Discussions Concerning Early Hominids [*]

Three fossils (Orrorin tugenensis, Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba, Sahelanthropus tchadensis) discovered in the past few years have been attributed into the human evolution scenario; they have often been mentioned in some publications as discoveries that cast light on the supposed divergence of humans and chimpanzees. But these estimations are totally unrealistic in that they ignore the prejudice and the unclarity that surrounds the scenario of human evolution as well as heated discussions with regard to these fossils. In fact, these recent fossils inflamed the discussions on these ambiguities and dragged the human evolution scenario into more darkness.

Three fossils (Orrorin tugenensis, Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba, Sahelanthropus tchadensis) discovered in the past few years have been attributed into the human evolution scenario; they have often been mentioned in some publications as discoveries that cast light on the supposed divergence of humans and chimpanzees. But these estimations are totally unrealistic in that they ignore the prejudice and the unclarity that surrounds the scenario of human evolution as well as heated discussions with regard to these fossils. In fact, these recent fossils inflamed the discussions on these ambiguities and dragged the human evolution scenario into more darkness.

We can summarize the discussions about these fossils as follows:

Orrorin tugenensis is based on a discovery of twelve pieces of fossil finds dated to be 6 million years old. These remains were discovered by the French researcher, Martin Pickford and Brigitte Senut from the College de France and a team from the Community Museums of Kenya who claim that they belong to a bipedal creature. But this claim has not won acceptance even among evolutionists. Most evolutionists think that these fossils could not belong to a species that walked on two feet. Professor Leslie Aiello of the University of London maintains that the claim that this species walked on two feet rests on shaky foundations and that it could even be the ancestor of apes and rejects outright the idea that it could be the ancestor of human beings.

Martin Pickford and Brigitte Senut claim that the ancestor of the homo genus is not Australopithecus Afarensis (Lucy), but Orrorin Tugenensis. This argues against the long-held paleoanthropological dogma, suggesting that Lucy be dethroned from ancestorship to humans, right intothe rubbish bin. Therefore, evolutionist publications that support the claim that Orrorin Tugenensis is the ancestor of human beings should leave Lucy aside in the Darwinist propaganda.

Ardipithecus damidus kadabba

The situation is the same with regard to evolutionist claims about the newly discovered Ardipithecus Ramidus Kadabba fossils. Joseph Mastropaolo, a world famous scientist and member of the American Physiology Society, made a detailed analysis of these fossils and concluded that the claims about them were “farfetched speculations”. Yohannes Haile-Selaisse, an anthroplogist at the University of California, maintained on the basis of the shape of one of its toes that this 5.8 million year old fossil was that of a hominid capable of walking on two legs. In spite of the fact that about 95% of the skeleton was missing, and on the evidence of one single toe, evolutionists did not hesitate to offer it as proof of the myth that human beings and apes descended from a common ancestor.

Time magazine, an unconditional supporter of the Darwinist myth, was quick to announce to the world that these fossils were the “missing link”. The cover of the July 23, 2001 edition bore the headline, “How Apes Became Human”. The magazine said that the kadabba fossil belonged to an evolutionary ancestor that walked on two feet. Time did not find it necessary to question whether these claims were based on any scientific foundation; it presented these evolutionist myths to the world as scientific fact, illustrated with pictures of imaginary ape-men.

Mastropaoloinvestigated the toe himself in order to be sure of the claims about it. He compared the kadabba toe with those of human beings, chimpanzees and baboons. Comparing the anatomic criteria via mathematically, Mastropaolo arrived at quite different conclusions. The toe did not resemble those of chimpanzees and baboons. The resemblance between it and the human toe was also insufficient. Mastropaolo presented his findings at a conference of the American Physiology Society in San Diego on August 27, 2002. He concluded that the claim that an evolutionary ancestor that walked upright had been discovered was purely imaginary:

Accordingly, the objective ancestry analyses for fossils bones assert that the conclusions of Haile-Selassi … were farfetched speculations. (emphasis ours)

This skull fossil was discovered in Chad, 1,500 kilometers west of Ethiopia where human evolution is supposed to have begun. It is 7 million years old. The astonishing news about the fossil for the evolutionists is the fact that, according to their criteria, it resembles fossils from between 1.5-2 million years old. This completely demolishes their imaginary family tree. In fact Sahelanthropus tchadensis was the death knell to the notion long recognized to be wrong by many evolutionist authorities: The fossil record did not support those imaginary drawings depicting man emerging from an ape-like creature via series of intermediates.

Commenting on S. tchadensis, the paleontologist Henry Gee, editor of Nature magazine, wrote the following in The Guardian:

Whatever the outcome, the skull shows, once and for all, that the old idea of a ‘missing link’ [between man and ape] is bunk… It should now be quite plain that the very idea of the missing link, always shaky, is now completely untenable. (The Guardian, 11 July 2002)

Kate Wong, an editor of Scientific American sums up the effect of the latest fossil finds on the evolutionist scenario:

Not surprisingly, they have also sparked vigorous debate. Indeed, experts are deeply divided over where on the family tree the new species belong and even what constitutes a hominid in the first place… The conflicting views partly reflect the fact that researchers disagree over what makes the human lineage unique. “We have trouble defining hominids,” acknowledges Roberto Macchiarelli, also at the University of Poitiers.” (Kate Wong, "An Ancestor to Call Our Own", Scientific American, January 2003)

In short, at its very roots, hominid tree is just a collection of clumsily “invented” characters to fit pre-existing suppositions. Definitely, these latest fossils that are hoped to remove this basic confusion have not added anything to the evolutionist scenario with regard to the origin of humans. On the contrary, the discordance between evolutionist assumptions and the evidence has once again come to the surface.

[*]Hominid: Primates that evolutionists claim had two feet and are ancestors of human beings.