The Ape Man: Truth or Fiction?

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But, please do not try to make me believe something is factual just because you display a complete fossil.

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Translation: Evidence means nothing to me; please do not try to supply me with evidence.

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And it was a fraud perpetrated by a smut rag of a newspaper.

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Do you ever get the feeling that some creationists cannot tell the difference between a peer reviewed scientific journal and a tabloid?

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It still comes down to proving Lucy was able to walk upright,without the knee joint.

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There is the pelvis, which shows that Lucy probably walked upright.There are the arms which, although longer than in modern humans, are shorter than in the non-bipedal apes.There are other speciems of the same species as Lucy, which have both knee joints, pelvises, and foot bones.

Nothingness,I think what people are asking is this:Suppose, just for the sake of argument, that humans did evolve from a species of ape, perhaps similar to the modern chimpanzee. Then what would the "missing links" look like?

Excellent question, Nothingness. What do you predict?Let me make a prediction based on evolution.Just from Linnean taxonomy, humans are very similar to apes. So we should find fossils that are intermediate between ape and humans.Now here is the observation.Consider Australopithecus afarensis. It is the size of a chimpanzee. It is obvious an ape-like fossil. It had a brain about the size of a chimpanazee. It had locking wrist bones, which helps a chimp knuckle walk. But in relation to its size, its arms were intermediate in length between chimp and human -- if it were a knuckle walker, it would be very uncomfortable one. But it wasn't a knuckle walker -- the pelvis and the feet indicate that it was bipedal - a human trait. It had long canines like extant apes, but otherwise the shape of the jaw and teeth were intermediate between humans and chimps.Let me make another prediction.There should be fossils that bridge the gap between A. afarensis and modern humans, both in morphology and time.Observation: Now we have Homo erectus. It is definitely bipedal, with no traces of knuckle walking or arboreal behavior that A. afarensis had. It was more robust. The cranium was much larger, even approaching the very low end of range of modern humans. The face and teeth were much more human like. Yet it wasn't human -- even I can look at a skull and tell that. And it wasn't an ape (except in the sense that all of us tailless primates are apes -- you know what I mean) -- even I can look at the skull and tell that. In fact, creationist scientists themselves debate whether H. erectus is human or ape. Best of all, it was dated, by means from other fields of science that have nothing to do with evolution, to be intermediate in age between A. afarensis and modern humans.Now, based on your hypothesis of a common designer, what do you predict? And how are your predictions sufficiently different from that of the theory of evolution to distinguish them?Now, according to the theory of evolution, there was a common ancestor to chimpanzees and A. afaranesis. If and when we find such fossils that show intermediate characteristics between A. afarensis and chimpanzees, and if and when it is dated older than A. afarensis this will be another confirmation of evolution.But does your theory of a common designer predict such fossils will be found? If so, why? If not, then what does it predict? That is how one tests a scientific theory.

Hello, Nothingness.I'm afraid that you miss the point. It is not the similarities that are important, but the patterns we see in the similarities.Let me remake my earlier point. Any scientific confirmation of a theory starts off by making a prediction and then making an observation to check that the prediction is confirmed. The point about the "ape-men" is that it was predicted, a priori that there should be fossils that bear characteristics intermediate between humans and our ape ancestors. Without evolution, there is no reason to think that such fossils should ever exist, because according to straight creationism there is no reason to believe that such species ever existed. So the discovery that such species did, in fact, exist, must be a surprise under the creation model, but confirmed the evolution model.Now, let me make another prediction.According to modern taxonomy and modern molecular biology, bats are most closely related to the flying lemurs and to primates. According to the theory of evolution, by looking at the characteristics in common, the common ancestor should have been a tree-dwelling shrew-like creature. If and when fossils of creatures that show characteristics between small tree-dwelling animals and bats are found, this will be confirmation for evolution.On the other hand, if creatures intermediate between birds and bats are found, this will have profound consequences for the theory of evolution. Since bats are indisputably mammals, since they quite cleary fit within the phylogenic branch of mammals based on morphology and molecular biology, such a discovery of bird/bat transitionals would indicate that this type of taxonomic and cladistic analysis cannot be trusted to give the true ancestor/descendant relationships. But too much of evolutionary theory assumes that taxonomic phylogeny and actual ancestor/descendant phylogeny are the same. This type of discovery will be a blow against the theory of evolution. So another prediction of evolution is that bird/bat transitionals will never be found.So, I have given an example of a discovery which, if made, will strengthen trust in evolution. I have also given an example of a discovery which, if made, will count as evidence against evolution. And both of these examples are independent of the hypothesis of a common designer -- I see no reason why a common designer would create tree-dweller/bat transitionals, nor do I see why a common designer would refrain from creating bird/bat transitionals. So I have made two predictions that evolution does make that the common designer hypothesis does not make.Now, what I ask of you is to do the same thing. Make a prediction based on the hypothesis of a common designer that evolution does not make.

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You still trust radioactive dating?

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Yeah. We're stupid that way.

This is false. No 400 million year old species has been found alive today.Dinofish is a good site to learn about the modern coelacanth. But it doesn't have much information, that I recall, on the coelacanths that lived 400 million years ago. Which, by the way, were not the same as the modern ones -- not even in the same family.