Wednesday, January 14, 2009
[the skull of Heidelberg Man]
Evolution basically means that all life on earth developed from simple chemicals through a very gradual process of random chance and trial and error.
Originally, about four billion years ago, the earth was covered by an ocean of water containing certain basic chemicals. Somehow, these chemicals formed simple one-celled animals. Once simple life appeared through the random interaction of chemicals, it continued to change through random genetic mutations. Mutations which had greater survival value became more common and eventually new mutations appeared on top of them and this process continued indefinitely until eventually man appeared.
[Incidentally atheists may protest that evolution refers only to changes in living things, while the creation of life is called “abiogensis”. However actually atheists do not believe that God created the first life. They see life as arising naturally from chemicals. Other than as part of an effort to confuse religious believers, there is no reason to distinguish between pre-life and post-life evolution. Also atheists will protest that evolution is not random because it involves natural selection. However bear in mind that natural selection is merely a filter that removes any living thing that does not meet certain criteria as defined by the earth’s environment. Natural selection does not design anything; according to atheists, random chance must do that.]
Since Darwin suggested evolution in 1859, one of the most fascinating questions has been – exactly what is our ancestry? If we are not descended from Adam who was created by God, but rather we are descended from water and chemicals, what exactly were all the intermediary steps? There surely must have been quite a few. The human body contains about 100 trillion cells. Each cell is so complex that scientists are not close to creating one artificially. The number of random trial and error steps from chemicals to man must have been almost infinite. The search for the “Missing Link” is perhaps the main objective of paleontology, the paleontologists’ Holy Grail.
As any genealogist knows, ancestry must be traced beginning from you and working step-by-step back in time. So I was excited to see the January, 2009 issue of Scientific American magazine which includes on page 60 an article called “The Human Pedigree” by Kate Wong. Based on the chart in the article there is only one extinct species that has a well-supported relationship to man – Homo heidelbergensis, or Heidelberg Man. Heidelberg Man lived in Europe about a half million years ago. He was basically identical to modern man except for a more ape like face - he had large brow ridges and a low forehead. His brain case also was more elongated from front to back than in modern man.
So this is the total success that evolutionists have had in tracing the human family tree. They have found one extinct species, which was basically almost human, and earlier than that the trail goes dead. We can only speculate. (This is one of the reasons why evolutionists get upset when people claim that evolution means we are descended from monkeys. The truth is they have no idea what we are descended from.)
The standard atheistic explanation is “Yes, all those trillions upon trillions of intermediary steps between chemicals and man were really there, however the evidence has been lost.” This sounds a little bit like a prosecutor telling the jury “Yes, there were witnesses, there were finger prints and there was a murder weapon, but we just can’t find them.” Good luck with that.
Posted by jewish philosopher at 1:21 PM