17 July 1981, p. 289.

“Fossil discoveries can muddle our attempts to construct simple evolutionary trees—fossils from key periods are often not intermediates, but rather hodgepodges of defining features of many different groups.” Neil Shubin, “Evolutionary Cut and Paste,” Nature, Vol. 394, 2 July 1998, p. 12.

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown]

Out-of-Sequence Fossils 2


In Uzbekistan, 86 consecutive hoofprints of horses were found in rocks dating back to the dinosaurs (b). A leading authority on the Grand Canyon published photographs of horselike hoofprints visible in rocks that, according to the theory of evolution, predate hoofed animals by more than 100 million years (c). Dinosaur and humanlike footprints were found together in Turkmenistan (d) and Arizona (e).

b. Y. Kruzhilin and V. Ovcharov, “A Horse from the Dinosaur Epoch?” Moskovskaya Pravda [Moscow Truth], 5 February 1984.

c. Edwin D. McKee, The Supai Group of Grand Canyon, Geological Survey Professional Paper 1173 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1982), pp. 93–96, 100.

d. Alexander Romashko, “Tracking Dinosaurs,” Moscow News, No. 24, 1983, p. 10. [For an alternate but equivalent translation published by an anti-creationist organization, see Frank Zindler, “Man—A Contemporary of the Dinosaurs?” Creation/Evolution, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1986, pp. 28–29.]

e. Paul O. Rosnau et al., “Are Human and Mammal Tracks Found Together with the Tracks of Dinosaurs in the Kayenta of Arizona?” Parts I and II, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 26, September 1989, pp. 41–48 and December 1989, pp. 77–98.

Jeremy Auldaney et al., “More Human-Like Track Impressions Found with the Tracks of Dinosaurs in the Kayenta Formation at Tuba City Arizona,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 34, December 1997, pp. 133–146 and back cover.

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown]

Out-of-Sequence Fossils 3


Sometimes, land animals, flying animals, and marine animals are fossilized side-by-side in the same rock (f). Dinosaur, whale, elephant, horse, and other fossils, plus crude human tools, have reportedly been found in phosphate beds in South Carolina (g). Coal beds contain round, black lumps called coal balls, some of which contain flowering plants that allegedly evolved 100 million years after the coal bed was formed (h).

f. Andrew Snelling, “Fossil Bluff,” Ex Nihilo, Vol. 7, March 1985, p. 8.

Carol Armstrong, “Florida Fossils Puzzle the Experts,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 21, March 1985, pp. 198–199.

Pat Shipman, “Dumping on Science,” Discover, December 1987, p. 64.

g. Francis S. Holmes, Phosphate Rocks of South Carolina and the “Great Carolina Marl Bed” (Charleston, South Carolina: Holmes’ Book House, 1870).

Edward J. Nolan, “Remarks on Fossils from the Ashley Phosphate Beds,” Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1876, pp. 80–81.

John Watson did extensive library research on the relatively unknown fossil discoveries in these beds. Their vast content of bones provides the rich phosphate content. Personal communications, 1992.

h. A. C. Noé, “A Paleozoic Angiosperm,” Journal of Geology, Vol. 31, May–June 1923, pp. 344–347.

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown]

Out-of-Sequence Fossils 4


Amber, found in Illinois coal beds, contain chemical signatures showing that the amber came from flowering plants, but flowering plants supposedly evolved 170 million years after the coal formed (i). In the Grand Canyon, in Venezuela, in Kashmir, and in Guyana, spores of ferns and pollen from flowering plants are found in Cambrian (j) rocks—rocks supposedly deposited before flowering plants evolved. Pollen has also been found in Precambrian (k) rocks deposited before life allegedly evolved.


Figure 12: Insect in Amber. The best-preserved fossils are encased in amber, protected from air and water and buried in the ground. Amber, a golden resin (similar to sap or pitch) usually from conifer trees such as pines, may also contain other preservatives. No transitional forms of life have been found in amber, despite evolutionary-based ages of 1.5–300 million years. Animal behaviors, unchanged from today, are seen in three-dimensional detail. For example, ants in amber show the same social and work patterns as ants today.

Experts bold enough to explain how these fossils formed say that hurricane-force winds must have snapped off trees at their trunks, causing huge amounts of resin to spill out and act like flypaper. Debris and small organisms were blown into the sticky resin, which was later covered by more resin and finally buried. (Part II of this book will show that such conditions arose during the flood.)

In a clean-room laboratory, 30–40 dormant, but living, bacteria species were removed from intestines of bees encased in amber from the Dominican Republic. When cultured, the bacteria grew! [See “Old DNA, Bacteria, and Proteins?”] This amber is claimed to be 25–40 million years old, but I suspect it formed at the time of the flood, only thousands of years ago. Is it more likely that bacteria can be kept alive thousands of years or many millions of years? Metabolism rates, even in dormant bacteria, are not zero.

i. “A type of amber thought to have been invented by flowering plants may have been en vogue millions of years before those plants evolved...When the researchers analyzed the amber, though, they discovered a chemical signature know[n] only from the amber of flowering plants.” Rachel Ehrenberg, “Flowerless Plants Also Made Form of Fancy Amber,” Science News, Vol. 176, 24 October 2009, p. 5.

“[The Illinois amber] has a molecular composition that has been seen only from angiosperms, which appeared much later in the Early Cretaceous.... [Amber resins] are so diverse that those from each plant species have a distinctive Py-GC-MS fingerprint that can be used to identify the plants that produced various ambers around the world.” David Grimaldi, “Pushing Back Amber Production,” Science, Vol. 326, 2 October 2009, p. 51.

j. R. M. Stainforth, “Occurrence of Pollen and Spores in the Roraima Formation of Venezuela and British Guiana,” Nature, Vol. 210, 16 April 1966, pp. 292–294.

A. K. Ghosh and A. Bose, pp. 796–797.

A. K. Ghosh and A. Bose, “Spores and Tracheids from the Cambrian of Kashmir,” Nature, Vol. 169, 21 June 1952, pp. 1056–1057.

J. Coates et al., pp. 266–267.

k. George F. Howe et al., “A Pollen Analysis of Hakatai Shale and Other Grand Canyon Rocks,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 24, March 1988, pp. 173–182.

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown]

Out-of-Sequence Fossils 5


Petrified trees in Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park contain fossilized nests of bees and cocoons of wasps. The petrified forests are reputedly 220 million years old, while bees (and flowering plants, which bees require) supposedly evolved almost 100 million years later (l). Pollinating insects and fossil flies, with long, well-developed tubes for sucking nectar from flowers, are dated 25 million years before flowers are assumed to have evolved (m). Most evolutionists and textbooks systematically ignore discoveries which conflict with the evolutionary time scale.

l. Stephen T. Hasiotis (paleobiologist, U.S. Geological Survey, Denver), personal communication, 27 May 1995.

Carl Zimmer, “A Secret History of Life on Land,” Discover, February 1998, pp. 76–83.

m. Dong Ren, “Flower-Associated Brachycera Flies as Fossil Evidence for Jurassic Angiosperm Origins,” Science, Vol. 280, 3 April 1998, pp. 85–88.

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown]

Ape-Men? 1

For over a century, studies of skulls and teeth have produced unreliable conclusions about man’s origin (a). Also, fossil evidence allegedly supporting human evolution is fragmentary and open to other interpretations. Fossil evidence showing the evolution of chimpanzees, supposedly the closest living relative to humans, is nonexistent (b).

Stories claiming that fossils of primitive, apelike men have been found are overstated (c).

It is now universally acknowledged that Piltdown “man” was a hoax, yet Piltdown “man” was in textbooks for more than 40 years (d).

a. “... existing phylogenetic hypotheses about human evolution [based on skulls and teeth] are unlikely to be reliable.” Mark Collard and Bernard Wood, “How Reliable Are Human Phylogenetic Hypotheses?” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 97, No. 9, 25 April 2000, p. 5003.

In 1995, nine anthropologists announced their discovery of early representatives of Homo habilis and Homo ergaster in China. [See Huang Wanpo et al., “Early Homo and Associated Artifacts from Asia,” Nature, Vol. 378, 16 November 1995, pp. 275–278.] Fourteen years later the same journal published a retraction. The discovery was of a “mystery ape.” [See Russell L. Ciochon, “The Mystery Ape of Pleistocene Asia,” Nature, Vol. 459, 18 June 2009, pp. 910–911.]

How many more mystery apes are there, and do they explain other so-called “ape-men”?

“We have all see [sic] the canonical parade of apes, each one becoming more human. We know that as a depiction of evolution, this line-up is tosh [tidy, but sheer nonsense]. Yet we cling to it. Ideas of what human evolution ought to have been like still colour our debates. ... almost every time someone claims to have found a new species of hominin, someone else refutes it. The species is said to be either a member of Homo sapiens, but pathological, or an ape.” Henry Gee, “Craniums with Clout,” Nature, Vol. 478, 6 October 2011, p. 34.

b. “Fossil evidence of human evolutionary history is fragmentary and open to various interpretations. Fossil evidence of chimpanzee evolution is absent altogether.” Henry Gee, “Return to the Planet of the Apes,” Nature, Vol. 412, 12 July 2001, p. 131.

c. Lord Zuckerman candidly stated that if special creation did not occur, then no scientist could deny that man evolved from some apelike creature “without leaving any fossil traces of the steps of the transformation.” Solly Zuckerman (former Chief Scientific Advisor to the British Government and Honorary Secretary of the Zoological Society of London), Beyond the Ivory Tower (New York: Taplinger Publishing Co., 1970), p. 64.

Bowden, pp. 56–246.

Duane T. Gish, Battle for Creation, Vol. 2, editor Henry M. Morris (San Diego: Creation-Life Publishers, 1976), pp. 193–200, 298–305.

d. Speaking of Piltdown man, Lewin admits a common human problem even scientists have:

“How is it that trained men, the greatest experts of their day, could look at a set of modern human bones—the cranial fragments—and “see” a clear simian signature in them; and “see” in an ape’s jaw the unmistakable signs of humanity? The answers, inevitably, have to do with the scientists’ expectations and their effects on the interpretation of data.” Lewin, Bones of Contention, p. 61.”

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown]

Ape-Men? 2


Since 1953, when Piltdown man was discovered to be a hoax, at least eleven people have been accused of perpetrating the hoax. These included Charles Dawson, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes.

The hoaxer now appears to have been Martin A. C. Hinton, who had a reputation as a practical joker and worked in the British Museum (Natural History) when Piltdown man was discovered. In the mid-1970s, an old trunk, marked with Hinton’s initials, was found in the museum’s attic. The trunk contained bones stained and carved in the same detailed way as the Piltdown bones. [For details, see Henry Gee, “Box of Bones ‘Clinches’ Identity of Piltdown Palaeontology Hoaxer,” Nature, Vol. 381, 23 May 1996, pp. 261–262.]

Before 1977, evidence for Ramapithecus was a mere handful of teeth and jaw fragments. We now know these fragments were pieced together incorrectly by Louis Leakey (e) and others into a form resembling part of the human jaw (f). Ramapithecus was just an ape (g).


Figure 13: Ramapithecus. Some textbooks still claim that Ramapithecus is man’s ancestor, an intermediate between man and some apelike ancestor. This mistaken belief resulted from piecing together, in 1932, fragments of upper teeth and bones into the two large pieces. This was done so the shape of the jaw resembled the parabolic arch of man. In 1977, a complete lower jaw of Ramapithecus was found. The true shape of the jaw was not parabolic, but rather U-shaped, distinctive of apes.

The only remains of Nebraska “man” turned out to be a pig’s tooth.


Figure 14: Nebraska Man. Artists’ drawings, even those based on speculation, powerfully influence the public. Nebraska man was mistakenly based on one tooth of an extinct pig. Yet in 1922, The Illustrated London News published a picture showing our supposed ancestors. Of course, it is highly unlikely that any fossil evidence could support the image conveyed of a naked man carrying a club.

e. Allen L. Hammond, “Tales of an Elusive Ancestor,” Science 83, November 1983, pp. 37, 43.

f. Adrienne L. Zihlman and J. Lowenstein, “False Start of the Human Parade,” Natural History, Vol. 88, August–September 1979, pp. 86–91.

g. Hammond, p. 43.

“The dethroning of Ramapithecus—from putative [supposed] first human in 1961 to extinct relative of the orangutan in 1982—is one of the most fascinating, and bitter, sagas in the search for human origins.” Lewin, Bones of Contention, p. 86.

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown]

Ape-Men? 3


Forty years after he discovered Java “man,” Eugene Dubois conceded that it was not a man, but was similar to a large gibbon (an ape). In citing evidence to support this new conclusion, Dubois admitted that he had withheld parts of four other thighbones of apes found in the same area (h).

Many experts consider the skulls of Peking “man” to be the remains of apes that were systematically decapitated and exploited for food by true man (i). Its classification, Homo erectus, is considered by most experts to be a category that should never have been created (j).

h. Java man consisted of two bones found about 39 feet apart: a skullcap and femur (thighbone). Rudolf Virchow, the famous German pathologist, believed that the femur was from a gibbon. By concurring, Dubois supported his own non-Darwinian theory of evolution—a theory too complex and strange to discuss here.

Whether or not the bones were from a large-brained gibbon, a hominid, another animal, or two completely different animals is not the only issue. This episode shows how easily the person who knew the bones best could shift his interpretation from Java “man” to Java “gibbon.” Even after more finds were made at other sites in Java, the total evidence was so fragmentary that many interpretations were possible.

“Pithecanthropus [Java man] was not a man, but a gigantic genus allied to the Gibbons, superior to its near relatives on account of its exceedingly large brain volume, and distinguished at the same time by its erect attitude.” Eugene Dubois, “On the Fossil Human Skulls Recently Discovered in Java and Pithecanthropus Erectus,” Man, Vol. 37, January 1937, p. 4.

“Thus the evidence given by those five new thigh bones of the morphological and functional distinctness of Pithecanthropus erectus furnishes proof, at the same time, of its close affinity with the gibbon group of anthropoid apes.” Ibid., p. 5.

“The success of Darwinism was accompanied by a decline in scientific integrity ... A striking example, which has only recently come to light, is the alteration of the Piltdown skull so that it could be used as evidence for the descent of man from the apes; but even before this a similar instance of tinkering with evidence was finally revealed by the discoverer of Pithecanthropus [Java man], who admitted, many years after his sensational report, that he had found in the same deposits bones that are definitely human.” W. R. Thompson, p. 17.

W. R. Thompson, in his “Introduction to The Origin of Species” by Charles Darwin, refers to Dubois’ discovery in November 1890 of part of a lower jaw containing the stump of a tooth. This was found at Kedung-Brubus (also spelled Kedeong Broboes), 25 miles east of his find of Java “man” at Trinil, eleven months later. Dubois was confident it was a human jaw of Tertiary age. [See Herbert Wendt, In Search of Adam (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishers, 1955), pp. 293–294.] Dubois’ claims of finding “the missing link” would probably have been ignored if he had mentioned this jaw. Similar, but less convincing, charges have been made against Dubois concerning his finding of obvious human skulls at Wadjak, 60 miles from Trinil.

C. L. Brace and Ashley Montagu, Human Evolution, 2nd edition (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1977), p. 204.

Bowden, pp. 138–142, 144–148.

Hitching, pp. 208–209.

Patrick O’Connell, Science of Today and the Problems of Genesis, 2nd edition (Roseburg, Oregon: self-published, 1969), pp. 139–142.

i. Ibid., pp. 108–138.

Bowden, pp. 90–137.

Marcellin Boule and Henri V. Vallois, Fossil Men (New York: The Dryden Press, 1957), p. 145.

j. “[The reanalysis of Narmada Man] puts another nail in the coffin of Homo erectus as a viable taxon.” Kenneth A. R. Kennedy, as quoted in “Homo Erectus Never Existed?” Geotimes, October 1992, p. 11.

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown]

Ape-Men? 4


The first confirmed limb bones of Homo habilis were discovered in 1986. They showed that this animal clearly had apelike proportions (k) and should never have been classified as manlike (Homo) (l).

The australopithecines, made famous by Louis and Mary Leakey, are quite distinct from humans. Several detailed computer studies of australopithecines have shown that their bodily proportions were not intermediate between those of man and living apes (m).

k. Donald C. Johanson et al., “New Partial Skeleton of Homo Habilis from Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania,” Nature, Vol. 327, 21 May 1987, pp. 205–209.

l. “We present a revised definition, based on verifiable criteria, for Homo and conclude that two species, Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis, do not belong in the genus [Homo].” Bernard Wood and Mark Collard, “The Human Genus,” Science, Vol. 284, 2 April 1999, p. 65.

m. Dr. Charles Oxnard and Sir Solly Zuckerman, referred to below, were leaders in the development of a powerful multivariate analysis technique. A computer simultaneously performs millions of comparisons on hundreds of corresponding dimensions of the bones of living apes, humans, and the australopithecines. Their verdict, that the australopithecines are not intermediate between man and living apes, is quite different from the more subjective and less analytical visual techniques of most anthropologists. To my knowledge, this technique has not been applied to the most famous australopithecine, commonly known as “Lucy.”

“...the only positive fact we have about the Australopithecine brain is that it was no bigger than the brain of a gorilla. The claims that are made about the human character of the Australopithecine face and jaws are no more convincing than those made about the size of its brain. The Australopithecine skull is in fact so overwhelmingly simian as opposed to human that the contrary proposition could be equated to an assertion that black is white.” Zuckerman, p. 78.

“Let us now return to our original problem: the Australopithecine fossils. I shall not burden you with details of each and every study that we have made, but ... the conventional wisdom is that the Australopithecine fragments are generally rather similar to humans and when different deviate somewhat towards the condition in the African apes, the new studies point to different conclusions. The new investigations suggest that the fossil fragments are usually uniquely different from any living form ...” Charles E. Oxnard (Dean of the Graduate School, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and from 1973 to 1978 a Dean at the University of Chicago), “Human Fossils: New Views of Old Bones,” The American Biology Teacher, Vol. 41, May 1979, p. 273.

Charles E. Oxnard, “The Place of the Australopithecines in Human Evolution: Grounds for Doubt?” Nature, Vol. 258, 4 December 1975, pp. 389–395.

“For my own part, the anatomical basis for the claim that the Australopithecines walked and ran upright like man is so much more flimsy than the evidence which points to the conclusion that their gait was some variant of what one sees in subhuman Primates, that it remains unacceptable.” Zuckerman, p. 93.

“His Lordship’s [Sir Solly Zuckerman’s] scorn for the level of competence he sees displayed by paleoanthropologists is legendary, exceeded only by the force of his dismissal of the australopithecines as having anything at all to do with human evolution. ‘They are just bloody apes,’ he is reputed to have observed on examining the australopithecine remains in South Africa.” Lewin, Bones of Contention, pp. 164–165.

“This Australopithecine material suggests a form of locomotion that was not entirely upright nor bipedal. The Rudolf Australopithecines, in fact, may have been close to the ‘knuckle-walker’ condition, not unlike the extant African apes.” Richard E. F. Leakey, “Further Evidence of Lower Pleistocene Hominids from East Rudolf, North Kenya,” Nature, Vol. 231, 28 May 1971, p. 245.

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown]

Ape-Men? 5

Another study, which examined their inner ear bones, used to maintain balance, showed a striking similarity to those of chimpanzees and gorillas, but great differences from those of humans . Likewise, their pattern of dental development corresponds to chimpanzees, not humans (o). Claims were made—based on one partially complete australopithecine fossil, Australopithecus afarensis, (a 3.5-foot-tall, long-armed, 60-pound adult called Lucy)—that all australopithecines walked upright in a human manner. However, studies of Lucy’s entire anatomy, not just a knee joint, now show that this is very unlikely. She likely swung from the trees (p) and was similar to pygmy chimpanzees (q). In 2006, a more complete Australopithecus afarensis specimen—a 3-year-old baby—was announced. Its new features were clearly apelike (r). The australopithecines are probably extinct apes (s).

n. “Among the fossil hominids, the australopithecines show great-ape-like proportions [based on CAT scans of their inner ears] and H. erectus shows modern-human-like proportions.” Fred Spoor et al., “Implications of Early Hominid Labyrinthine Morphology for Evolution of Human Bipedal Locomotion,” Nature, Vol. 369, 23 June 1994, p. 646. [Many H. erectus bones are probably those of H. sapiens.]

o. “The closest parallel today to the pattern of dental development of [australopithecines] is not in people but in chimpanzees.” Bruce Bower, “Evolution’s Youth Movement,” Science News, Vol. 159, 2 June 2001, p. 347.

p. William L. Jungers, “Lucy’s Limbs: Skeletal Allometry and Locomotion in Australopithecus Afarensis,” Nature, Vol. 297, 24 June 1982, pp. 676–678.

Jeremy Cherfas, “Trees Have Made Man Upright,” New Scientist, Vol. 93, 20 January 1983, pp. 172–178.

Jack T. Stern Jr. and Randall L. Susman, “The Locomotor Anatomy of Australopithecus Afarensis,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Vol. 60, March 1983, pp. 279–317.

q. Adrienne Zihlman, “Pigmy Chimps, People, and the Pundits,” New Scientist, Vol. 104, 15 November 1984, pp. 39–40.

r. Zeresenay Alemseged et al., “A Juvenile Early Hominin Skeleton from Dikika, Ethiopia,” Nature, Vol. 443, 21 September 2006, pp. 296–301.

s. “At present we have no grounds for thinking that there was anything distinctively human about australopithecine ecology and behavior. ... [T] hey were surprisingly apelike in skull form, premolar dentition, limb proportions, and morphology of some joint surfaces, and they may still have been spending a significant amount of time in the trees.” Matt Cartmill et al., “One Hundred Years of Paleoanthropology,” American Scientist, Vol. 74, July–August 1986, p. 417.

“The proportions calculated for africanus turned out to be amazingly close to those of a chimpanzee, with big arms and small legs. ... ‘One might say we are kicking Lucy out of the family tree,’ says Berger.” James Shreeve, “New Skeleton Gives Path from Trees to Ground an Odd Turn,” Science, Vol. 272, 3 May 1996, p. 654.

“There is indeed, no question which the Australopithecine skull resembles when placed side by side with specimens of human and living ape skulls. It is the ape—so much so that only detailed and close scrutiny can reveal any differences between them.” Solly Zuckerman, “Correlation of Change in the Evolution of Higher Primates,” Evolution as a Process, editors Julian Huxley, A. C. Hardy, and E. B. Ford (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1954), p. 307.

“We can safely conclude from the fossil hominoid material now available that in the history of the globe there have been many more species of great ape than just the three which exist today.” Ibid., pp. 348–349.

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown]

Ape-Men? 6


For about 100 years the world was led to believe that Neanderthal man was stooped and apelike. This false idea was based upon some Neanderthals with bone diseases such as arthritis and rickets (s). Recent dental and x-ray studies of Neanderthals suggest that they were humans who matured at a slower rate and lived to be much older than people today (t). Neanderthal man, Heidelberg man, and Cro-Magnon man are now considered completely human. Artists’ drawings of “ape-men,” especially their fleshy portions, are often quite imaginative and are not supported by the evidence (u).

Furthermore, the techniques used to date these fossils are highly questionable. [See pages 36-42]

s. Francis Ivanhoe, “Was Virchow Right About Neanderthal?” Nature, Vol. 227, 8 August 1970, pp. 577–578.

William L. Straus Jr. and A. J. E. Cave, “Pathology and the Posture of Neanderthal Man,” The Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 32, December, 1957, pp. 348–363.

Bruce M. Rothschild and Pierre L. Thillaud, “Oldest Bone Disease,” Nature, Vol. 349, 24 January 1991, p. 288.

t. Jack Cuozzo, Buried Alive: The Startling Truth about Neanderthal Man (Green Forest, Arkansas: Master Books, 1998).

Jack Cuozzo, “Early Orthodontic Intervention: A View from Prehistory,” The Journal of the New Jersey Dental Association, Vol. 58, No. 4, Autumn 1987, pp. 33–40.

u. Boyce Rensberger, “Facing the Past,” Science 81, October 1981, p. 49.

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown]

not really, I believe species can change within themselves, i.e. dogs to dogs but I dont believe a dog can turn into a freakin goldfish lol

I just had an interesting thought. I am taking biology this semester. As an engineer and person who loves science I cannot ignore certain evidence about the biological world. Just saying that I'm not totally against evolution. But here is my thought.

You have a piece of bread. The person next to you has no bread. Your neighbor has not eaten in days. You have not eaten in days yourself. If you share the bread with your neighbor you won't die but you will be quite sick. evolution says you should take the bread and let your neighbor die. Survival of fittest. Jesus says you should share the bread and sacrifice your health for your neighbor. All I know is jesus is right and evolution is wrong. I just know it. Evolution can't explain why I know it. That's all I have to say.

-gene

Evolution is not prescriptive but descriptive. It does not say what you should do, but describes what is likely to happen over time, given average cases. For instance, an evolutionist might explain that a greedy person is more likely to keep the bread and survive, while the altruistic person dies. Greed, therefore, usually becomes more prevalent. It does not say, however, that you should be greedy or that you shouldn't be altruistic.

In fact, some modern evolutionists have highlighted the place altruism plays in fitness. If you spend your time supporting your tribe, group of friends, or whatever, you may survive something that would kill any one of you individually. In other words, there are no armies of one. So no, evolution doesn't even necessarily rate selfishness highest on the scale.

For example, think about the soldier ant. It will sacrifice itself without a thought (and I assure you that ants don't think too much about these things) to save its queen. Why? It's a question that deserves some careful consideration. Survival of the fittest doesn't mean survival of me.

Keep in mind also that Jesus is describing spiritual fitness, while evolution discusses reproductive fitness. Even if evolution were giving advice, they'd still have two different goals in mind. Apples, oranges.

If the ant sacrifices itself for the queen this in some way ensures survival of colony. If I sacrifice myself for my neighbor and it has no effect on survival of all people except that one person. In the christian paradigm everyone is made in image of god and has equal worth. Its not mere pragmatism its thought on a higher level.turning the other cheek is completely idiotic from the point of view of evolution. And yea it is apples and oranges. But I have the choice to choose either fruit. In fact I choose to mix a little of the two with christianity in higher concentration.

Fyi I'm posting this on the fly using my phone. Didn't really read the posts in this thread. Just had this thought and wanted to share it. Christianity is absurd from the pov of evolution.

I think you're trying too hard, honestly. You're misrepresenting evolution so that you can sweep it under the rug with some facile arguments. Relax - there are reasons to argue against evolution.

It's not because evolution tells you which to starve. It's not because evolution tells you turning the other cheek is idiotic - in fact, there are often good reasons to back down from a fight. Have you ever heard of wolf pack hierarchies? And no, Christianity is not idiotic from the point of evolution.

What you're doing is called black-or-white thinking. It's not good logic. It may be enjoyable, briefly, as a mental game, but if you take it seriously, these sorts of arguments don't work.

Fossil Man

Bones of modern-looking humans have been found deep in undisturbed rocks that, according to evolution, were formed long before man began to evolve. Examples include the Calaveras skull (a), the Castenedolo skeletons (b), Reck’s skeleton (c), and possibly others (d). Remains such as the Swanscombe skull, the Steinheim fossil, and the Vertesszöllos fossil present similar problems (e). Evolutionists almost always ignore these remains.

a. J. D. Whitney, “The Auriferous Gravels of the Sierra Nevada of California,” Memoirs of the Museum of Comparative Zoology of Harvard College, Vol. 6, 1880, pp. 258–288.

Bowden, pp. 76–78.

Frank W. Cousins, Fossil Man (Imsworth, England: A. E. Norris & Sons Ltd., 1971), pp. 50–52, 82, 83.

W. H. B., “Alleged Discovery of An Ancient Human Skull in California,” American Journal of Science, Vol. 2, 1866, p. 424.

Edward C. Lain and Robert E. Gentet, “The Case for the Calaveras Skull,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 33, March 1997, pp. 248–256.

For many years, a story circulated that the Calaveras skull, buried 130 feet below ground, was a practical joke. This tidy explanation conveniently overlooks the hundreds of human bones and artifacts (such as spearheads, mortars and pestles, and dozens of bowls made of stone) found in that part of California. These artifacts have been found over the years under undisturbed strata and a layer of basaltic lava that evolutionists would date at 25 million years old—too old to be human. See, for example:
Whitney, pp. 262–264, 266, 274–276.
G. Frederick Wright, Man and the Glacial Period (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1897), pp. 294–301.
George F. Becker, “Antiquities from under Tuolumne Table Mountain in California,” Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, Vol. 2, 20 February 1891, pp. 189–200.

b. Bowden, pp. 78–79.

Cousins and Whitney state that the Calaveras was fossilized. This does not mean that it was pre-flood. Fossilization depends on chemistry much more than time. Cousins, pp. 48-50, 81.

Sir Arthur Keith correctly stated the dilemma evolutionists face with the Castenedolo skeletons:

“As the student of prehistoric man reads and studies the records of the ‘Castenedolo’ find, a feeling of incredulity rises within him. He cannot reject the discovery as false without doing an injury to his sense of truth, and he cannot accept it as a fact without shattering his accepted beliefs.” Arthur Keith, The Antiquity of Man (London: Williams and Norgate, Ltd., 1925), p. 334.

However, after examining the strata above and below the Castenedolo skeletons, and after finding no indication that they were intrusively buried, Keith surprisingly concluded that the enigma must be resolved by an intrusive burial. He justified this by citing the unfossilized condition of the bones. However, these bones were encased in a clay layer. Clay would prevent water from transporting large amounts of dissolved minerals into the bone cells and explain the lack of fossilization. Again, fossilization depends much more on chemistry than age.

c. Bowden, pp. 183–193.

d. Ibid., pp. 79–88.

e. Fix, pp. 98–105.

J. B. Birdsell, Human Evolution (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1972), pp. 316–318.

[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown]