Scientific American devoted its July 'special'
edition, once again, to the 'special' mission it has so far undertaken
with such great sensitivity: spreading the materialist dogma-based theory
of evolution.
The well-known US science magazine Scientific American devoted
its July 'special' edition, once again, to the 'special' mission it has so far
undertaken with such great sensitivity: spreading the materialist dogma-based
theory of evolution.
It was noteworthy that the picture of the imaginative ape-man on
the cover showed him staring at the horizon. Despite the fact that there is
not a shred of scientific evidence to support the existence of such a creature,
in this edition called 'New Look at Human Evolution,' Scientific American chose
the views in question with great care, and thus sought to give the impression
that an ape-like creature actually possessed the power of thought.
The approximately 100-page magazine was a collection of Scientific
American articles on the subject of the origin of man. John Rennie, editor of
the magazine, concluded his introductory article with an invitation:
"We invite you to explore the pages that follow, to learn more
about that fascinating first chapter in everybody's family history."
Rennie may have spoken of an invitation, but as one turned the
pages it became more and more clear that the invitation in question was not
to 'learning,' but rather to 'dogmatism.'
Scientific American considered the origin of man from a most one-sided
perspective and interpreted the various fossil findings in the light of the
Darwinist dogma to which it is so blindly devoted. This paper reveals the distorted
perspective on which the-allegedly scientific-claims in the articles in Scientific
American are based.
"An Ancestor to Call Our Own"
This article by Kate Wong dealt with fossils discovered over the
last two to three years (Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba, Orrorin tugenensis ve Sahelanthropus
tchadensis). Various comments have been made as to how these might have affected
the so-called human evolutionary tree, yet most of these comments have proved
to be contradictory. These contradictions, frequently noted by the author, revealed
an important situation concerning the scenarios about the evolution of man:
this scenario is not, as it is portrayed to the public, a coherent theory based
on sound evidence, but merely an error maintained by factitious speculation
and prejudice. One of the most striking examples of this is, without any doubt,
the fact that experts have failed to agree by what criteria a fossil should
or should not be regarded as 'hominid.'
You can read a wide-ranging response we have already issued on
this subject here.
"Early Hominid Fossils From Africa"
This article dealt with certain ape species included in the genus
Australopithecus and which are allegedly the ancestors of man, particularly
Australopithecus anamensis.
Written by the well-known evolutionist palaeontologists Alan Walker
(professor of Biology and Anthropology at Pennsylvania University) and Meave
Leakey (Kenya National Museum), this article put forward no new claim or finding,
and merely reported on the process of naming A. anamensis, which was discovered
in 1995. In the light of this it provided information about the A. anamensis
found on the Allia Bay and Kanapoi shores of Lake Turkana in Kenya, and examined
this species' links to other Australopithecus species.
All the living things included in the genus Australopithecus bear
a close similarity to modern chimpanzees, with their general anatomies adapted
to tree-climbing and small brain volumes. The most important reason why these
creatures are included in evolutionary scenarios is the claims that they were
able to walk on two legs. Research revealing results which contradicted these
claims dealt a major blow to the idea of the bipedalism of Australopithecines
(any living thing included in the genus Australopithecus). You can find a previously
written article about that research here.
The evolutionist claims regarding A. anamensis in Scientific American
are summed up in a picture which compares A. anamensis bones with those of human
beings and chimpanzees. This picture, which we have posted below, shows the
lower jawbone, the tibia and the elbow end of the humerus in the chimpanzee,
A. anamensis and human. As can be seen, the A. anamensis lower jawbone is clearly
U-shaped, in other words it is no different to those of apes. The human jawbone
on the other hand is parabolic, and the ends move away from each other towards
the back. As regards the tibia and humerus, claims are put forward that A. anamensis
was bipedal. It is then claimed that since in chimpanzees the expanse in the
upper part of the tibia facing the knee is T-shaped, whereas there is no such
sharp turn as in a T in human and A. anamensis and the area is covered and supported
with a rubbery tissue, this must have played a role in supporting the weight
which emerged when walking on two legs. It is also claimed that a space at the
end of the humerus in chimpanzees helps them to lock their elbows and thus help
with load bearing during knuckle walking. There is no such space in humans and
A. anamensis, and it is suggested that this is an indication that A. anamensis
did not engage in knuckle walking.
It is clear that this picture drawn in Scientific American offers
no support for the theory of evolution. As can be seen in the first picture,
there is no full skeleton of A. anamensis, and not even a skull. It can be seen
that although findings from these species are exceedingly few, Scientific American
draws conclusions that these few findings cannot possibly bear. The authors
Leakey and Walker express not the slightest indication of doubt regarding human
evolution and the 'hominid' character of A. anamensis. Yet to what extent are
these views that A. anamensis was a creature in the process of evolution realistic?
If we now set aside the prejudices of the authors and just examine
the bones we can easily see that the 'ape-man' and 'evolution' conclusions stem
solely from preconceptions. The fact that the bones suggest bipedalism changes
this not at all, since bones suggesting bipedalism only suggest bipedalism.
In other words, this may be an ape which stood on two legs to a partial extent.
Does this prove that this creature evolved from another which walked more on
its knuckles? Of course not. Does it in that case prove that this creature would
gradually become erect, start walking upright and turn into a human being? Again,
no.
In fact, A. anamensis was a species of ape capable of walking upright
to a certain extent, in the same way that present-day chimpanzees can traverse
short distances on two legs. It was a species of living ape, and this can clearly
be seen in Leakey and Walkers' statements. These statements are:
'… Its jaws and some skull features were very apelike,'
or
'We also know that anamensis had only a tiny external ear canal.
In this regard it is more like chimpanzees and unlike all later hominids, including
humans, which have large external ear canals.'
In short, A. anamensis can clearly be seen from the few bones that
have come down to us to have been an ape, and maybe one capable of walking on
two legs to some extent. Yet this information gains the theory of evolution
nothing. The evolutionist preconceptions in Scientific American go no further
than being speculation by people who have unquestioningly accepted the theory
of evolution right from the outset.
In the article in question there is another error, not directly
linked to A. anamensis. It is claimed in the article that scientists now possess
almost certain molecular proof that human beings and apes share a common ancestor.
The fact is however, that the claims of molecular kinship are based on preconceptions,
and are an error maintained with inconsistent logic and deceptive analysis results.
You can read our article on this subject here.
"Once We Were Not Alone"
This article was penned by Ian Tattersall, an anthropologist from
the American Natural History Museum in New York City. Tattersall generally maintained
that throughout the so-called human evolution the world played host to not just
one species of hominid, and that on the contrary several species lived together.
He lists the living things regarded as hominid and which are included in the
genera Australopithecus and Homo, and provides information about the periods
and regions in which they lived.
In fact there is not one single piece of scientific evidence that
these listed species emerged by evolution. An objective inspection will reveal
that these living things were either completely ape or else completely human.
That is because there are important differences at the skeletal level among
the living things in the Australopithecus and Homo genera. Homo erectus possesses
an upright skeleton and large brain volume unseen in the premises put forward
by evolutionists. The so-called evolutionary ancestors up as far as Homo erectus
were apes, and Homo erectus and those which came later were humans. One study
confirming this fact was published in Science magazine in 1999 by the evolutionary
palaeontologists Bernard Wood and Mark Collard. In this article, it was suggested
that Homo habilis and Homo rudolphensis, which are included in the genus Homo
and appear more primitive than Homo erectus according to evolutionist criteria,
should be moved to the genus Australopithecus. That is because with their general
anatomies they are species which are clearly apes, like Australopithecus.
(In Tattersall's article Homo ergaster, which he describes as the
first hominid with a modern structure in the real sense, is included in Homo
erectus. Defining this as a separate species is prejudice, and is in any case
a subject for debate amongst evolutionists.)
In short, no picture to support evolution emerges from the fossil
record. Scientific findings show that human beings and monkeys are totally different
living things with no evolutionary relationship between them, for which reason
they must have appeared separately, in other words God created them all.
In the following part of Tattersall's article, he tries to give
an account of the so-called evolution of human intelligence. He first explains
that the first Homo sapiens settlements seen in Europe date back to around 40,000
years ago, and that these people brought with them art and brought forward new
technologies in tool-making. Tattersall claims that behavioural models which
show a leap forward in art and technology emerged through biological evolution.
The concept he offers to support this claim is that of 'the phenomenon of emergence.'
He describes this as 'the notion that a chance coincidence gives rise to something
totally unexpected.' The 'classic scientific example' of this, as he puts it,
is water.
Tattersall explains that by themselves hydrogen and oxygen do not
exhibit water-like properties, and that the characteristics of the water molecule
which emerges when the two are combined in a particular proportion cannot be
foreseen beforehand.
Tattersall resorts to this example in explaining the origin of
consciousness. In his view, this example shows that the process which produces
the human ability to think abstractly is a perfectly ordinary one. In other
words, Tattersall is claiming that a chance change in the chemistry of the brain
lies behind the origin of human consciousness, and describes this as being just
as ordinary as oxygen and hydrogen coming together to make water.
Can Tattersall really be serious in this?
First and foremost, human consciousness is not a phenomenon linked
to chemical and physical laws as in Tattersall's example. The way that oxygen
and hydrogen combine to produce water may be quite astonishing, but this does
not change the fact that this is dependent on chemical and physical laws. If
two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom combine, the result is a water molecule.
This is always the case, and is a chemical phenomenon linked to the physical
properties of both elements.
There is neither a physical basis to nor a chemical law in human
consciousness. It has no physical basis, since there is not the slightest scientific
evidence that the exchange of electrical signals between neurons can produce
thoughts and feelings. This very definitely represents a major dilemma for materialists,
who seek to explain everything in terms of matter. This terrible dilemma facing
materialism was described in the following terms in a book called A Universe
of Consciousness, printed in 2002:
'We have been trying for a long time to solve the mind-body problem.
It has stubbornly resisted our best efforts. The mystery persists. I think the
time has come to admit candidly that we cannot solve the mystery.'
It is clear that Tattersall's example has no validity when it comes
to accounting for consciousness. The way that he resorts to the 'classic scientific'
example of water in order to account for consciousness is not in fact a scientific
approach at all, but a 'classic materialist evasion.' We would remind Tattersall
that he will have to resort to that evasion and other versions of it so long
as he clings to materialism. Trying to expound an unscientific argument under
the guise of being a scientist is an unnecessary psychological burden. What
needs to be done is to accept the facts instead of denying them. This truth
shown by science is that humans came into being by creation, not by evolution.
The origin of human consciousness is the soul God gives him, not unconscious
atoms.
