“Evidence for Creation” (Review) - Chapter 5 “Evidence from Man” (Part 2)
I ended “Evidence for Creation” (Review) - Chapter 5 “Evidence from Man” (Part 1) rather unfortunately. I closed with this:
DeRosa’s reasoning reminds me of the little kid who gets made [fun of because] the big kids won’t let him use their baseball bat. “Well it’s a stupid bat anyway.” Maybe. Or perhaps you don’t know how to play baseball, and they don’t want their “stupid bat” getting broken.
I reread it today and I clearly sounded like I think Creation Scientists cannot be trusted with handling fossils. I apologize for that. I have no doubt as to their trustworthiness. My point was that the people overseeing the fossils probably do not view Creationists as real scientists any more than teenagers view children as real baseball players. Following the metaphor through resulted in the unfortunate wording above.
On with Chapter 5!
Hoaxes
Neanderthal Man
DeRosa recalls the history of the Neanderthal. He was discovered by Marcellin Boule around 1911, and mischaracterized to appear more ape-like than human. The error was discovered in 1955, when “two Americans noticed that… Boule’s Neanderthal skeleton suffered from severe arthritis.” It turns out that Neanderthals look much more human than originally thought.
Many believe that if Mr. Neanderthal were waiting in a crowd at a bus stop today, we could not distinguish him from other humans. Creationists believe he was a human.
Interestingly, there is a good evolutionary case to be made for that, which I discuss here: Does “Full Humanity” Predate Homo Sapiens? (Part 2 - Neanderthals). The reason Neanderthal is not a hoax, despite Boule’s error, is because of the science that shows their existence in Europe before Homo Sapiens evolved and migrated from Africa.
Piltdown Man
Okay. Here is where DeRosa explains why the Creation Science community does not trust the overseers of the fossil vaults. You can read about the 1912 hoax here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_Man. Because casts were made and distributed, the forged nature of the “fossils” took nearly 40 years to be discovered. In my opinion, this is legitimate fodder for Creation Scientists… but Christians have their own shameful past as well. It doesn’t invalidate the Gospel, and neither does the PiltDown Man invalidate the good science that has been done since then.
Nebraska Man
According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebraska_Man), this was not a deliberate hoax. Still, the mistakes and lies of early 20th century science are a genuine blemish that scientists of today may never live down. It is why Christians like DeRosa do not trust Evolutionists to determine what is a genuine fossil and what is not. Perhaps if they had a more objective view of how science works, they would get their opportunity to verify the fossils for themselves.
DeRosa closes out this section starting with this accurate observation:
Evolutionists do have a compelling reason to find fossil evidence of a transition from ape to man, but what has been found is either human or ape, not a missing link.
But then he continues…
Dr. Jonathan Wells, in his book Icons of Evolution, declares that the ultimate evolutionary icon is to show that man descended “From Ape to Human.” It is an attempt that, given the lack of evidence, is doomed to failure.
Wells cites Henry Gee, science writer for the prestigious science journal, Nature:
“To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage [from ape to man] is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity as a bedtime storey–amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific.”
Gee’s statement, taken by itself is true. However, DeRosa’s use of this quote is self-indicting, because he is completely ignoring that Evolutionary science is about more than just the study of casts. There is DNA, pre-historic tools, computer models, altars, and more. It is true that claims by themselves hold no scientific weight, but by ignoring the science that is out there, DeRosa becomes the very thing he despises: a person making ”… an assertion that carries the same validity as a bedtime story–amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific.”