More Skull-Duggery

Some events are fairly predictable — like “the sun will rise tomorrow morning.” Another prediction, almost certain to occur every few years, is the announcement that some anthropologist (evolutionist) has just discovered the oldest known remains of a “hominid” (a man form).

The competition among evolutionists is tremendously fierce to see who can “scoop” whom in terms of publicity. William Fix (not a creationist) forcefully addressed this matter in his interesting book, The Bone Peddlers (New York: Macmillan, 1984). The dust jacket of this impressive volume confesses: “In our zeal to witness the triumph of science over superstition, we have accepted, far too hungrily, unjustifiable claims and outright hoaxes....” Fix charges that “leading paleontologists hype their findings” in order to promote evolution. Within this headlines-hunting crowd the assertions are as brazen as the evidence is flimsy.

Such was the case back in July when the claim was heralded abroad that a new skull had been found, that supposedly thrusts the history of humanity back at least six million years.

Here we go again. The estimated age of mankind has been doubling about every twenty years over the past century! And the reason for that extrapolation is perfectly obvious. As the complexity of the human being has been probed increasingly, it has become more and more difficult to explain the human family by means of strictly naturalistic processes. Hence, additional time is sought constantly. As professor George Wald of Harvard once expressed it, in the evolutionary fable, “time is the hero of the plot.”

The truth of the matter is, there is no solid, scientific proof that the Universe was even in existence six million years ago. In fact, there is much evidence against that extended chronology — both from a scientific and a biblical perspective.

But the interesting thing about this latest discovery is the manner in which the advocates of evolution theory have become more cautious in the way they are speaking of this recently-found skull. Sharon Begley, a science writer for The Wall Street Journal, described the fossil in this whimsical fashion.

“Sure, he was a little over-endowed in the brow-ridge department, and quite a few cranial cubic centimeters short of a full deck, but otherwise he looked almost human” (The Wall Street Journal, August 20, 2002).

Ms. Begley went on to remind us of the oft-repeated quip (even among scientists) that if you gave the Neanderthal man a shave, put shoes on his feet, and clothed him in a suit, he would not be noticed on a busy American street.

According to Begley’s article, some anthropologists now are acknowledging that man has changed precious little since his commencement. Dr. Steve Jones, a professor of genetics at University College in London, is quoted as having recently wrote: “Men have changed rather little in their bodies since they began.” He further says that: “Man is the primate that did not evolve.”

The truth is, the evidence points to the conclusion that living creatures — including man — have undergone a process of degeneration rather than having progressed in an upward fashion. Both biblical evidence and archaeological evidence (such as that from ancient Sumer), for example, suggest a time in the ancient past when humanity was much more robust (with significantly greater longevity) than is the case now.

But just how does the evolutionist now explain this stable phenomenon? The solution supposedly is this: man’s evolution has been mostly cranial. Allegedly, ancient hominids possessed a brain volume of about 380 cc [cubic centimeters], while modern man has a volume of about 1,400 cc, with a corresponding increase in intelligence.

The argument is flawed on two bases:

Intelligence Not Dependent on Hat Size

Cranial size is not necessarily a reflection of intelligence. If such were the case, it must be concluded that elephants are more intelligent than modern evolutionists! The skull of the La Chapelle-aux-Saints man, a sample of the “Neanderthal” variety, had a brain capacity of 1,600 to 1,620 cc, which is larger than that of the average man of the modern world. Some pigmy tribes of today have a brain capacity of only about 900 cc, yet they are fully human.

The fact is, modern man has a cranial capacity range all the way from about 700 cc to 2,200 cc, and this disparity has absolutely nothing to do with relative intelligence.

Many Factors

There are many possible factors (e.g., climate, disease, cultural practices, gender, etc.) for explaining different skull sizes and shapes at various historical periods, and in diverse environments.

In his book, Genetics and the Races of Man (Boston: Little, Brown, 1953), William C. Boyd, a professor of Immunochemistry at Boston University and a Fellow of the American Anthropological Association, conceded that “craniometry” (the science of skull measurement) has never been “very logical or well conceived,” and certainly it is not considered to be an exact science. Dr. Boyd contended that “the exclusive use of skeletal material for purposes of human classification is open to suspicion” (p. 22). The truth is, “craniometry” (in the present context) is about as scientific as “phrenology” — the notion that one’s character and future can be defined by feeling the “bumps” on his head!

But some evolutionists are puzzled by the fact that man appears not to have significantly changed during his span on earth. We seem to be “frozen” in time. Dr. Ian Tattersall, of the American Museum of Natural History, calls it a “biological holding pattern.” The Human Genome Project has estimated that the whole of mankind does not differ, on average, by more than one-in-a-million in “the chemical ‘letters’ that constitute the human genome.”

The answer to the “holding pattern” enigma is right before their faces. But evolutionists simply refuse to see it. Humanity never evolved from a lower form of life. People have always been just people. The most obvious answer can evade you — if your mind is cluttered with skeptical bias.