the truth about human origins an investi gation of the creationevolution controversy as it relates to the origin of mankind

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Brad Harrub (1970 - ) and Bert Thompson (1949 - ) The Truth About Human Origins Includes bibliographic references, and subject and name indices. ISBN 0-932859-58-5 1. Creation. 2. Science and religion. 3. Apologetics and Polemics I. Title 213—dc21 2003111100 Apologetics Press, Inc. 230 Landmark Drive Montgomery, Alabama 36117-2752 © Copyright 2003 ISBN: 0-932859-58-5 Printed in China All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodiedinarticlesorcritical re- views. DEDICATION On occasion, there are certain individuals who quietly step into our lives—and who leave such an indelible imprint that we find our existence changed forever. This book is dedicated to four such individuals, whom we never will beable to repay fortheirunwavering moral and fi- nancial support of our work, and who expect nothing in re- turn for their incredible generosity—except our continued pledge to teach and defend the Truth. This book (and numerous others like it) never could have come to fruition without the ongoing support of these two Christian couples who, although separated by many miles, walk side by side in their combined efforts to ensure the suc- cess of Apologetics Press. This side of heaven, few will know the full impact of their sacrifices. Fortunately, God does. TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Chapter 1 — The “Record of the Rocks” [PartI] . . . . . . 3 BiologicalTaxonomyandHumanEvolution . . . . . . 4 DidManEvolve fromtheApes? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 AnExaminationofthe“Record of theRocks”. . . . . 12 Aegyptopithecus zeuxis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Dryopithecus africanus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Ramapithecus brevirostris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Orrorin tugenensis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Australopithecus (Ardipithecus) ramidus . . . . . 27 Australopithecus anamensis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Kenyanthropus platyops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Chapter2—The“Record of the Rocks” [Part II] . . . . 41 Australopithecus afarensis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Lucy’s Rib Cage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Lucy’s Pelvis and Gender. . . . . . . . . . 47 Lucy’s Appendages—Made for Bi- pedalism, or Swinging from Trees?. . 50 Australopithecine Teeth: More Evidence that Lucy was Arboreal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Australopithecine Ears: Human-like or Ape-like? . . . . . . . . . 54 Lucy: Hominid or Chimp? . . . . . . . . 55 Australopithecus africanus/ Australopithecus boisei . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 The Laetoli Footprints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Homo habilis/Homo rudolfensis . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Homo erectus/Homo ergaster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Homo sapiens idaltu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 -i- What Does the “Record of theRocks”ReallyShow?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 TheParadeofFossil Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 NeanderthalMan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 NebraskaMan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 PiltdownMan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 JavaMan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 RhodesianMan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Chapter3—Molecular Evidence of Human Origins. . 99 ChromosomalCounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 RealGenomicdifferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 “MitochondrialEve” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 TheDemiseofMitochondrialEve . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 The Molecular Clock —DatingMitochondrialAncestors . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Serious Errors in Mitochondrial DNAData intheScientificLiterature. . . . . . . . . . . 126 Neanderthal vs. Human DNA— IsItaMatch? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 Chapter 4 — The Problem of Gender and Sexual Reproduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 “Intellectual Mischief and Confusion”— OrIntelligentDesign? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 From Asexual to Sexual Reproduction— TheOriginofSex. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 The Lottery Principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 The Tangled Bank Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . 145 The Red Queen Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . . 147 The DNA Repair Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . 148 Why Sex? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 The50% Disadvantage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 MarsandVenus,orXandY? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 DifferencesAmongVariousSpecies . . . . . . . . . . . 164 -ii- DifferencesinAnimalandHuman Sexuality . . . . 167 The Complexity of the Human ReproductiveSystem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 Anatomical Differences BetweenHuman Males andFemales . . . . . . . . . . 173 Cellular Differences Between HumanMalesandFemales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 TheFutureofHumanReproduction . . . . . . . . . . . 178 Chapter5—TheProblem of Language . . . . . . . . . . 183 Evolutionary Theories ontheOriginofSpeech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 Adam—The First Human toTalkandCommunicate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 Tower of Babel—and TheUniversalLanguage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188 The Brain’s Language Centers—CreatedbyGod . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 AnatomyofSpeech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 BirdsofaFeather—OrNakedApe? . . . . . . . . . . . . 194 ComplexityofLanguage—Uniquely Human . . . . 202 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Chapter6—TheProblem of the Brain . . . . . . . . . . . 209 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 HistoryoftheBrain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212 TheEvolutionofthe Brain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 GrowingNeurons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 TheBrainVersusaComputer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 TwelveCranialNerves. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244 Chapter 7 — The Evolution of Consciousness [Part I] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247 TheOriginofLife . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248 TheOriginoftheGeneticCode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 TheOriginofSex. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252 - iii - TheOriginofLanguageand Speech . . . . . . . . . . . 253 The Origin of Consciousness— “TheGreatestofMiracles” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 Importance of Human Consciousness. . . 253 “Mystery” of Human Consciousness . . . . 256 Consciousness in General . . . . . . . . 257 Consciousness and the Brain . . . . . . 259 Consciousness and the Mind . . . . . . 260 ConsciousnessDefined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262 Why—andHow—DidConsciousnessArise? . . . . . 271 Why Did Consciousness Arise? . . . . . . . . 272 Why Do We Need Consciousness? . . . . . 276 How Did Consciousness Arise? . . . . . . . . 286 Evolutionary Bias and the Originof HumanConsciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . 296 What Does All of This have to do with theOriginof Human Consciousness? . . . . . . . . 301 RadicalMaterialism—A“Fishy”Theory. . . . . . . . . . 306 DoAnimals PossessConsciousness? . . . . . . . . . . . 313 The Brain, the Mind, and HumanConsciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328 Materialism, Supernaturalism, andtheBrain/MindConnection . . . . . . . . . . . . 330 TheConceptofMind. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333 Chapter8—TheEvolution of Consciousness [Part II] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347 Theories of the Origin ofHumanConsciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347 The“HardProblem”of Human Consciousness. . 350 “Failure is not an Option” . . . . . . . . . . . . 352 TheoriesofHumanConsciousness. . . . . . . . . . . . 353 Dualism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354 Monism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361 Psychical Monism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363 -iv- Radical Materialism (Functionalism) . . . . 364 Panpsychism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373 Epiphenomenalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375 Identity Theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382 Nonreductive Materialism/ Emergent Materialism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387 Dualist-Interactionism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419 Chapter 9 — The Problem of Skin Color and BloodTypes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429 Whatisa“Race”?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435 WhySoManyRacialCharacteristics? . . . . . . . . . 439 TheOriginof Man’s “Colors”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443 OtherFactors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448 Differences Between Human andAnimalBloodTypes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453 Componentsof Human Blood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 454 DifferentBloodTypes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457 TheAdamandEveIssue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458 Humans,Animals,andBlood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459 WhataboutBloodTypesof OtherAnimals?. . . . . 459 WhataboutHibernation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460 WhataboutBirds? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461 WhataboutFish? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461 Chapter 10 — Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463 References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467 Subject Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507 Name Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513 -v- - vii - Eversince Copernicusdecidedto put the Sun atthecenter of the solar system, various scientists and philosophers have worked overtime in their efforts to diminish the role of human - kind in the Universe. As a result, we have gone from beingthe crowning glory of God’s creation, to a hairless ape stuck on a smallplanetcirclingamediocresunin the distantreaches of one arm of a single galaxy thatis one among billions ofothers. Someofthe most widely readauthorsin the evolutionary camp (such as Carl Sagan, Stephen Jay Gould, Steven Weinberg, and RichardDawkins)have repeatedly emphasizedthelackofour uniqueness, and the “luck” supposedly related to our very ex- istence (mundane as it may be). Thus, man is viewed as occupying neither the center of the Universe,noranysortofpreeminentplaceinthelivingworld; rather, we arenothing more, norless, than theproduct of the same natural, evolutionary processes that created all of the “other animals” around us. In short, we are at best a “cosmo- logical accident.” Or, to express the idea in the words of the late, eminent evolutionist of Harvard, George Gaylord Simp - son: “Man is theresult of a purposeless and natural processthat didnothavehiminmind.Hewasnotplanned.Heisastateof matter, a formoflife, a sort ofanimal,and a species ofthe Or - der Primates, akin nearlyor remotely to all of life andindeed to all that is material” (1967, p. 345). According to the most extreme version of this view, it is the utmostarroganceonman’sparttoidentifyanycharacteristic that distinguishes him from members of the animal kingdom. Any differences we mightthink we perceive aremerelya mat - ter of degree, and for all the things we may do better, there are other things we certainly doworse.Otherprimates, in partic - ular, are worthy of coequality because they are supposed to [...]... africanus In the end, however, as Pilbeam and Elwyn Simons pointed out, Dryopithecus already was “too committed to ape-dom” to be the progenitor of man (1971, 173:23) Again, no controversy here; the animal is admittedly an ape - 19 - The Truth About Human Origins Ramapithecus brevirostris G Edward Lewis, a student at Yale University, was the first to discover Ramapithecus, and it was he who named it The. .. to wholly unscientific methods to establish what he cannot do by a valid scientific method What strange qualities could paleoanthropologists detect in an animal that allows them to decide on one hand that it was the progenitor of the chimpanzee, the gorilla, and the orangutan, and yet on the other hand was the progenitor of the human race? (1995, p 223) Figure 3 — Artist’s representation of Dryopithecus... status of the first animal on the long road toward humankind It is, then, with Aegyptopithecus zeuxis that we begin our investigation Aegyptopithecus zeuxis According to Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin (in their book Origins) , the ancestor that humans share with all living apes is Aegyptopithecus zeuxis (linking Egyptian ape)—a creature that they suggest lived 28 million years ago, and that they have... important, is the fact that man bears the spiritual imprint of God due to the fact that he possesses an immortal soul Knowing the truth about human origins centers on these (and other related) factors It is our goal in this book to examine a number of these issues, and to provide what renowned American news commentator Paul Harvey might call the rest of the story.” We invite you to join us on a fascinating... upright The oldest ramapithecine fossils are about 14 million years old, and the conventional wisdom has it that some time during the long gap between Aegyptopithecus and Dryopithecus there lived a common ancestor of Dryopithecus and Ramapithecus This missing link, probably around 25 million years old, would be the youngest common ancestor of man and the African apes, for by the time we find Dryopithecus... event as actually having occurred We invite you to join us on this fascinating journey while we investigate the record of the rocks” as it applies to human evolution AN EXAMINATION OF THE “RECORD OF THE ROCKS” As we begin an examination of the fossil record as it allegedly relates to human evolution, let’s be blunt about one thing Of all the branches to be found on that infamous “evolutionary tree of. .. late mother, Mary Leakey, proposed another Donald Johanson, former president of the Institute of Human Origins in Berkeley, California, has proposed yet another And as late as 2001, Meave Leakey (Richard’s wife) has proposed still another At an annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science some years ago, anthropologists from all over the world descended on New York City to. .. uncovering the truth about human origins, we also examine three critically important problems that evolutionists have struggled mightily to explain—or, at times, have simply avoided altogether: (1) the origin of language and communication; (2) the origin of gender and sexual reproduction; and (3) the origin of consciousness These physiological differences represent vast chasms between humans and animals—chasms... evolutionists have not been able to span with either the available scientific evidence or fanciful hypothetical constructs We invite you to examine the data presented here—and then decide for yourself the truth about human origins Personally, we believe that there is a far better explanation for the origin of mankind than organic evolution to wit, a divine Creator By the time you have finished reading... phonation; the modification of the central nervous system, notably at the level of the temporal lobes, permitting the specific recognition of speech From the point of view of embryogenesis, these anatomi- - 11 - The Truth About Human Origins cal systems are completely different from one another Each modification constitutes a gift, a bequest from a primate family to its descendants It is astonishing that these . TAXONOMY AND HUMAN EVOLUTION As we begin to assemble, disassemble, and then reassem- ble the puzzleof the “record ofthe rocks” in regard tohuman evolution, we first need to understand the terminology. fact that man bears thespiritual imprint of God due to thefact that he possesses an immortal soul. Knowing the truth about human origins centers on these (and other related) factors. It is our. devise criteria thatdivide humans and apes fromthe other animals, then is it not equally legitimate for humans to devise criteria that separate us from the apes? In other words, can we say that there