Critique of Bones of Contention (Lubenow)

Transcription

1 From the SelectedWorks of Jordan P Ballard 2013 Critique of Bones of Contention (Lubenow) Jordan P Ballard Available at:

2 CRITIQUE OF BONES OF CONTENTION: A CREATIONIST ASSESSMENT OF HUMAN FOSSILS Jordan P. Ballard

3 1 Bones of Contention is a book about human fossil written by creationist scientist Marvin Lubenow. 1 Lubenow is professor of Bible, theology, and apologetics at Southern California Seminary in El Cajon, California. He holds a ThM from Dallas Theological Seminary and a MS in anthropology from Eastern Michigan University, and he has studied human fossils for more than thirty-five years. Bones of Contention was originally published in 1992, and the revised and updated edition was published in One of the strengths of the book is its comprehensive treatment of the subject of paleoanthropology over the past hundred years. Another strength is that Lubenow exhibits mastery of the literature regarding human origins, and with only a few exceptions, he uses the secular literature to critique the evolutionary theories of human origins. This protects him from the charge of only using creationist books and articles to critique evolution. Another nice feature of the book is that Lubenow includes definitions, illustrations, and charts throughout the book to help the non-specialist understand some of the scientific information. This paper will summarize and evaluate some of Lubenow s critiques of human evolution. The first problem with human evolution is that there is no widespread agreement on the classification or age of human fossils. Lubenow illustrates this by telling the story 1 Marvin L. Lubenow, Bones of Contention: A Creationist Assessment of Human Fossils, revised and updated (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004). Other books and articles which deal with human evolution from a creationist perspective include Duane T. Gish, Evolution: The Fossils Still Say No! (El Cajon, CA: Institute for Creation Research, 1995), ; Jonathan Sarfati, Refuting Evolution 2 (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2002), ; idem., The Greatest Hoax on Earth? Refuting Dawkins on Evolution (Atlanta, GA: Creation Book Publishers, 2010), ; Kenneth Poppe, Exposing Darwinism s Weakest Link: Why Evolution Can t Explain Human Existence (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2008); David Menton, Did Humans Really Evolve from Apelike Creatures? in The New Answers Book 2, ed. Ken Ham (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2008), 83-94; David A. DeWitt, What About the Similarity Between Human and Chimp DNA? in The New Answers Book 3, ed. Ken Ham (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2009), ; David Menton, Georgia Purdom, and John Upchurch, Cavemen Really? in The New Answers Book 4, ed. Ken Ham (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2013),

4 2 of an assignment he gave to his graduate students. He had his students research and give a report on different human fossils using only non-creationist resources, and the students returned frustrated and confused because there were conflicting classifications and ages for nearly every known human fossil. This demonstrates one of the main points of the book that human evolution is one field of evolutionary science which has a high degree of uncertainty. One of the main reasons is because human fossils are difficult to study. According to Lubenow, most paleoanthropologists have never even seen a human fossil, let alone studied one. Yet many scientists make pronouncements about human origins without having studied the fossils for themselves. For example, Charles Darwin wrote an entire book on human evolution in 1871, yet he never once saw a single human fossil. Thomas Huxley, Darwin s bulldog, also wrote about human evolution without ever having studied the actual fossils. 2 One of the main reasons why fossils are understudied is because they are often protected by the scientists who discover them. 3 These scientists are often the only ones who have studied the fossils, and other scientists are either dependent upon their descriptions or are left to study replicas. As Lubenow summarizes, The myth in the minds of the public is that the human fossil material is readily available and is thoroughly studied by all who teach and write on the subject. The truth is that paleoanthropology is in the awkward position of being a science that is several steps removed from the very evidence upon which it claims to base its findings. 4 2 See Lubenow, Bones of Contention, See ibid., for examples. 4 Ibid., 29.

5 3 The second major problem with human evolution is that there are many important, unanswered questions which scientists have yet to answer: 5 Who was the first hominid? Why do we walk upright? Why are our brains so big? When did we first use tools? How did we get our modern minds? Why did we outlive our relatives? What genes make us human? Have we stopped evolving? With so many unanswered questions, Lubenow is surprised that paleoanthropologists make such bold claims about their knowledge of human evolution. He makes the important comment that evolution is not based on direct observations. Rather, much of the information scientists have gathered about human evolution comes from studying chimpanzees. The problem is that this begs the question because it assumes that humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor. A third major weakness of paleoanthropology is that although scientists use the fossil record to support human evolution, the fossil record does not directly confirm human evolution. Rather, the scientists must force the fossils into their predetermined system of classification and dates. Lubenow summarizes as follows: What is not generally known is that this sequence [from chimpanzees to modern humans], impressive as it seems, is a very artificial and arbitrary arrangement because (1) Some fossils are selectively excluded if they do not fit well into the evolutionary scheme; (2) Some human fossils are arbitrarily downgraded to make them appear to be evolutionary ancestors when they are in fact true humans; and (3) Some nonhuman fossils are upgraded to make them appear to be human ancestors. 6 5 Ibid., Ibid., 34.

6 4 What often happens is that scientists devise their scheme of how they think human evolution developed from Australopithecus afarensis ( Lucy ) to Homo habilis to Homo erectus to Homo sapiens to Homo sapien sapiens (modern humans), and then they interpret the fossils to fit the scheme. Any fossil that appears to part from the theory is redated and/or reclassified. Lubenow s summary here is helpful: Evolutionists work their own special magic on nonconformist fossils. With the waving of a magic wand, Homo erectus fossils can become sapiens or Neandertals and Homo sapiens fossils can become australopithecines. To us, this is a serious matter of intellectual integrity. The evolutionist does not see it that way. To him, evolution is true. Hence, fossils must be interpreted accordingly. 7 The human fossil evidence is the subject of section two in Bones of Contention. 8 Here, Lubenow discusses each of the major discoveries in paleoanthropology which scientists believed to be missing links at the time of their discovery. These include Neanderthals, Java Man, Piltdown Man, Wadjak Man, Homo Erectus, and others. He contends that scientists, out of desperation to discover the missing link between humans and their chimpanzee-like common ancestor(s), offer many unwarranted or erroneous conclusions about human fossils. To make his point, Lubenow highlights two evolutionary hoaxes which were celebrated as breakthroughs in human evolution at the time of their discovery. First, Lubenow recounts the story of how Marcellin Boule s report on Neandertals published between was later corrected by scientists who reexamined the same skeleton in the 1950s. For over forty years, though, the scientific community and the general public were told that scientists (Boule) had found a missing link for human evolution (Neandertal). As it turns out, Boule had exaggerated and 7 Ibid., 64. See pages for specific examples. 8 See ibid.,

7 5 fabricated many of his findings, and his assessment is no longer considered valid. 9 The second example Lubenow presents is the infamous Piltdown Man hoax. Scientist Charles Dawson (and probably others) combined the top half of a human jawbone with the bottom half of an orangutan jawbone in their discovery of the earliest Englishman, Eoanthropus dawsoni, or Piltdown Man. 10 Although this discovery was made in 1912, it was not until 1953 that scientists revealed Piltdown Man to be a fraud. According to Lubenow, these examples dispel the widespread myth that science is self-correcting and objective when it comes to human evolution. 11 Lubenow dedicates several chapters in section five of the book to Neandertals because there are more Neandertal fossils than any other human category and because they are the most similar to modern humans. 12 Evolutionary scientists believe that Neandertals were not fully human because of supposed mental, physical, and cultural deficiencies. On the other hand, Lubenow contends that Neandertals were truly human. He makes several points to support this claim. 1) From what scientists can tell, Neandertals had many similar practices to modern humans such as aboriginal Australians today or the American Indians a few hundred years ago. No scientist would say that aboriginals are non-human, so an alleged cultural deficiency cannot necessarily be interpreted to mean that Neandertals were subhuman. 13 2) There are many examples of Neandertal tools and art which are often ignored or casually dismissed because of the 9 Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., See ibid., Ibid.,

8 6 prejudice against the idea that Neandertals were human. 14 3) Neandertals were big game hunters much like modern humans. Many of the Neandertal sites have evidence of weapons and strategies used in hunting. 15 4) Neandertals buried their dead in caves and rock shelters, much like modern humans. This may explain why so many of their bones are found in caves (not because they were cave men ). 16 5) Neandertals buried their dead with grave goods, proving that they had full, human consciousness. 17 Scientists have another problem, though, because the Neandertals seemed to have passed off the scene rather suddenly and were replaced within a short period of time by modern Europeans. This means that there must have been a Great Leap Forward from Neandertals to modern humans in terms of culture, art, and tools if Neandertals were truly subhuman. 18 The simplest explanation which is in line with the evidence listed above is that Neandertals were humans. One of the most important observations that Lubenow makes is that evolution is inherently racist. He recounts two specific examples to make his point. First, the racism inherent in evolution goes all the way back to Charles Darwin. 19 The full title of Darwin s famous 1859 book is The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. On Darwin s famous voyage aboard the Beagle, he landed at Tierre de Fuego at the tip of South America. There, 14 See ibid., for discussion and for a detailed list of twenty-six examples. 15 Lubenow gives twelve examples (ibid., ). 16 See ibid., for details. 17 See ibid, for examples. 18 Ibid., See ibid.,

9 7 Darwin and his crew encountered the native people, the Fuegians, whom Darwin considered to be savages, wild beasts, and animal-like. He took three Fuegians as prisoners back to England (one died of smallpox during the voyage) and presented them to the Queen of England. These savages greatly influenced Darwin s thinking about human evolution. 20 The second chilling example of racism involves the genocide of the Tasmanian Aboriginals in the 1800s. 21 The Tasmanians, who had very dark skin, inhabited a tiny island off the southern coast of Australia until they were discovered by whites in In the 1800s, fighting broke out between the white Europeans and the Tasmanians, and the Tasmanians were brutally murdered. Although there were several reasons behind the violence, Lubenow s summary here is worth quoting. The scientific community wanted Tasmanian skulls and body parts for measurements to prove that the Tasmanians were missing links, or evidence for evolution. Darwin s grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, was one of the first researchers to dig up an Aboriginal from the grave in order to stuff and exhibit the stolen body at the Royal College of Surgeons the first of over ten thousand Tasmanian skeletons and skulls that would be in the Royal College collection.the racism on the part of the scientific community was the direct result of evolutionary thinking. 22 Lubenow also states that after the last full-blooded Tasmanian, a woman named Truganini, died in 1876, the Royal Society dug up her bones and put them on display in the Tasmanian Museum. It was not until 1947 that the museum finally removed the display, and in 1976, the skeleton was finally cremated despite objections from the museum. This sad example shows that evolution is inherently racist since it teaches that there truly are superior and inferior races in the struggle for survival. 20 See ibid., See ibid., Ibid., 150.

10 8 In an effort to combat this inherent racism, which was socially acceptable in the 1800s but which is politically incorrect today, evolutionary scientists have proposed the Out of Africa Model and an African Eve or Mitochondrial Eve. The Out of Africa Model teaches that all humans originated from an original human pair in Africa. As an exercise in political correctness, this would mean that there are no inferior races of humans on the earth today. Lubenow demonstrates that this theory is completely ad hoc. Proponents of this view believe that human evolution suddenly came to halt in modern times. This means that there are no superior or inferior races of humans today. This is just wishful thinking, though, and there is no explanation as to why the evolutionary process suddenly stopped and why this only applies to humans. Without this theory, though, evolution is inherently racist. 23 Lubenow also discusses a few other problems with human evolution in Bones of Contention such as flawed assumptions in radiometric dating, 24 evidence for a young earth, 25 non-human fossil primates (e.g., Homo habilis), 26 the most current research on similarities between human and chimpanzee DNA, 27 and the huge problem of explaining how human language evolved. 28 These problems, along with the problems listed above, demonstrate that the famous parade of human evolution is more fiction than science. The 23 See ibid., , Ibid., Ibid., ; cf. Donald DeYoung, Thousands, not Billions: Challenging an Icon of Evolution, Questioning the Age of the Earth (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2005); John Morris, The Young Earth: The Real History of the Earth Past, Present, and Future, rev. and exp. (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2007). 26 Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.,

11 9 failure of evolutionary scientists to provide evidence of human evolution does not prove that biblical creationism is true. But if human evolution did not happen, then the theory of evolution as a whole is in trouble. Christians need not fear the mantras of evolutionists about the certainty of human evolution. When one looks beyond the popular science to the technical publications, as Lubenow does in this book, one discovers that there are gaping holes in the theory of human evolution.

12 10 Annotated Bibliography DeWitt, David A. What About the Similarity Between Human and Chimp DNA? In The New Answers Book 3. Edited by Ken Ham, Green Forest, AR: Master Books, In this article, DeWitt, professor of biology at Liberty University, debunks the myth that similarities in human and chimpanzee DNA proves that they had a common ancestor. The 96 percent similarity may seem like a lot, but the 4 percent difference between human and chimp DNA includes about 125 million differences in the DNA when they are all added together. DeWitt discusses other, non-quantifiable differences between human and chimp DNA and concludes that the differences make the difference, not the similarities. DeYoung, Donald. Thousands, not Billions: Challenging an Icon of Evolution, Questioning the Age of the Earth. Green Forest, AR: Master Books, Thousands, not Billions is a book about the age of the earth written by a young-earth scientist and member of the Institute of Creation Research s RATE (Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth) team. DeYoung provides a brief history of radiation studies, an overview of how radioisotope dating works, and an analysis of carbon-14 dating. He also discusses some of the young-earth evidence discovered by the RATE team in recent years, including the presence of helium in zircon crystals and radiohalos in granite. The book is written at a lay level and is helpful for those interested in the young-earth perspective on the age of the earth. Gish, Duane T. Evolution: The Fossils Still Say No! El Cajon, CA: Institute for Creation Research, This book is an update to Gish s influential book published in 1973, Evolution: the Fossils Say No! Dr. Gish, the bulldog of creationism, discusses various creatures in the fossil record including microorganisms, fish, reptiles, mammals, and humans. Regarding human evolution, Gish examines many of the supposed links in human evolution including Ramapithecus, Australopithecus, Lucy, Australopithecus afarensis, Australopithecus ramidus, Homo habilis, Java Man, Peking Man, and Neanderthal Man. Like Lubenow, Gish only uses noncreationist sources for his information. His writing is thorough and detailed, and he includes helpful pictures in each chapter. Poppe, Kenneth. Exposing Darwinism s Weakest Link: Why Evolution Can t Explain Human Existence. Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, This book is a general critique of the theory of evolution written at a popular level. The author gives several examples of design in the world from DNA to chemistry to physics. In section three of the book, Poppe discusses many of the problems with human evolution. These include lack of transitional forms in the fossil record, the

13 11 problem of geographical distribution of human fossils, some of the fossil hoaxes, and the problem of explaining how human languages evolved. Although this is not a technical book, it is still helpful for lay-christians interested in the subject of evolution. Menton, David. Did Humans Really Evolve from Apelike Creatures? In The New Answers Book 2. Edited by Ken Ham, Green Forest, AR: Master Books, Dr. David Menton argues that human evolution is a myth. He discusses Nebraska man which was artistically portrayed from only a single tooth, the Piltdown Man hoax, the apelike features of Lucy, and the evidence that Neanderthals were fully human. Menton also argues that the humans and apes have different leg, foot, and hipbone structures which distinguish men from apes and enable men to walk uprightly. This chapter contains helpful summaries for a general audience. Menton, David, Georgia Purdom, and John Upchurch. Cavemen Really? In The New Answers Book 4. Edited by Ken Ham, Green Forest, AR: Master Books, The authors examine five groups of cavemen hominids which were buried in caves which often come up in the literature on human evolution: Neanderthals, Cro- Magnon Man, Homo erectus, Homo Floresiensis, and Denisovans. Each of these groups appears to be fully human upon close examination because of the evidence of hunting big game, using weapons and tools, and burying the dead. In addition, the first draft of DNA testing on Neanderthals proved to be 99.7% identical to modern human DNA, although it is acknowledged that DNA sequencing has many difficulties. The authors conclude with a biblical perspective, arguing that these cavemen were actually humans living after the Tower of Babel. Morris, John. The Young Earth: The Real History of the Earth Past, Present, and Future. Revised and Expanded. Green Forest, AR: Master Books, The Young Earth is a book about the age of the earth written by young-earth geologist and president of the Institute for Creation Research, Dr. John Morris. Morris contrasts the secular and biblical views of origins and makes that point that presuppositions determine how one interprets the geological data. He has an important chapter on radioisotope dating which explains the process, the assumptions, and the limits of this scientific tool. He also discusses human history, evidence for a global flood, and evidence for a young earth from creationist scientists. The book has many helpful charts, illustrations, and pictures. Sarfati, Jonathan. Refuting Evolution 2. Green Forest, AR: Master Books, This is the follow-up book to Sarfati s 1999 book, Refuting Evolution, which critiques the

14 12 teaching of the National Academy of Science on evolution and the nature of science. In this sequel, Sarfati discusses several problems with the theory of evolution as portrayed in the 2001 PBS series Evolution. In the section on human evolution, he states that the links are still missing between humans and a supposed common ancestor with chimpanzees. He makes the point that Neanderthals exhibit many human behaviors, and he discusses the problem of the evolution of human languages. This book is written at a popular level and will be helpful for lay-christians.. The Greatest Hoax on Earth? Refuting Dawkins on Evolution. Atlanta, GA: Creation Book Publishers, Sarfati critiques many aspects of the theory of evolution as taught specifically by Richard Dawkins. In his chapter on human evolution, he discusses some of the huge differences between humans and chimpanzees (such as language, culture, music, art, mathematics). He also maintains that many of the ape-man candidates rely on fragmentary evidence. Sarfati states that Lucy was a knuckle-walker and not an human. He also believes that Java Man (Homo erectus) is an example of a post- Babel human who had seafaring ability.