- The story of human evolution.
- Australopithecines.
The story begins about 3.5 million years ago with the appearance of a group of animals
collectively known as australopithecines: "Australo" meaning southern and "pithecines"
meaning apes. These "southern apes," initially discovered in South Africa, were small,
apparently upright, walking apes.
- Homo habilis.
Around two million years ago, a new creature appeared that is now put into the genus
Homo, Homo habilis. Homo habilis possessed the same stature of the australopithecines
but with a slightly larger brain. It is also suggested that he used a few primitive tools.
- Homo erectus.
Next appeared the real star of human evolution, Homo erectus. Homo erectus possessed
the skeletal frame of modern humans (though a little more robust) and a brain capacity
closer still to humans. Homo erectus used more advanced tools.
- Archaic Homo sapiens.
This "almost" human hung around we're told for over 1.5 million years when nearly
modern humans (Homo sapiens) began to emerge.
- Thoroughly modern humans.
Soon the offshoot neandertals arise and about the same time thoroughly modern
humans appear in the last 100,000 years.
- Did australopithecines walk upright?
The first major player as mentioned above is the genus Australopithecus. Many creationists
have debated whether these creatures walked upright. These creatures did walk on two legs
probably, but not very well, and not in a manner similar to humans. The most famous
australopithecine is "Lucy," who was discovered by Donald Johanson in East Africa in 1974.
- Lucy walked on two legs.
While there is still some debate about whether these creatures walked upright at all,
most anthropologists accept that they walked on two legs.
- Lucy was also adapted to the trees.
But this is misleading if you don't know the rest of the story. The fact is that Lucy, the
most well known australopithecine (Australopithecus afarensis), was also mildly
adapted to life in the trees.
- The gait of australopithecines was probably not intermediate.
The evolutionist William Howells summed it up well. "There is general agreement that
Lucy's gait is not properly understood, and that it was not something simply transitional
to ours" (emphasis mine).2
- Lucy was unique.
If Lucy walked upright, it appears to have been something distinct from how apes and
humans walk. Not exactly what you would expect from a transitional form.
The best
guess is that Lucy is simply an extinct ape with no clear connection to humans.
- The ambiguity of fossil human categories should be understood.
We have all seen the series of extinct creatures that supposedly lead from ape to man.
Evolutionists confidently declare that while there may be a lot of details missing from the
story, the basic outline is fairly complete. This all seems rather impressive. Creationist
Marvin Lubenow, offers an important observation:
What is not generally known is that this sequence, impressive as it seems, is a very artificial and
arbitrary arrangement because 1) some fossils are selectively excluded if they do not fit well into
the evolutionary scheme; 2) some human fossils are arbitrarily downgraded to make them appear
to be evolutionary ancestors when they are in fact true humans; and 3) some non-human fossils
are upgraded to make them appear to be human ancestors.{3}
- The australopithecines are a good example of Lubenow's third point.
- These extinct apes are championed as human ancestors because of their crude
bipedal walking ability. But nearly everything else about them is ape-like. The
origin of their bipedality would be no small evolutionary task. Even Richard Leakey
admits as much in his book (written with Roger Lewin), Origins Reconsidered, when
he says that the change from walking on four legs to walking on two legs
would have required an extensive remodeling of the ape's bone and muscle
architecture and of the overall proportion in the lower half of the body. Mechanisms
of gait are different, mechanics of balance are different, functions of major muscles are
different -an entire functional complex had to be transformed for efficient bipedalism
to be possible.{4}
- Yet this immense change is not documented from the fossils.
- Just who or what is Homo erectus?
A good example of Lubenow's second point, the arbitrary downgrading of human fossils
to make them appear to be our ancestors, is Homo erectus.
- Homo erectus is said to span the time, from around 1.7 million years ago to nearly
400,000 years ago. From its first appearance, erectus is admitted to have a fully
human post-cranial skeleton (that means everything but the head). But the brain
size is given an evolutionary twist by saying that it only approaches the average for
modern humans. In reality, Homo erectus brain size is within the range of modern
humans.
- Throughout the course of their book, Origins Reconsidered, Leakey and Lewin
document an impressive array of characteristics that distinguish the ape-like
qualities of australopithecines from the human qualities of Homo erectus.
Australopithecines are small in stature, only 3–4 feet tall, and the males are twice
the size of females. In humans and Homo erectus, the males are only 15–20%
larger than females and a juvenile erectus fossil is projected to grow to a height of
six feet if he had lived.{5}
- In Homo erectus, all of the following characteristics display the human pattern,
while in australopithecines, the ape pattern is evident: growth pattern, dental
structure and development, facial structure and development, brain morphology,
height to weight ratio, probable position of larynx based on the contours of the
base of the skull making speech possible, and the size of the birth canal relative to
the size of the adult brain.
- Where some Homo erectus fossils differ from humans can be explained by the
effects of inbreeding, dietary restrictions, and a harsh environment. But
evolutionists need an intermediate link from ape to man, and Homo erectus is the
only option available.
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