ANTHROPOLOGY CLASS DISCUSSION

An anthropology student explains some facts to his university professor. Evolutionary theory is a myth. God created everything; the evidence clearly points to it. Nothing else can explain the mountain of evidence. This is science vs. evolution—a Creation-Evolution Encyclopedia, brought to you by Creation Science Facts.

This material is excerpted from the book, ANCIENT MAN. An asterisk ( * ) by a name indicates that person is not known to be a creationist. Of over 4,000 quotations in the books this Encyclopedia is based on, only 164 statements are by creationists. You will have a better understanding of the following statements by scientists if you will also read the web page, Ancient Man.

Instructor: Today we are going to discuss how man emerged from his animal ancestors. One evidence of this is the fact that early man lived in caves.

Student: But prof, living in a cave is no evidence that ancient people were animals. Many people today live in caves, temporarily or permanently, when they do not have houses.

Instructor: Another evidence is the fact that man is no longer evolving. This supports our theory that he stopped evolving about 100,000 years ago.

Student: But prof, how can lack of evolution be an evidence of evolution? Isn't it begging the question to say that man stopped evolving about 100,000 years ago? If he isn't evolving now, why should we think he ever did earlier?

Instructor: There are many evidences of man's previous evolution from animals. It appears that he descended from apes or from an ape-like ancestor.

Student: But prof, our DNA is totally different than an ape's. The number and shape of vertebrae in our backbone is very different, and our brain capacity is much larger.

Instructor: Our brain capacity is larger because it has evolved. Gradually, over hundreds of thousands of years, our brains have increased in size.

Student: But prof, what about the Neanderthals? They are supposed to be the ones we most recently evolved from—and they had larger braincases than we have!

Instructor: Well, uh. That is a little mystery we're still working on. But we know they must have looked like apes, because they only used primitive tools and weapons.

Student: But prof, people have been found in places such as New Guinea, where they use stone implements—yet they are fully human. The children have been sent to American universities, and, after graduation, have proven to be capable workers.

Instructor: We also know that ancient people looked like apes because they slouched as they walked. They also had lots of hair on their bodies. All this can be seen in modern paintings of early man.

Student: But prof, artists cannot tell us what ancient man looked like. Bone fragments cannot reveal how much hair was on the body. In addition, we know that our backbones are designed for upright walking. The spines of the apes cause them to hump over and "knuckle walk."

Instructor: Er, uh; back to the Neanderthals. They were a primitive people, because they show evidence of it in their bones.

Student: But prof, even Darwin's defender, Thomas Huxley, said the Neanderthals were humans and did not prove evolution. Rudolph Virchow, a leading German anatomist, said their bones were slightly deformed from rickets and arthritis. As for the heavy brow ridges, there are peoples living today who have them. What about that Neanderthal found in a medieval suit of chain armor, not fully rusted?

Instructor: Well, we also have the Cro-Magnons. These may be the missing link.

Student: But prof, the Cro-Magnons, on the average, were over six feet tall with a cranial capacity somewhat larger than ours! They were normal people, and provide no evidence of transition from ape to man.

Instructor: Fortunately, we have amassed a great number of ancient bones which point to our animal origins.

Student: But prof, why is it that, each time, only one specimen is found? Why are only little pieces of bone found for each specimen—never a complete skeleton? Careful anatomists declare that, using a few pieces, one can attempt to prove almost anything. Why is it those bones never decayed, though they are supposed to be over a million years old? Such bones are said to have been found in England, Indonesia, and China. Yet all other bones there rot away in a few years. Actually, if bones could last millions of years—then the world would be covered with bones! But that does not happen, because bones rot away.

Instructor: We know that these finds must be so, since they were always found by men of the highest integrity, whose word we should accept. They point to those bones, and declare them to be millions of years old.

Student: But prof, repeatedly finds of old bones have turned out to be fakes: Java Man, Piltdown Man, Rhodesian Man, Taung African Man, Nebraska Man, Peking Man, and on and on. For example, Nebraska Man, which was the great discovery hailed at the 1925 Scopes trial in Dayton, Tennessee—turned out, a year later, to be nothing more than a pig's tooth.

Instructor: We have found so many bones of mankind's half-ape / half-man ancestors, that we call them "hominoid bones."

Student: But prof, only enough bones have been found to fill the top of an office table! According to a Time-Life book, it all amounts to about 1,400 bits and pieces of bones. Not one complete skeleton of one individual exists. In addition, on closer examination, these so-called "half-ape / half-man ancestors" turn out to be nothing more than immature ape skulls, ape bones doctored up with knives and chisels, mismatched human skulls and ape jaws, human child skulls matched up with ape jaws, a pig's tooth, a dolphin's rib, and a donkey's skull!

Instructor: We could also discuss Piltdown Man, but we had best avoid that topic. Let us now turn our attention to the drawings of ancient man. They show evolution at work.

Student: But prof, lots of people today do not draw any better! On the other hand, have you ever found an ape who could draw anything even slightly as well?

Instructor: Another fact, showing the great antiquity of these bones, is that some of them were found several feet under the ground. It must have taken millions of years of erosion and plant decay to bury them there.

Student: But prof, perhaps other people buried the human bones. As for the ape bones, they have totally different DNA. Such radical changes in DNA just never occur.

Instructor: Just by looking at those bones, experts estimate their age at millions of years old.

Student: But prof, why do those experts refuse to let the bones be examined by mass spectrometer technique? Whenever that has been done, the bones have been shown to be 5,000 years or less in age.

Instructor: Student, you suggest irrelevant details meant to confuse the ignorant. I have seen some of those bones for myself, and I believe the words of the experts. As for complete skeletons of ancient people, they are just never found.

Student: But prof, Guadeloupe Woman was found in 1812 on a Caribbean island, and is now in the British Museum. It is a fully complete human skeleton, except for the head and feet—and was found in very old, hardened limestone, more than a mile in length! Geologists place its age at 28 million years, yet the skeleton was fully human.

Instructor: That is just one example.

Student: More examples could be cited. There is the Calaveras skull, belonging to a modern-type man, yet fully mineralized in 2 million-year-old Pliocene stratum. Dozens of stone implements were found by it. Other examples would be the Castinedolo Skull in Italy, the Moab Skeletons in eastern Utah, and the human footprints in—

Instructor: That is foolishness! I have heard about all those so- called human footprints!

Student: But prof, not only have many oversize footprints been found in various parts of the world, sometimes with dinosaur tracks—but leading paleontologists agree that many of them are genuine. One example would be the Laetoli tracks, which extend 90 feet, and were found by none other than Mary Leakey, in eastern Africa, in 1976-1978.

Instructor: The very idea that large human footprints were found adjacent to dinosaur tracks—just does not fit evolutionary theory.

Student: But prof, perhaps the theory is wrong. Large human footprints have been found even on top of dinosaur tracks!

Instructor: If that were true, that would mean that humans were alive when the dinosaurs lived!

Student: That would not be difficult, if dinosaurs only went extinct within the past few thousand years. Keep in mind the Antelope Springs tracks. In 1968, William Meister found sandaled human footprints with trilobites! That find would mean humans were alive as far back as life extends—in the Cambrian strata. That is the oldest fossil-bearing strata on the planet. So even the Cambrian is not very old.

Instructor: Evolutionary theory teaches that slow, gradual changes occurred over millions of years, and only produced the most necessary changes.

Student: But prof, what about the vast intelligence of man? Alfred Russel Wallace, Darwin's close friend, declared that human intelligence was too great to have evolved! Then there are the languages of man. They are extremely complicated; yet, as far back as we go, they only become more complicated!

Instructor: Paleontologists tell us that man originated in Africa.

Student: But prof, research of all kinds reveals that the first men were in the Near East. This is shown by agriculture, mining, tool making, domesticated animals. As far back as we go, man was as intelligent as he is today.

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THE EFFECTS OF THE FLOOD Here are the facts.