Mapping the Origins Debate: Six Models of the Beginning of Everything by Gerald Rau

Author:Gerald Rau
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-11-21T05:22:00+00:00

Table 6.1. Hominoids

*In the creation models, humans are not considered to be hominoids, but a separate category. The various terms hominoid, hominid and hominin are generally used in creation literature only in reference to their use in evolutionary literature.

happens to be very complete or highly articulated (the bones lying in the proper relative positions). As a result, there is a strong desire to find and identify new species. This often results in naming of new species based on a very small number of bones, with fairly small anatomical differences from named species. Later, when more fossils are found in the same area or sediment layer, showing an overlapping range of features, many of the finds may be declared to be the same species.6 Nowhere is this more evident than in the search for human ancestors. Furthermore, the desire to find human ancestors is so strong that there have been hoaxes and incorrect identification of totally unrelated bones as human.? Those who question evolution have used this to challenge both the reli ability of the evidence and the explanation, but this is the way things are done in historical sciences, just as in forensics there may be many false leads and many suspects considered based on early evidence, with the number whittled down as the process of gathering evidence continues.

So what is the actual evidence? The number of remains identified as primate is quite limited, and their state of preservation poor, making identification and interpretation difficult. All together there are perhaps a few thousand fossils identified as human or human-like, most represented by only a few fragments of bone. There are less than a hundred significant fossils identified as human-like that are dated at more than 200,000 years old, mostly partial skulls. Only four, nicknamed Ardi, Lucy, MHi and Turkana boy, are anywhere near complete skeletons.' Another fifty fossils are more recent than that, all identified as modern human or *Neanderthal.9

The vast majority of the fossils have been assigned to the genera Australopithecus and Homo, with a half-dozen widely recognized species within each. Other genera and species have been proposed, but it remains to be seen how many will eventually be lumped back in with the accepted categories. In general, the Australopithecines have more apelike and the Homo more human-like characteristics. The vast majority of the former are dated at more than 2 million years old, and the latter less, although there is a period of overlap, as shown in figure 6.1.

Do these fossils show traits that are intermediate between apes and humans, or show some traits similar to each? Most authors, except those writing from a YEC perspective, think that they do.'° There are a number of physical characteristics that distinguish modern humans from all modern apes, including characters related to the skull (such as the size and shape of the brain case, teeth and jaws), those related to upright posture (such as the position of the hole where the spine enters the skull and pelvis shape), and the size and position of the thumb and big toe.

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