William B Stoecker

The missing link

March 17, 2011 |  6 comments
Image Credit: Julia Margaret Cameron In 1859 Charles Darwin published his On The Origin of Species, postulating that species evolved over time, and that the engine driving change was natural selection. Less detailed theories of evolution had been considered before, including one developed by Darwin’s grandfather, Erasmus Darwin. But the idea of natural selection, considered almost at the same time by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace, was a new twist. In 1871 Darwin published his The Descent of Man, putting forth the theory that we evolved from some sort of prehistoric ape. It then became necessary for Darwin or his supporters to find “missing links,” apes with some human characteristics and primitive humans with some ape-like characteristics in the fossil record.

Actually, what seemed like a good candidate for the latter, Neanderthal Man, had been discovered in Germany’s Neandertal Valley back in 1856, and more remains, many of them complete skeletons, continued to be discovered all over Europe, western Asia, and the Near East. Since a primitive ape man was required, researchers rushed to depict the Neanderthals, despite their having brains at least as large as ours and hyoid bones in their throat that would make them physically capable of human speech, as hulking, hairy brutes, walking with a less than fully erect posture. All their so called “primitive characteristics” were dutifully exaggerated. The oldest true Neanderthals found so far date back to 130,000 B.P. (before the present), and remains with some Neanderthal characteristics date back to 350,000 or even 600,000 B.P. More recently, some researchers have stopped exaggerating their supposed ape-like characteristics, and some recent depictions make them look like contemporary Europeans. Considering that the modern races of Man (some consider them to be subspecies) have widely varying average physical characteristics, there is really no reason at all to believe that Neanderthal was a species separate from our own, and some contemporary physical anthropologists have admitted as much.

But it was apparent to early Darwinists that something more primitive, more ape-like, was needed. So a fossil collector named Charles Dawson obtained some skull and jawbone fragments, supposedly found in a gravel pit in the town of Piltdown in East Sussex, in England. He convinced British Museum geologist Arthur Smith that the remains were genuine, and supposedly the two of them found more bone fragments in the area. As early as 1913 a number of researchers suspected that “Piltdown Man” was a hoax (Dawson had been caught doing this sort of thing before, though not with the remains of an alleged human ancestor), and said so. In 1953 careful study showed “Piltdown Man” to be a partial human skull and an orangutan jawbone. Yet many Darwinists, wishful thinkers, had refused to see the obvious. Most likely Dawson himself was behind the hoax, but the possibility of a wider conspiracy cannot be ruled out.

But, in the meantime, numerous other early remains had been found, supposedly of species intermediate between Man and ape, or some common ancestor of apes and people. One of the earliest was Pithecanthropus erectus, found in Java by a Dutch physician, Eugene Dubois. Between 1891 and 1893 he found a skull cap, three teeth, and later a thigh bone, assumed to be from the same individual. The skull cap has been dated at an estimated 1,800,000 years in age. Physical anthropologists, eager to prove the validity of Darwin’s theory, and with careers and research grants and reputations on the line, tend to do a lot of assuming, and eventually, Pithecanthropus was claimed to be a member of a wider species, Homo erectus, but recently some researchers have decided that the thigh bone was actually that of a fully modern Homo sapiens. We need to remember that most prehistoric hominids are based on little more than a handful of bone fragments and a good deal of wishful thinking.

The aforementioned Homo erectus is an exception, with some fairly complete skeletons, and the fossils of Homo erectus have been found in many parts of Africa, Europe, and Asia, with some remains dating back to about 1,800,000 B.P. Based on (not always complete) skulls, anthropologists estimate that erectus’ brain averaged from 850 cc to around 1100 cc. This is smaller than the average modern human brain, but it overlaps with the modern range. Contemporary races also have varying average brain sizes, ranging from about 1150 cc to 1364 cc. These are just averages, and some individuals have had even smaller brains. Given that Homo erectus, as the name implies, walked erect and made stone tools and used fire, why assume that they were a separate species? Many of their so-called primitive characteristics, such as brow ridges, are sometimes found in modern people.

Numerous other early humans were found by various researchers, who tended to name entire new species based on a handful of bone fragments…a good career move, no doubt. “Rhodesian man” is based on a fairly complete skull and a few fragments, and had an 1,100 cc brain…again, within the modern range. Homo ergaster, found in Asia, had an estimated brain size of 700-1,100 cc. Heidelberg man, found all over Europe, averaged perhaps six feet in height, with a brain well within the modern range at 1,100-1,400 cc. Possibly the same “species” has been found in southern Africa, but at least some of these were about seven feet tall. Again, there is no evidence that these people were a species separate from us.

That cannot be said for Homo habilis, who lived from 2,300,000 to 1,400,000 B.P., in East Africa. Even the anthropologists cannot agree whether or not habilis was an ancestor of modern man, and its brain size, estimated (on the basis of little more than fragments) at 590-710 cc, is far below the modern human range. Stone tools have been found near some of the remains, but there is no proof that they were made, or used, by habilis. A foot bone found near one set of remains seems to be modern in shape, indicating an erect posture, but it is from a different individual…probably a fully modern type of human. Some anthropologists even admit that habilis may not even exist as a separate type of human, and could even be a mixture of Homo erectus and australopithecine remains. Whatever habilis was, there is not only no proof that these creatures were our ancestors; they were, quite possibly, nothing more than a now extinct type of ape.

And this brings us to the various kinds of australopithecines, believed to be our ancestors. These are found in many parts of Africa, and date back as far as 4,000,000 B.P. Their brains were ape sized at 380-430 cc, and the only thing that might indicate that they were our ancestors is the fact that they supposedly walked erect. At least one pelvis shows some (but not all) of the characteristics of a modern human pelvis, adopted for an upright posture. The only supposed Australopithecus foot bones found so far, however, are apelike, with an opposing big toe, and some modern apes can walk erect for a short distance. Anthropologist Donald Johanson, named an Australopithecus he found “Lucy,” a fine way to humanize her, and, on the basis of some fully modern human footprints found not far from the partial skeleton, pronounced that she walked upright. This made his reputation, and was certainly a better career move than suggesting that the prints were, in fact, made by a fully modern human, and not by Lucy, an idea frowned upon by the Darwinist establishment. Let me suggest here that the various australopithecines were nothing more than apes, that they seldom if ever walked upright, and that they were in no way ancestral or even distantly related to us.

Not only are the Darwinists unable to provide any conclusive proof of a missing link, but modern researchers like Michael Cremo and Richard L. Thompson have found evidence of fully modern humans who lived long before any of our supposed “ancestors.” These remains, when they have been preserved at all, have been buried in museum basements and largely ignored by establishment Darwinists; sometimes only the research papers of the researchers who found the bones remain. Indirect evidence of modern man exists in the form of 430,000 year old spear points of an advanced design found in northern Germany. Bear in mind the fact that, for a long time, the Darwinists claimed that fully modern Homo sapiens dated back only to about 50,000 B.P. Grudgingly, even the conventional researchers have, over the last two or three decades, extended that back to 100,000, then 120,000 years B.P. Now many of them are accepting an age of some 275,000 years. Stone tools were found at Hueytalco, Mexico, and dated by a geologist at 250,000 B.P., long before people were supposed to have migrated to the Americas. A human skull found near Buenos Aires, Argentina has been dated at one million B.P., and a small statue of a person was found in Nampa, Idaho, in a rock layer two million years old. Human skeletons were found in a California gold mine in rock layers fifty million years old. In most of these cases, the overlying rock layers were undisturbed, indicating that the bones were not the result of later burials. Incredibly, some human remains and artifacts have been found in rock layers and coal seams dating back to the age of dinosaurs, and even earlier, before mammals , so far as is known, even existed. The further back we look, the weaker the evidence…but it still exists, and the evidence for modern humans five, ten, or even twenty million years ago is quite strong. I have included here only a part of the evidence discovered by Mr. Cremo and Mr. Thompson and other researchers.

If we did not evolve from apes or other primates (all of whom have 48 chromosomes while we have 46), it would seem that the intelligent design advocates have been right all along. And, since intelligent design requires an intelligent designer, perhaps we need to think the entire atheist/materialist paradigm foisted upon us by the elites.[!gad]In 1859 Charles Darwin published his On The Origin of Species, postulating that species evolved over time, and that the engine driving change was natural selection. Less detailed theories of evolution had been considered before, including one developed by Darwin’s grandfather, Erasmus Darwin. But the idea of natural selection, considered almost at the same time by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace, was a new twist. In 1871 Darwin published his The Descent of Man, putting forth the theory that we evolved from some sort of prehistoric ape. It then became necessary for Darwin or his supporters to find “missing links,” apes with some human characteristics and primitive humans with some ape-like characteristics in the fossil record.

Actually, what seemed like a good candidate for the latter, Neanderthal Man, had been discovered in Germany’s Neandertal Valley back in 1856, and more remains, many of them complete skeletons, continued to be discovered all over Europe, western Asia, and the Near East. Since a primitive ape man was required, researchers rushed to depict the Neanderthals, despite their having brains at least as large as ours and hyoid bones in their throat that would make them physically capable of human speech, as hulking, hairy brutes, walking with a less than fully erect posture. All their so called “primitive characteristics” were dutifully exaggerated. The oldest true Neanderthals found so far date back to 130,000 B.P. (before the present), and remains with some Neanderthal characteristics date back to 350,000 or even 600,000 B.P. More recently, some researchers have stopped exaggerating their supposed ape-like characteristics, and some recent depictions make them look like contemporary Europeans. Considering that the modern races of Man (some consider them to be subspecies) have widely varying average physical characteristics, there is really no reason at all to believe that Neanderthal was a species separate from our own, and some contemporary physical anthropologists have admitted as much.

But it was apparent to early Darwinists that something more primitive, more ape-like, was needed. So a fossil collector named Charles Dawson obtained some skull and jawbone fragments, supposedly found in a gravel pit in the town of Piltdown in East Sussex, in England. He convinced British Museum geologist Arthur Smith that the remains were genuine, and supposedly the two of them found more bone fragments in the area. As early as 1913 a number of researchers suspected that “Piltdown Man” was a hoax (Dawson had been caught doing this sort of thing before, though not with the remains of an alleged human ancestor), and said so. In 1953 careful study showed “Piltdown Man” to be a partial human skull and an orangutan jawbone. Yet many Darwinists, wishful thinkers, had refused to see the obvious. Most likely Dawson himself was behind the hoax, but the possibility of a wider conspiracy cannot be ruled out.

But, in the meantime, numerous other early remains had been found, supposedly of species intermediate between Man and ape, or some common ancestor of apes and people. One of the earliest was Pithecanthropus erectus, found in Java by a Dutch physician, Eugene Dubois. Between 1891 and 1893 he found a skull cap, three teeth, and later a thigh bone, assumed to be from the same individual. The skull cap has been dated at an estimated 1,800,000 years in age. Physical anthropologists, eager to prove the validity of Darwin’s theory, and with careers and research grants and reputations on the line, tend to do a lot of assuming, and eventually, Pithecanthropus was claimed to be a member of a wider species, Homo erectus, but recently some researchers have decided that the thigh bone was actually that of a fully modern Homo sapiens. We need to remember that most prehistoric hominids are based on little more than a handful of bone fragments and a good deal of wishful thinking.

The aforementioned Homo erectus is an exception, with some fairly complete skeletons, and the fossils of Homo erectus have been found in many parts of Africa, Europe, and Asia, with some remains dating back to about 1,800,000 B.P. Based on (not always complete) skulls, anthropologists estimate that erectus’ brain averaged from 850 cc to around 1100 cc. This is smaller than the average modern human brain, but it overlaps with the modern range. Contemporary races also have varying average brain sizes, ranging from about 1150 cc to 1364 cc. These are just averages, and some individuals have had even smaller brains. Given that Homo erectus, as the name implies, walked erect and made stone tools and used fire, why assume that they were a separate species? Many of their so-called primitive characteristics, such as brow ridges, are sometimes found in modern people.

Numerous other early humans were found by various researchers, who tended to name entire new species based on a handful of bone fragments…a good career move, no doubt. “Rhodesian man” is based on a fairly complete skull and a few fragments, and had an 1,100 cc brain…again, within the modern range. Homo ergaster, found in Asia, had an estimated brain size of 700-1,100 cc. Heidelberg man, found all over Europe, averaged perhaps six feet in height, with a brain well within the modern range at 1,100-1,400 cc. Possibly the same “species” has been found in southern Africa, but at least some of these were about seven feet tall. Again, there is no evidence that these people were a species separate from us.

That cannot be said for Homo habilis, who lived from 2,300,000 to 1,400,000 B.P., in East Africa. Even the anthropologists cannot agree whether or not habilis was an ancestor of modern man, and its brain size, estimated (on the basis of little more than fragments) at 590-710 cc, is far below the modern human range. Stone tools have been found near some of the remains, but there is no proof that they were made, or used, by habilis. A foot bone found near one set of remains seems to be modern in shape, indicating an erect posture, but it is from a different individual…probably a fully modern type of human. Some anthropologists even admit that habilis may not even exist as a separate type of human, and could even be a mixture of Homo erectus and australopithecine remains. Whatever habilis was, there is not only no proof that these creatures were our ancestors; they were, quite possibly, nothing more than a now extinct type of ape.

And this brings us to the various kinds of australopithecines, believed to be our ancestors. These are found in many parts of Africa, and date back as far as 4,000,000 B.P. Their brains were ape sized at 380-430 cc, and the only thing that might indicate that they were our ancestors is the fact that they supposedly walked erect. At least one pelvis shows some (but not all) of the characteristics of a modern human pelvis, adopted for an upright posture. The only supposed Australopithecus foot bones found so far, however, are apelike, with an opposing big toe, and some modern apes can walk erect for a short distance. Anthropologist Donald Johanson, named an Australopithecus he found “Lucy,” a fine way to humanize her, and, on the basis of some fully modern human footprints found not far from the partial skeleton, pronounced that she walked upright. This made his reputation, and was certainly a better career move than suggesting that the prints were, in fact, made by a fully modern human, and not by Lucy, an idea frowned upon by the Darwinist establishment. Let me suggest here that the various australopithecines were nothing more than apes, that they seldom if ever walked upright, and that they were in no way ancestral or even distantly related to us.

Not only are the Darwinists unable to provide any conclusive proof of a missing link, but modern researchers like Michael Cremo and Richard L. Thompson have found evidence of fully modern humans who lived long before any of our supposed “ancestors.” These remains, when they have been preserved at all, have been buried in museum basements and largely ignored by establishment Darwinists; sometimes only the research papers of the researchers who found the bones remain. Indirect evidence of modern man exists in the form of 430,000 year old spear points of an advanced design found in northern Germany. Bear in mind the fact that, for a long time, the Darwinists claimed that fully modern Homo sapiens dated back only to about 50,000 B.P. Grudgingly, even the conventional researchers have, over the last two or three decades, extended that back to 100,000, then 120,000 years B.P. Now many of them are accepting an age of some 275,000 years. Stone tools were found at Hueytalco, Mexico, and dated by a geologist at 250,000 B.P., long before people were supposed to have migrated to the Americas. A human skull found near Buenos Aires, Argentina has been dated at one million B.P., and a small statue of a person was found in Nampa, Idaho, in a rock layer two million years old. Human skeletons were found in a California gold mine in rock layers fifty million years old. In most of these cases, the overlying rock layers were undisturbed, indicating that the bones were not the result of later burials. Incredibly, some human remains and artifacts have been found in rock layers and coal seams dating back to the age of dinosaurs, and even earlier, before mammals , so far as is known, even existed. The further back we look, the weaker the evidence…but it still exists, and the evidence for modern humans five, ten, or even twenty million years ago is quite strong. I have included here only a part of the evidence discovered by Mr. Cremo and Mr. Thompson and other researchers.

If we did not evolve from apes or other primates (all of whom have 48 chromosomes while we have 46), it would seem that the intelligent design advocates have been right all along. And, since intelligent design requires an intelligent designer, perhaps we need to think the entire atheist/materialist paradigm foisted upon us by the elites. Comments (6)

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