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From: Richard Milton <richard@milton.win-uk.net>
To: Jim.Foley@symbios.com
Return-Path: <richard@milton.win-uk.net>
Reply-To: Richard Milton <richard@milton.win-uk.net>
Date: Sun, 17 Aug 1997 15:34:43
Subject: Re: Milton's response to Kuban
I am replying to Jim Foley's post regarding my response to
Glen Kuban. I have attempted to reorganise the previous
material to keep the voices separate and the debate
intelligible -- please let me know if I have not succeeded.
>RM "Java Man" is now accepted as having been an extinct ape, and
> every single claimed "missing link" fossil has been re-assigned
> either as an extinct ape or as a human essentially the same as
> modern humans.
>
>GK This is false. Java Man refers to a set of fossils assigned to
> Homo erectus, which is not considered just an extinct ape by most
> scientists, but rather an extinct species of our own genus, Homo.
>
>RM Glen is becoming confused again. FACT: Java "man" was a gibbon
> (see any competent authority).
>
>JIM FOLEY -
>
>Glen is correct. *Every* competent authority I'm aware of (Leakey,
>Johanson, Walker, Trinkaus, Wood, Day, Tattersall, Brace, Campbell, etc)
>considers Java Man to be a member of Homo erectus. Richard, which
>competent authorities do you have in mind?
For a clear resume of the real facts see John Reader _Missing Links_, 1981,
and the references therein. Briefly, the femur and skullcap which Eugene
Dubois put together to make _Pithecanthropus erectus_ were found by a gang
of convicts working unsupervised in locations that were separate and were
not recorded because no geologist or paleontologist was present.
Subsequently, other limb bones of _modern_ humans were found near the site.
The association of the two fossils was prompted entirely by Dubois' avowed
desire to find a missing link.
The leg bone was almost certainly that of a modern human. It is my
understanding that the skullcap is now regarded as that of an extinct
gibbon-like creature. But the important fact is not the origin of the
fossils but that the association of the femur and skull cap is not
scientifically justified.
It was in recognition of these facts that the restoration of Java 'man'
paid for by Ernst Haeckel was removed from the Leiden Museum to its
basement and in the mid 1980s, the exhibit of Java 'man' was removed from
public display in the American Museum of Natural History.
To apply the word competent to anyone who claims that the association
of these fossils is valid seems to me an unusual use of
the term.
> RM We have apes and we have men. We do not have anything to connect
> them.
>
>
> GK Furthermore, like other YECs Milton deals only a few specimens of
> something (and that not even accurately), while ignoring the bulk of
> the fossil evidence. There are now numerous known specimens of Homo
> erectus. They do seem to show sub-modern features, but ones far more
> advanced than modern apes. It's interesting that Milton and other YECs
> insist that all these hominid fossils are either all ape or all human,
> and yet in cases like Home erectus, they can's seem to decide which.
>
> RM Hint to Glen: 'Homo' means man.
>
>
>JIM FOLEY -
>
>To say that Homo erectus fossils can't be transitional merely because
>they're in the genus Homo doesn't follow. After all, it could be (and I
>would say is) that erectus is more primitive than us and different
>enough to be in another species, yet similar enough to be in the same
>genus. Seems to me that to determine if something is transitional or
>not, we need to look at it's *anatomy*, not its name.
This is a piece of semantic gymnastics.
Pithecus (as in _Australopithecus_) means ape. Homo means man. These are
not just semantic niceties which can be changed at will depending on how
clever a debater you are. They are a direct reflection of scientific
classification.
The Linnean catalogue of classification is very jealously guarded by those
scientists whose job is the description of type specimens and nowhere is it
more closely guarded than in the case of human fossils and the fossil of
possible human ancestors.
There are cases where overenthusiastic Darwinists have tried to introduce a
new species in order to prove the existence of a missing link, but where
later, scientific accuracy prevails and the 'missing link' is discredited.
For example, in 1959, Louis Leakey announced the discovery at Olduvai of
Zinjanthropus, East African man. The new formula name, with its
'anthropus' ending was chosen by Leakey to insist that his discovery was
entirely novel, was not related to Dart's Australopithecine discoveries in
the South, and was definitely hominid, not an ape. In 1965 Professor
Philip Tobias of Witwatersrand University examined, measured and described
the Olduvai fossil skull in the official type description in which he
reassigned the specimen as Australopithecus (Zinjanthropus). The Olduvai
find was merely a variety of ape.
Of course it is true that we must look at the anatomy of the fossils
themselves. But it is dangerous to allow Darwinists like the Leakeys to
construct 'missing link' theories on their estimate of the fossils: safer
to trust the type description which is usually done by specialists on the
basis of comparative measurement and in the calm of the lab, not in the
headlines of National Geographic.
Is Jim saying that he knows of cases where names are not an accurate guide
because fossils described as _Homo_ are in fact apes, or cases where
fossils described as ape are in fact human? If so then let him present the
evidence for that claim. It would be a most startling scientific claim.
And if Jim has no such evidence then how can he challenge the idea that
fossils assigned to _Homo_ are human and those assigned to
_Australopithecus_ are apes?
>JIM FOLEY -
>
>So you are saying that all the Homo habilis fossils are human?
I'm saying there is nothing to distinguish them from modern humans.
_Homo habilis_ was discovered by the Leakeys at Olduvai in 1964.
The habilines are calculated to have had a small brain: perhaps only
half the size of the average modern human's. But the habilines were
also small in stature, so their brain was not small in relation to
their body size, rather like modern pygmies.
One of the ironic aspects of the discovery of _Homo habilis_ is that while
Darwinists concentrate their attention on interpreting the fossils from
Olduvai Gorge, attempting to establish the creature's credentials as a
missing link, they appear to have overlooked the fact that only a few miles
to the east, in the forests of Zaire are the Mbuti people who are on
average only four foot to four foot six inches tall and who, in stature,
brain capacity, and even way of life, are comparable to _Homo habilis_.
Yet the Mbuti people are modern men in every sense.
> GK Some YEC's argue Home erectus is all human. Others that is is just an
> extinct ape. If that doesn't belie their claim that it is clearly
> one or the other, and indicate that it has features of both, I don't
> know what does.
>
> RM No-one is confused here, Glen except you.
>
>JIM FOLEY -
>
>Glen is correct again. Creationists are horribly confused, and can't
>work out whether fossils like Java Man, Peking Man and ER 1470 are
>humans or apes. (If anyone doesn't believe this, ask me for examples)
I am unable to say whether creationist are confused on this issue or not as
I'm not a creationist. I, however, am not confused. For the reasons given
above, those scientists describing the type specimens have assigned them to
Homo if they are human and Australopithecus if they are apes.
>JIM FOLEY -
>That seems odd to me. After all, no living human skull would be
>mistaken for an ape, and no living ape skull would be mistaken for a
>human, even by a creationist. And yet there are a number of fossil
>skulls which some creationists claim are human, and some say are apes.
>
>Doesn't it necessarily follow that these skulls must be more apelike
>than any human, and more humanlike than any ape? And isn't that the
>sort of thing we would expect to see if humans evolved from apes?
The scientists who described the type specimens and assigned their
zoological status were not confused. They were perfectly clear.
>RM "Lucy" and other Australopithecines are now known to be extinct
> apes unrelated to humans,
>
>JIM FOLEY -
>
> "Known" by whom? Australopithicines include several species,
> some of which are still conisdered possible or probably ancestors
> of humans by many workers. Milton's dismissal is overly simplistic
> to say the least.
>RM My dismissal is based on the scientific evidence. There have
> been two serious comparative anatomy studies of
> Australopithecines, one by Dr Solly Zuckerman in the 1950s
> and one by Dr Charles Oxnard in the 1980s. (Both
>
>
>JIM FOLEY -
> I hope you're not implying that these are the *only* two such studies.
> Howell et. al. (Journal of Human Evolution (1978), 7:127-31) list about
> 15 similar studies which reached different conclusions, and there have
> doubtless been many more since then. Also, Zuckerman's studies are way
> out of date, being mostly 30 or 40 years old, and dating from before
> Lucy was even found.
>
>I object also to the idea that something is "known" if you can find one
>or two studies to support it. To me, "known" implies that something
>that is accepted by all or almost all workers in the field, otherwise
>we can have the absurdity that a claim and its negation can both be
>"known" to be true.
>
>By my definition, it is *not* "known" that australopithecines are
>extinct apes unrelated to humans. Quite the opposite. That opinion is
>in a distinct minority.
Then why were they named Australopithecus (= Southern ape) by the
specialists who described their type specimens? The fact that there is a
long queue of Darwinists desperate to find a 'missing link' and willing to
shoehorn each new discovery to fit does not alter the anatomical facts.
>RM while "Neanderthal man" and "Homo
> habilis" are known to have been humans not significantly
> different from living humans. The missing link is still missing.
> JIM FOLEY -
> Again, "known" by whom? Not by scientists studying the fossils.
> In the case of Homo habilis in particular, there are a number
> of features that distinguish them from modern humans.
>
> Are you saying, then, that habilines like ER 1470, OH 7, OH 13 are all
> modern humans?
I'm saying that there are modern humans, living only a few miles from the
place where these fossils were found, who have comparable stature and brain
capacity to habilines (the Mbuti pygmies of Zaire).
> JIM FOLEY -
>
> I have one final question for Richard. What *would* be an acceptable
> example of an ape/human intermediate, since he doesn't like any of
>the claimed specimens?
There are three criteria that distinguish humans from apes anatomically.
They are:-
1. The way the skull is joined to the spine, balanced upright in humans,
sloping in apes.
2. Human feet are flat for walking upright. Ape feet are long and
curved for grasping branches.
3. Ape teeth are characteristically different from human teeth.
These are the important criteria. Darwinist sometimes try to confuse
the issue by introducing matters like cranial capacity or pelvic
construction, but this is largely smoke and mirrors.
Australopithicines like Lucy have their skulls joined to their spines like
apes, they have long curved hands and feet for grasping branches (longer
and more curved than a chimpanzee for instance) and their teeth are those
of an ape.
Show me a fossil that has feet, teeth and skull posture halfway
between an ape's and a human's and I'll be very interested to see it.
Show me a sequence of fossils with progressive development of these three
criteria from a sequence of securely dated rock strata and I'll be willing
to accept that there is evidence for an ape-human transition.
So far no-one has found a single such fossil. Of course, I accept that
doesn't mean that such fossils will not one day be found, but that is not
the point I am making. The point I am making is that some Darwinists are
so mesmerised by their ideological beliefs that they were willing to make
scientific claims that are not borne out by observation and measurement and
this makes their 'missing link' claims nothing more than scientific urban
myths.
Regards
Richard
--
Richard Milton
Tel: +44 1732 353 427 Fax: +44 1732 353 427
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