Quote:
Originally Posted by Grant  Ape-like Creatures:
"This is something thats been gnawing at me for a while.
Yes, there were ape-like creatures in Africa. Thats not disputable. I don't see how this evidence against creationsim though. 
This doesn't mean that what we see today as humans didn't exist. I'm sure thousands of years from now they'll be digging up ape-like fossils from our time. We certainly exist though.
There have only been about a dozen excavations that could be concluded as "ape-like". Prehaps if there were thousands of apes and nothing that looks like a present-day human, I would consider this and therefore re-evaluate my position on creationsim. Its not very many though...
Please stay on-topic. We can discuss the carbon dating not lining up and whatnot later on or elsewhere. I certainly want to. However, please only discuss my arguments for now.  |
OK Here you go:
It simply comes down to creationists ignoring "common sense" & actual "evidence", & Using numbers & facts that simply are wrong, to appease their base, while making claims of unprovable "magic stories" when trying to enter a scietfic discussion they simply shouldn't be a part of.
For Example:
1 - ubenow (1992) found that there were fossils from almost 4,000 non modern (non-homo sapien) hominid individuals already catalogued as of 1976, many more since then. As of 1999, there were fossils of about 150 Homo erectus individuals alone, Over 90 Australopithecus robustus, 150 Australopithecus afarensis, Over 500 individual Neanderthals, and on and on ..... (Handprint 1999). Foley (2004) lists some of the more prominent fossils.....
No "modern" humans have ever been found with or near these fossils, or in the layers of earth known to come from the time of these fossils (even if one "refuses" to agee on what that "time" may be). The exception is Neaderthal, which both pre-dated & then co-existed with modern (homo sapien) humans in Europe until they went extict 25-30,000 years ago. They are considered a seperate branch of Homonids that we did not directly "evolve" from, but shared some much earlier ancestor with.
That "12" number you mention may possibly be from just 1 single early species, but it is used to appease the base & falsely confuse people into thinking that Creationist ideas are "on par" with actual scientific study.
2 - Using the Term "ape like species" .. The fossil record is actually loaded with extinict forms of clearly "human like" species, homonids, going all the way back to a few of "ape like" homonids. Some, such as Homo Erectus, Neaderthals, Homo Habilis, used & created tools, spearheads & clothing ect .... (Modern apes & chips also have a fossil record of their own evolutionary ancestors, since the "split" was so many millions of years ago. (Contrary to uninformed myths, no one claims we have evolved from current apes or "monkeys", but rather we are both related in the very distant past) ...Again, a creationist trying to simplify the entire wealth of knowledge of human evolution , to uninformed school aged kids, by saying things like "Only A dozen "ape -like" fossils" are the shakey basis for evolution, is a shame.
3 - "Pulling things out of thin air" - "Perhaps the cave painting people all wrote books too", "Perhaps there were Neanderthal train stations & we haven't found 'em yet" ... "Maybe Human bones in the ground for a long time somehow completely reconfigure & re-materialize into looking like a different species" ...