Yearly Archives: 2005

Evolution: Theory, Fact, or Law?

September 1, 2005

By Dr. David N. Menton, Ph.D.
Copyright (c) 1993 by the Missouri Association for Creation
[No. 4 in a series]

I have heard many Christians say that evolution doesn’t concern them because, after all, it’s “only a theory.” Presumably they think that the word “theory” means about the same thing as a “pipe dream.” But the term theory, at least as it applies to experimental science, has a much nobler meaning than that. A scientific theory is a careful attempt to explain certain observable facts of nature by means of experiments. Since many Christians have concluded that evolution is incompatible with the Biblical account of creation, we would do well to investigate if evolution is a fact or a theory — or perhaps neither.

There is a widespread misconception that good theories grow up to be facts and that the really good ones finally become laws. But these three categories of scientific description are neither directly related nor mutually exclusive. It often occurs that a single natural phenomenon can be described in terms of a theory, a fact, and a law — all at the same time!

Consider the well-known phenomenon of gravity. First, there is a fact of gravity. While we cannot actually see gravitational force itself, we do observe the effects of this force every time we drop something. There is also a theory of gravity that addresses the question of how this force we call gravity really works. While we really don’t know how gravity works, there are theories that attempt to explain it. Finally there is the well-known law of gravity. This law, first formulated by Isaac Newton, a Bible believing Christian and creationist, is a mathematical equation that shows a relationship between mass, distance and gravitational force. So in summary, a scientific fact is an observable natural occurrence; a scientific theory is an attempt to explain how this natural occurrence works; and, a scientific law is a mathematical description of this natural occurrence.

Science itself is the whole process of making careful observations of certain facts of nature and then constructing and testing theories that seek to explain those facts. We call these tests of a theory experiments. Experimental science, better known as empirical science, is the kind of science that is responsible for the marvelous technological achievements that make our life easier. One has only to consider what it would be like to endure surgery without anesthesia to appreciate the contributions of empirical science to our life.

The most important requirement of empirical science is that any object or phenomenon we wish to study must first be observable. While we may assume the existence of events not witnessed by human observers, such events are not suited to study by empirical science. Secondly, the object or phenomenon we wish to study must be repeatable. Unique and unrepeatable events, like say the Babylonian Empire, are the subject of history, not empirical science. Finally, any explanations we might propose for observable and repeatable phenomena must be testable. By this we mean that we must be able to conceive of an experiment that could refute our theory if it were wrong. If one were to propose an explanation for a phenomenon in such a way that no one could conceive of any way to test or refute it, it wouldn’t be a theory at all, but rather a belief. Beliefs, of course, are not necessarily wrong or inappropriate, they just aren’t well suited to study by empirical science.

What then shall we say of evolution? First, evolutionists tell us that major evolutionary changes happen far too slowly, or too rarely, to be observable in the lifetime of human observers. Most living organisms and their offspring are said to remain largely unchanged for tens of thousands, or even millions, of years. According to the evolutionist Theodosius Dobzhansky, even when evolutionary changes do occur, they are by nature “unique, unrepeatable, and irreversible.” Dobzhansky tells us that the “applicability of the experimental method to the study of such unique historical processes is severely restricted.” The well-known evolutionist Paul Ehrlich says the theory of evolution “cannot be refuted by any possible observations” and thus is “outside of empirical science.”

Still, the occurrence of evolution is widely believed to be a scientific “fact” and those who dare to doubt it are not endured gladly. The Encyclopedia Britannica confidently assures us that “we are not in the least doubt as to the fact of evolution.” In his textbook _Evolution_, J. Savage says “we do not need a listing of the evidences to demonstrate the fact of evolution any more than we need to demonstrate the existence of mountain ranges.” In another textbook titled _Outlines of General Zoology_, H. Newman arrogantly declared that evolution has no rival as an explanation for the origin of everything “except the outworn and completely refuted one of special creation, now retained only by the ignorant, the dogmatic, and the prejudicial.”

What exactly is the “observable fact” of evolution? First you should be aware that evolutionists recognize two types of evolution — micro evolution, which is observable, and macro evolution, which isn’t. So called “micro evolution” is a process of limited variation among the individuals of a given species that produces the sort of variety we observe, for example, among dogs. Macro evolution, on the other hand, is a hypothetical process of unlimited variation that evolutionists believe transforms one kind of living organism into a fundamentally different kind such as the transformation of reptiles into birds or apes into people. Obviously, no one has ever observed anything remotely like this actually happen.

The very name “micro evolution” is intended to imply that it is this kind of variation that accumulates to produce macro evolution though a growing number of evolutionists admit there is no evidence for this. Thus an observable phenomenon is extrapolated into an unobservable phenomenon for which there is no evidence, and then the latter is declared to be a “fact” on the strength of the former. It is this kind of limitless extrapolation that comprises much of the argument for evolution.

In conclusion, evolution is not observable, repeatable, or refutable and thus does not qualify as either a scientific fact or theory. Evolution must be accepted with faith by its believers, many of whom deny the existence, or at least the power, of the Creator. Similarly, the Biblical account of creation is not observable, repeatable or refutable by man. Special creation is accepted with faith by those who believe that the Bible is the revelation of an omnipotent and omniscient Creator whose Word is more reliable than the speculations of men. Both evolution and creation, however, can be compared for their compatibility with what we do observe of the facts of nature. In the months ahead, we will see that creation by intelligent design is a vastly more reasonable explanation for the origin of the complexity we see in living things than is evolution by mere chance and the intrinsic properties of nature.

Dr. Menton received his Ph.D. in Biology from Brown University. He has been involved in biomedical research and education for over 30 years.

Originally published in: St. Louis MetroVoice, October 1993, Vol. 3, No. 10

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Evolution is a Religion

September 1, 2005

Quotes By Leading Evolutionists

We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. (R. Lewontin, biologist, ‘Billions and Billions of Demons,’ New York Review, January 9, 1997)

Most people think that ’science’ follows the evidence wherever it leads. But it is impossible to avoid letting our world view color our interpretation of the facts. Creationists are honest about the philosophical basis behind their interpretation, whereas naturalists often pretend that they don’t operate from any philosophical bias. The late atheist Stephen Jay Gould, unlike many of his peers, was candid about this bias:

Our ways of learning about the world are strongly influenced by the social preconceptions and biased modes of thinking that each scientist must apply to any problem. The stereotype of a fully rational and objective ’scientific method,’ with individual scientists as logical (and interchangeable) robots is self-serving mythology. (S.J. Gould, Natural History 103 (2):14, 1994.)

The philosopher of science David Hull noted:

…science is not as empirical as many scientists seem to think it is. Unobserved and even unobservable entities play an important part in it. Science is not just the making of observations: it is the making of inferences on the basis of observations within the framework of a theory. (D. Hull, ‘The Effect of Essentialism on Taxonomy — Two Thousand Years of Stasis (II),’ British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 16 (61):118, 1965)

Dr. Scott Todd, an immunologist at Kansas State University, was candid about how certain conclusions would be avoided at all costs, regardless of the evidence:

Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic. (S.C. Todd, correspondence to Nature 410 (6752):423, September 30, 1999)

It is vitally important that words such as ‘evolution’ be used accurately and consistently. The theory of ‘evolution’ that the evolutionists are really promoting, and which creationists oppose, is the idea that particles turned into people over time, without any need for an intelligent designer. The evolutionist Kerkut accurately defined this ‘general theory of evolution’ (GTE) as:

‘the theory that all the living forms in the world have arisen from a single source which itself came from an inorganic form.’ He continued: ‘The evidence which supports this is not sufficiently strong to allow us to consider it as anything more than a working hypothesis.’ (G.A. Kerkut, Implications of Evolution (Oxford, UK: Pergamon, 1960), p. 157)

However, many evolutionary propagandists are guilty of the deceitful practice of equivocation, that is, switching the meaning of a single word (evolution) part way through an argument. A common tactic, ‘bait-and-switch,’ is simply to produce examples of change over time, call this ‘evolution,’ then imply that the GTE is thereby proven or even essential, and creation disproved.

‘Information theory,’ as it is called, is a whole new branch of science that has effectively destroyed the last underpinnings of evolution — explained fully in the monumental work In the Beginning Was Information by Dr Werner Gitt, professor and head of the Department of Information Technology at the German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology. The second episode of the PBS Evolution series, titled ‘Great Transformations,’ faced this problem when it tried to prove the ‘big picture’ of evolution, i.e., the ‘general theory of evolution.’ Of course, it could offer no experimental evidence, only inference. Its only experimental ‘evidence’ for ‘evolution’ was a bunch of examples of biological change that don’t increase information content, and so actually these examples have nothing to do with the ‘big picture.’

The PBS program did make a revealing comment about the real nature of the ‘evidence’ for evolution: ‘The evidence for evolution is all around us, if we choose to look for it.’ The comment is revealing, not because the evidence really supports evolution, but because the narrator inadvertently makes an important point. That is, creationists and evolutionists have the same evidence (facts), but we interpret it differently because of our different axioms (starting assumptions).

The PBS narrator blindly asserts that all living organisms come from a single source and that we can now trace branches and roots. Yet the series utterly fails to explain one of the most vexing problems with evolution: how non-living chemicals could form a living cell by time and chance, despite the insuperable chemical hurdles. (see C.B. Thaxton, W.L. Bradley, and R.L. Olsen, The Mystery of Life’ sOrigin (New York, NY: Philosophical Library Inc., 1984).

There are open questions and controversies, and the fights can be fierce. Just a few of them: The origin of life. There is no consensus at all here — lots of theories, little science. That’ sone of the reasons we didn’t cover it in the (PBS) series. The evidence wasn’t very good. (discuss.washingtonpost.co…92601.htm, last downloaded September 1, 2002 )

Evolutionists gloss over their complete lack of evidence for so-called ‘macroevolution.’ Their supposed ‘evidence’ doesn’t speak for itself; it must be interpreted . As John Rennie admitted in Scientific American , this evidence is interpreted within a materialistic framework. Ironically, materialists turn around and proclaim evolution as a major evidence for materialism, even though their materialistic framework was responsible for this viewpoint in the first place! Circular reasoning at its finest.

One of the most absurd, self-serving criteria that evolutionists give for a good scientific theory is that most published scientists accept the theory as valid. There is clear proof of censorship by Scientific American, Science, and Australasian Science, where they have even denied creationists the normal courtesy of the right of reply. So why would scientists bother to waste their time? They know that their papers will be rejected, no matter how good the research, which explains why creationist scientists have, years ago, commenced their own peer-reviewed journals. Scientific American acknowledges the credentials of some creationists, but not the fanatical censorship that they face.

Some anti-evolution authors have published papers in serious journals. Those papers, however, rarely attack evolution directly or advance creationist arguments; at best, they identify certain evolutionary problems as unsolved and difficult (which no one disputes).

Another quote from Scientific American:

Evolutionary biologists passionately debate diverse topics: how speciation happens, the rates of evolutionary change, the ancestral relationships of birds and dinosaurs, whether Neandertals were a species apart from modern humans, and much more. These disputes are like those found in all other branches of science. Acceptance of evolution as a factual occurrence and a guiding principle is nonetheless universal in biology. [ SA 81]

Modern evolutionary theory is all about providing a plausible mechanism for explaining life’s complexity without God. If the disputes undermine all the favored mechanisms for evolution, then the whole materialist apologetic crumbles. When the supporters of various evolutionary camps score mortal blows against the mechanisms proposed by their rival camps, it’s perfectly reasonable for creationists to point this out.

In fact, evolution became in a sense a scientific religion; almost all scientists have accepted it and many are prepared to bend their observations to fit in with it. (H. S. Lipson, professor of physics, University of Manchester, UK)

Belief in the theory of evolution is exactly parallel to belief in special creation– both are concepts which believers know to be true but neither, up to the present, has been capable of proof. (L. Harrison Matthews, FRS, Introduction to Darwin’s The Origin of Species)

Facts do not speak for themselves; they are read in the light of theory. Creative thought, in science as much as in the arts, is the motor of changing opinion. Science is a quintessentially human activity, not a mechanized, robot-like accumulation of objective information, leading by laws of logic to inescapable interpretation. (Stephen Jay Gould)

(some material taken from an article at AnswersInGenesis.org)

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Common Evolutionary Proofs Refuted

September 1, 2005

When discussing alleged proofs of evolution, the most commonly offered example is that of bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics. It is said to be evidence of “smarter bugs” that have evolved to “learn” ways to survive in only a few or even one generation.

Again, I must emphasize that for evolution to be true, there must be an increase in the complexity of genetic code, such that a new or more complex creature could result. But the resistant bacteria argument offers no such evidence. What happens is this:

Scientists know that no matter what drug they develop, there are already bacteria that it won’t work on. The drugs are designed to take advantage of certain characteristics that the germs depend on, either for survival or reproduction. The few that have mutated already and LOST that characteristic will be unaffected. In other words, a less complex organism can actually have a survival advantage! So when the non-resistant germs are eliminated, the resistant ones have no competition and can multiply rapidly, rendering the vaccine useless in a short time. There is also, then, less competition for other germs the vaccine wasn’t even aimed at.

So “Survival of the Fittest” is not evolution but devolution– organisms lose genetic code and become less complex. They survive because they are simpler than their parents.

Evolution has always been based on the assumption of uniformitarianism– that organisms gradually and very slowly develop new features and increase in complexity. The reason for this assumption is that if there is no Creator, then only unimaginable stretches of time can explain the existence of life. Yet as observational science marches on, it keeps blasting holes in this idea.

So they have quietly abandoned uniformitarianism in favor of fantasies like the “smarter bacteria” theory or the “punctuated equilibrium” (aka “hopeful monster”) theory, where a reptile lays and egg and out pops a fully-functional bird. Then they take this theory and use it to explain why there are no transitional fossils. In spite of the complete lack of evidence of any transitions between species, they hold to this faith and prop it up with even more imagination. So now evolution happens in spurts between long ages of absolutely no progress at all!

And then there are those pesky and embarrassing “living fossils” like the shark and the coelacanth, that have apparently been able to avoid evolution for millions of years. Really, I don’t know how so many people can be made to swallow this crap. But of course, it’s the only “food” they’ve ever known.

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Irreducible Complexity

September 1, 2005

First, a definition:

By irreducibly complex I mean a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced directly (that is, by continuously improving the initial function, which continues to work by the same mechanism) by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional. An irreducibly complex biological system, if there is such a thing, would be a powerful challenge to Darwinian evolution. Since natural selection can only choose systems that are already working, then if a biological system cannot be produced gradually it would have to arise as an integrated unit, in one fell swoop, for natural selection to have any thing to act on. Michael Behe, Associate Professor of Biochemistry at Lehigh University, 1996

I remember watching an episode of Magic Schoolbus with my kids that was about “the web of life”, wherein the lesson was that living things and their environments are all very interdependent. We hear much of the “balance of nature”, and the “delicate balance” of the rainforests. But apparently no one who hears these things stops to think of the impact interdependence has on the theory of evolution, which requires slow and gradual change in a miraculous series of favorable mutations that goes on for millions of years, in exactly the right order! (talk about blind faith!)

As astronomical as the odds are that even one organism could evolve this way, think of the exponential increase of probability required to duplicate this with thousands of interdependent systems! Because not only does one organism consist of a multitude of subsystems which must all work together, how likely do you think it is that many such complex life forms could evolve together, at precisely the same rate, for millions of years’

Yet such is the foundation of Darwinism. No matter how outrageous the odds, no matter what scientific discoveries are made that prove it wrong, Darwinism is really the only thing that’s been evolving. Proponents will say it’s good that science evolves, but it does more than “progress”– it continually shoots itself in the foot. Microbiology is a prime example.

The more science learns of the inner workings of the cell, the more incredible design it sees. Agnostic microbiologist Michael Denton wrote a scathing critique of Darwinism called “Evolution: A Theory In Crisis” back in the 1970s, covering in many hundreds of pages the numerous holes in the theory. His studies put to rest any hope in finding evidence of evolution at the microscopic level, which had been the only “undiscovered” territory left after they gave up on finding transitional fossils. Science has discovered nothing in the years since then to change anything.

Lame attempts have been made to refute Behe’s arguments in Darwin’s Black Box, but their “solutions” always involve the interjection of intelligence in one way or another. They also seem to involve “sudden leaps” in the alleged slow and gradual process (”punctuated equilibrium”).

Here is a man-made example of irreducible complexity from the source website:

During the early development of the internet it became necessary to develop a protocol which could bring together the different interfaces which were providing and processing information simultaneously on the internet, those interfaces included, but were not limited to FTP, GOPHER and HTTP. The solution was the Uniform Resource Locator, or URL. This approach helped the internet surfer gain access to the various information providers with a minimal of headaches.

I said a “minimal of headaches.” But, one headache which will never completely go away, though it has been lessened, is internet site addressing. If you’ve surfed the net for any length of time, then you’ve probably typed the wrong web site address into your browser’s text field a few times. A person who’s not quite sure of their destination’s actual address, can spend quite a bit of time trying various spelling combinations, in hopes of landing upon the correct one. What’s the reason for this type of headache? Irreducible complexity! These addresses are specific. They must be typed in correctly and there is only one (actual) address per page. Programmers are trying to lessen the difficulty by allowing you to leave off the tedious prefixes such as http://, or on many browsers you can leave off http://www., but the address of the complete page must still be provided. Take the example of [creationscience.com]. The actual address (leaving aside the numerical conversion) is [http://www.creationscience.com]. But on some browsers you just need to enter [creationscience], and you’re on your way to the site. What’s going on?

Computer programmers have taken care of processing the rest of the information, by default. It doesn’t mean that the complete information isn’t processed somewhere, it simply means that the browser’s user doesn’t have to enter all of it. But, even in this example the user is responsible for the 15 characters represented in the string [creationscience]. If the user inadvertently misspells the string or leaves off a character, then they will initiate an error message.

This then, is another form of irreducible complexity, as nothing less than creationscience will do. Interestingly, amino acids must also be properly sequenced much like the characters in a URL address, the difference being, amino acid sequences are used to form specific proteins, while in a browser’s URL field, characters are arranged in sequences to visit specific internet sites.

This [URL] type of irreducibly complex message is transmitted and received by sophisticated soft/hardware. It should be apparent that both transmission as well as reception tools are necessary in order for this system to be meaningful. Also, some form of information carrier(in the case of the internet, usually the phone lines) needs to be part of the system. It should also be apparent that the message which is transmitted via this system, need not be irreducibly complex. That is, while web addresses are irreducibly complex, a misspelled word can be transmitted and received by this system just as easily.

Now if a relatively simple computer software issue has irreducible complexity, what about life? DNA is an amazingly complex information transmission system, one which even our best microprocessors can’t begin to approximate. It has been estimated that the most powerful microprocessors, stacked up to the moon, would contain about the same amount of information as what DNA can hold in a small percentage of the head of a pin!

This article doesn’t even scratch the surface, but I hope you get the idea. A bird with one wing and one fin can neither swim nor fly and most likely will not live long enough to reproduce. Evolutionism has tried to compensate by positing fantasies like the “hopeful monster” theory, where a chicken lays an egg and out hatches a frog. Can you imagine the laughter if creationism were to put forth such nonsense?

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Frauds In Science

September 1, 2005

Here is an article exploding one of the common myths surrounding popular views of science and scientists. I was just going to post the link, but I think the article is short enough to post, so here it is, from This Link as of 8-18-05.

Apologetics Press :: Defense Documents
Frauds in Science
by Wayne Jackson, M.A.

With a cultic-like aura surrounding them, these men and women are seen as the paragons of virtue in the intellectual community. They are a priesthood, arrayed in white apparel, tinkering with test tubes and peering through microscopes in a sophisticated “holy of holies.” I am speaking, of course, of the twentieth century scientist. He is not to be questioned as he pontificates upon matters that have baffled the intellects of the ages. His dogmatic theories are sacrosanct, and never are his motives suspect. Though this is quite a common notion in today’s world, it is woefully inaccurate. While it is true that there are many honest people working in the various fields of science, it also is only fair to point out that there have been, and likely will continue to be, some real charlatans in the scientific community. Consider, for example the following.

Exalted views of the objectivity of science and scientists were shattered recently when the New Scientist reported in its November, 1976 issue on the results of a survey it conducted on the subject of “Cheating in Science.” Out of 204 scientists replying to the journal’s questionnaire, 197 reported they were aware of cheating by their colleagues. They judged that 58% of the cheating was intentional, and they reported that only 10% of these intentional cheaters were dismissed; most of them, in fact, were promoted (Koshy, 1977, p. 86).

Two of the more notorious instances of scientific fraud provide an interesting and valuable case study in this regard.

THE EMBRYONIC RECAPITULATION HOAX

Ernst Heinrich Haeckel (1834-1919) was a German biologist and philosopher who asserted that the entire Universe (including the human mind) was the result of solely material processes— a mere machine in motion. He was a devoted follower of Charles Darwin— so much so, in fact, that he was dubbed “the apostle of Darwinism in Germany.”

Haeckel received most of his fame as a consequence of his popularization of the so-called “theory of embryonic recapitulation.” This is the now-defunct notion that successive stages of individual embryonic development repeat the evolutionary stages of one’s animal ancestry. The argument is entirely specious, as even evolutionists have admitted. Famed Harvard evolutionist George Gaylord Simpson wrote, for example: “It is now firmly established that ontogeny [development of the individual— WJ] does not repeat phylogeny [development of the race— WJ]” (1957, p. 352).

In any case, Haeckel had a passion for promoting the recapitulation theory, which he termed “the fundamental biogenetic law.” And, as one writer has noted:

To support his theory, however, Haeckel, whose knowledge of embryology was self-taught, faked some of his evidence. He not only altered his illustrations of embryos but also printed the same plate of an embryo three times, and labeled one a human, the second a dog and the third a rabbit “to show their similarity” (Bowden, 1977, p. 128).

Haeckel was exposed by professor L. Rutimeyer of Basle University. He was charged with fraud by five professors, and ultimately convicted in a university court. During the trial, Haeckel admitted that he had altered his drawings, but sought to defend himself by saying:

I should feel utterly condemned and annihilated by the admission, were it not that hundreds of the best observers and biologists lie under the same charge. The great majority of all morphological, anatomical, histological, and embryological diagrams are not true to nature, but are more or less doctored, schematized and reconstructed (as quoted in Bowden, 1977, p. 128).

Not only did Haeckel misrepresent evidence in his own drawings, but even “went so far as to alter pictures of embryos drawn by others. A professor Arnold Bass charged that Haeckel had made changes in pictures of embryos that he (Bass) had drawn. Haeckel’s reply to these charges was that if he is to be accused of falsifying drawings, many other prominent scientists should be accused of the same thing…” (Davidheiser, 1969, p. 76).

Evolutionist H.H. Newman of the University of Chicago said that Haeckel’s works “did more harm than good to Darwinism” (1932, p. 30). Yet in spite of the fact that Haeckel’s drawings proved to be an embarrassment to the evolutionary establishment, they still are employed in some modern writings as a “proof” of the accuracy of the theory of evolution (e.g., see Asimov, 1981, p. 83).

THE PILTDOWN HOAX

In December of 1912, Charles Dawson, an amateur archaeologist, and Sir Arthur Smith-Woodward of the British Museum of Natural History, announced that they had discovered a man-like skull in a pit near Piltdown, England. Along with the skull was a jawbone that appeared to be very ape-like except for the teeth— which were more flattened, as would be expected in humans. Working with Dawson and Smith-Woodward was Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest in his late 20s who labored incessantly to harmonize evolution and the biblical record of creation.

Although a few scientists questioned the association of the skull with the jaw, most evolutionists were convinced that Eanthropus dawsoni (or, as he was more commonly known, “Piltdown Man”) was an authentic link in human evolution. It has been estimated that some 500 publications appeared on this subject. It is a curious thing, however, that the bones were kept under tight security— even from evolutionists. Sir Arthur Keith, an eminent British authority in this field, was allowed to view the fossils for only twenty minutes, and was forced henceforth to work with plaster casts of the originals (see Weiner, 1955, p. 121). The famous anthropologist, L.S.B. Leakey also complained that he was denied access to the fossils (Leakey, 1960, p. vi.).

By 1950, a dating method [that employed fluorine] had become available for assigning a relative age to fossil bones. In 1953, after a series of tests, it was determined that the Piltdown skull and jaw were of completely different ages. The skull was a few thousand years old (not one million as formerly alleged), and the jaw bone was that of a modern ape! As a consequence of this startling revelation, a careful study of the bones was begun. Eventually, it was discovered that the teeth had been ground down artificially to appear human— and that it had been a sloppy job at that. Abrasion marks were still evident, the surfaces were flattened at different angles, etc. Moreover, as a result of chemical tests, it was determined that the jaw bone had been stained chemically with potassium bichromate and iron salts for the purpose of making it appear ancient. Actually the “fossil” turned out to be nothing more than a human skull with an ape’s jaw attached. Someone had really been “monkeying” (forgive the pun) with the evidence.

But who was the perpetrator of this elaborate fraud? S.J. Weiner of Oxford University, who was instrumental in the exposure of the hoax, suggested (without making any formal accusation) that the weight of the evidence pointed in the direction of Dawson— although he did allow that perhaps Dawson himself was a victim of this devious scheme. The renowned United Nations scientist, A.E. Wilder-Smith, though again making no formal charge, commented:

It does strike one as remarkable that Professor Smith-Woodward allowed very few other scientists to study the original skull or even to handle it. Plaster casts were always made and the studies carried out with their aid. Plaster casts, however, do not give the very fine details needed for study, nor can one determine with their help whether a find is a fossil or not. Even more important, no one can analyze a skull chemically with only a plaster cast to work with! (1968, p. 133).

More recently, in a scholarly investigation of the available data, Malcolm Bowden concluded that Teilhard de Chardin was likely the culprit (1977). Teilhard certainly had the motive because, as far as he was concerned, all views should bow to evolution which he viewed as “the light illuminating all facts” (1963, p. 44). Moreover, he had the the opportunity, since several of the fake finds were “discovered” by him. Also, he had the technical expertise to pull off such an elaborate ruse. He had taught chemistry (a knowledge of which would be essential in staining the fossils) at Cairo University.

Perhaps as embarrassing as the fraudulent nature of the Piltdown affair, however, was the fact that a number of the world’ sleading evolutionary experts were fooled by the hoax for over 40 years. Dogmatic, sweeping statements that had been made with an air of absolute confidence ultimately required public retraction. Such was the concern in England that a motion was made (and tabled) in the House of Commons “that the House has no confidence in the Trustees of the British Museum…because of the tardiness of their discovery that the skull of the Piltdown man is a partial fake” (see Bowden, 1977, p. 8). Duane T. Gish no doubt expressed the sentiments of many when he wrote: “The success of this monumental hoax served to demonstrate that scientists, just like everyone else, are very prone to find what they are looking for whether it is there or not” (1973, p. 92).

There is an important lesson that many Christians need to learn from situations such as these. There is no need to be intimidated by the so-called “discoveries” of an unbelieving world. Not all these discoveries are fraudulent, of course, but they nevertheless are subject to the interpretation placed on them by the discoverer. This, at the very least, should suggest caution in accepting the claims that evolutionists make from time to time.

REFERENCES

Asimov, Isaac (1981), “The Genesis War,” Science Digest, 89[9]:82-87, October. [NOTE: This is a written debate with creationist Duane T. Gish.]
Bowden, Malcolm (1977), Ape-Men: Fact or Fallacy? (Bromley, England: Sovereign Publications).
Davidheiser, Bolton (1969), Evolution And Christian Faith (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed).
de Chardin, Teilhard (1963), Saturday Evening Post, October 12.
Gish, Duane T. (1973), Evolution: The Fossils Say No! (San Diego, CA: Creation-Life Publishers).
Kosh, George (1977), A Challenge to Biology (Minneapolis, MN: Bible-Science Association).
Leakey, L.S.B. (1960), Adam’s Ancestors (New York: Harper & Brothers).
Simpson, George Gaylord (1957), Life: An Introduction to Biology (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co.).
Weiner, S.J. (1955), The Piltdown Forgery (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press).
Wilder-Smith, A.E. (1968), Man’s Origin: Man’s Destiny (Wheaton, IL: Harold Shaw).

Copyright ®© 1981 Apologetics Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Where are all the human fossils?

September 1, 2005

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There are some claims and reports of human artifacts and remains in rock layers that are clearly part of the Flood sediments. However, many of these claims are not adequately documented in any scientific sense, while those few reports that have appeared in the scientific and related literature remain open to question or other interpretations. For example, the book Ancient Man: A Handbook of Puzzling Artifacts looks like an impressive and voluminous collection of such evidence, but on closer examination many of the artefacts, though puzzling archaeologically, still belong to the post-Flood era, while other reports and claims are either antiquated or sketchy and amateurish.

Often lay scientists claiming to have found human artefacts or fossils have not recorded specific location details, so that professional scientists investigating the claims have had difficulty finding the location from which the sample in question came. ALSO, lay scientists have in the past not kept some of the rock which encloses the fossil or artefact as proof of its in situ occurrence. These two oversights have often made it well nigh impossible to reconstruct and/or prove where fossils or artefacts came from, thus rendering such finds virtually useless.

Fossilized hammers and supposed human footprints in ancient geological strata, regarded by evolutionists as deposited millions of years before man evolved, but regarded by creationists as Flood deposits, are extremely difficult to document scientifically above reproach and/or with any conclusive finality. (Merely finding rock around an implement does not prove it is pre-Flood.)

For example, it has been claimed that a gold chain was found in black coal.2 However, the artefact evidently was exhibited as a clean gold chain with no coal clinging to it, so we see no evidence that the chain was actually found in the coal, just the claim that it was. While one would never assume any dishonesty on the part of the people concerned, because proper scientific procedures have not been followed the exhibit has proven to be almost useless in convincing a generally skeptical scientific community and apathetic lay public.

Thus, should genuine human fossils or artefacts from the time of Noah’s Flood be found, then it is mandatory that proper scientific procedures be followed to document the geological context, in order to guarantee that the scientific significance of such a find is unequivocally demonstrated. Regretfully, of course, the hardened skeptic would still remain unconvinced, but at least such a find may still awaken some in the apathetic public and a few of the more open-minded scientists.

What is needed, of course, are actual human bones fossilized in situ as an integral part of rock strata that are demonstrably ancient in evolutionary terms, and therefore are usually Flood sediments of the creationist framework for earth history. Yet here is where the real hard unequivocal evidence is lacking and why people ask the question ‘Where are all the human fossils?’

We simply cannot point to the report of a human skull found in so-called Tertiary brown coal in Germany, for there is no definitive scientific report available on this object, even though its existence has been verified by the staff of the Mining Academy in Freiberg.3 If it is a coalified human skull, how is it possible to distinguish it from a clever carving in such a way that it becomes conclusive proof? Even if it were demonstrated as genuine, are we sure that the Tertiary brown coal in question was a Flood stratum? In some parts of the world some of the isolated so-called Tertiary sedimentary basins could easily be classified, according to some creationist geological schemes, as post-Flood strata. After all, the early Flood geologists, prior to the advent of Lyellian uniformitarianism and the evolutionary geological time-scale, applied the term ‘Tertiary’ to those rock strata that they believed to be post-Flood.

The controversial Guadeloupe skeletons are another case in point.4 Without wishing to take sides in the debate, and in any case the hard data are still inconclusive either way, the fact remains that even if perchance these skeletons were so-called Miocene, that in and of itself would still not prove that the skeletons were in Flood sediments and therefore represented the remains of pre-Flood people. Being a subdivision of the so-called Tertiary, these Miocene rocks may still be post-Flood sediments and so these Guadeloupe skeletons may still not be human fossils from Noah’s Flood.

Perhaps the fossilized human skeletons that come closest to having been pre-Flood humans buried in Flood strata are those skeletons found at Moab, Utah (USA).5 In a copper mine there, two definitely human skeletons were found in Cretaceous ‘age’ sandstone (supposedly more than 65 million years old), the bones still joined together naturally and stained green with copper carbonate. While many regard these bones as recently buried, there still remains the remote possibility that they are pre-Flood human ‘fossils’.

We can only concur that there is no definite unequivocal evidence of human remains in those rock strata that can definitely be identified as Flood sediments. This realization is at first rather perplexing. But some clues to unraveling this puzzle emerge on investigation.

The Nature of the Fossil Record

Let’s begin by considering the nature of the fossil record. Most people don’t realize that in terms of numbers of fossils 95% of the fossil record consists of shallow marine organisms such as corals and shellfish.6 Within the remaining 5%, 95% are all the algae and plant/tree fossils, including the vegetation that now makes up the trillions of tonnes of coal, and all the other invertebrate fossils including the insects. Thus the vertebrates (fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals) together make up very little of the fossil record— in fact, 5% of 5%, which is a mere 0.25% of the entire fossil record. So comparatively speaking there are very, very few amphibian, reptile, bird and mammal fossils, yet so much is often made of them. For example, the number of dinosaur skeletons in all the world’s museums (both public and university) totals only about 2,100.7 Furthermore, of this 0.25% of the fossil record which is vertebrates, only 1% of that 0.25% (or 0.0025%) are vertebrate fossils that consist of more than a single bone! For example, there’s only one Stegosaurus skull that has been found, and many of the horse species are each represented by only one specimen of one tooth!

In any regional area where vertebrate fossils are found, there is a general tendency for these land animals to be higher up in the rock strata sequence on top of the strata containing marine organisms. This has been interpreted by evolutionists as representing the evolutionary sequence of life from marine invertebrates through fish and amphibians to the land-based vertebrates.

However, this same observation can be more reasonably explained by Flood geologists as due to the order of burial of the different ecological zones of organisms by the Flood waters. For example, shallow marine organisms/ ecological zones would be the first destroyed by the fountains of the great deep breaking open, with the erosional runoff from the land due to the torrential rainfall concurrently burying them. On this basis then we would probably not expect to find human remains in the early Flood strata, which would contain only shallow marine organisms. The fossil record as we understand it at the moment certainly fits with this.

Additionally, the majority of the few mammal fossils in the fossil record are in the so-called Tertiary strata, which most creationist geologists nowadays regard as post-Flood strata. If this is the case, then there really aren’t very many mammal fossils in the late Flood sediments (there are a few mammal fossils in the so-called Mesozoic rocks). Consequently, it’s not only human fossils that are not found in the Flood sediments, but there is a relative lack of other mammal fossils also.

Of course, in the post-Flood era humans would have been able to make the necessary decisions to get away from the local residual catastrophes responsible for the post-Flood (Tertiary) strata, so we wouldn’t expect to find humans fossilized in post-Flood sediments like we find other mammals.

Another problem in the fossil record is, as we have already seen, the fragmentary nature of what is often found, which makes identification difficult. For example, ‘a five million year-old piece of bone that was thought to be the collarbone of a human like creature is actually part of a dolphin rib’. Such genuine mistakes are inevitable when only fragments of bone are recovered from the rocks. We can’t even be sure that some bone fragments already found in Flood sediments aren’t in fact human remains, having been labeled something else by evolutionists. After all, because of their evolutionary molecules-to-man belief (bias) they don’t expect to find human remains in lower (older) strata.

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