The Fossil Record Provides Scientific Evidence for Macroevolution

"Organisms adapt to suit their environments" " this was Pro"s big answer to why the ape family survived and the intermediate forms between them and us did not. So he is left with the ridiculous conclusion that dumb apes were able to survive all the droughts, floods, snows, quakes, famines, and other environmental changes in history, but the far more intelligent Neanderthals were unable to find a way! Pro quotes The Royal Society"s mention of a "bipedal Australopithecus" and talks about Lucy"s feet. There is a useful discussion on how Australopithecines, especially Lucy, have been misrepresented as human ancestors in Forbidden Archaeology (Cremo and Thompson, 1993, p 728-739). I am quoting from page 730: "Evidence for arboreality in postcranial anatomy of A. afarensis. 1. General anatomy of Lucy's shoulder blade was characterized as "virtually identical to that of a great ape and had a probability less than 0.001 of coming from the population represented by our modern human sample" (Susman et al, 1984, pp 120-121). 2. Lucy's shoulder blade has a shoulder joint which points upwards (Oxnard 1984, p334-i; Stern and Susman 1983, p284) This would allow "use of the upper limb in elevated positions as would be common during climbing behavior" (Stern and Susman, 1983, p284). 3. A. afarensis wristbones are apelike. "Thus we may conclude that A. afarensis possessed large and mechanically advantageous wrist flexors, as might be useful in an arboreal setting" (Stern and Susman, 1983, p282). 4. A. afarensis metacarpals [the bones in the palm of the hand] "have large heads and bases relative to their parallel sided and somewhat curved shafts -- an overall pattern shared by chimpanzees". This "might be interpreted as evidence of developed grasping capabilities to be used in suspensory behaviour" (Stern and Susman 1983, pp 282-3). 5. The finger bones are even more curved than in chimpanzees and are morphologically chimpanzeelike. (Stern and Susman 1983, pp 282-4; Susman et al 1984 p. 117; Marzke 1983, p 198). 6. A. afarensis humerus (upper arm bone) has features that are "most likely related to some form of arboreal locomotion" (Oxnard 1984, p.334-1; see also Senut 1981, p.282). 7. One of the long bones in the forearm, the ulna, resembles that of the pygmy chimpanzee (Feldsman 1982b, p.187). 8. Vertebrae show points of attachment for shoulder and back muscles "massive relative to their size in modern humans" (Cook et al 1983, p.86) These would be very useful for arboreal activity (Oxnard 1984, p 334-i). 9. "Recently Schmid (1983) has reconstructed the A.L. 288-1 rib cage as being chimpanzeelike" Susman et al 1984, p 131). 10. Blades of hip oriented as in chimpanzee (Stern and Susman 1983, p.292.) Features of afarensis hip therefore "enable proficient climbing" (Stern and Susman 1983, p. 290). Lucy's feet, hands, arms, body and musculature are those of an arboreal ape, and her feet are even longer and more curved than a chimpanzee's, therefore, the best bipedal gait Lucy could manage would be worse than a modern chimpanzee"s. How can such poor adaptation be evidence of human ancestry? Your Australopithicines are incapable of supporting an erect posture because they are adapted for arboreal life. They are apes, this is why the specialists who described their type specimens called them Asutralopithius, meaning "Southern APE." I"ll trust their anatomical measurements in the lab above the opinions of overenthusiastic Darwinists Pro quotes from the headlines of Science Magazine. In fact, three scientists from the departments of anatomy, anthropology, and zoology at Tel Aviv University reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Vol. 104, pp. 6568-72, April 17, 2007) that the jawbone of the Lucy species (Australopithecus afarensis) is a close match to a gorilla's. The article says that "This finding was unexpected given that chimpanzees are the closest living relatives of humans." The scientists concluded that this pretty much discounts these australopithecines as having any role in being a human ancestor. As for the "teeth," Here is Cremo and Thompson (1993 pp. 729-731) "In humans, the teeth in the jaw are arrayed in a parabolic curve, In the Hadar jaws, such as AL200, the teeth on either side of the jaw are set in straight parallel rows, as in the apes, although the rearmost molars are sometimes slightly displaced (Johanson and Edey 1981, pp 267-268). Both in apes and in the Hadar fossils the palate is flat (Johanson and Edey 1981, p 270). In humans it is arched. As in the apes, the canines of the Hadar jaws were conical. In humans, the inner surface of the canine is flattened. In order to accommodate the projecting lower canine of A. afarensis, the upper jaw has a noticeable gap between the incisor and the canine. This gap, called a diastema, is also present in apes but not in humans. Departures from the ape condition were minor. In an ape, the first premolar has a single cusp. In humans the first premolar has a prominent second cusp. In all of the Hadar specimens except Lucy, the first premolar has a slightly developed second cusp (Johanson and Edey 1981, p 270)." "All in all, the apelike condition of the Hadar jaws is so pronounced that even Johanson admitted: 'If David Pilbeam were to find any of them in Miocene deposits without any associated long bones, he would surely say it was an ape.' (Johanson and Edey 1981, p 376)." So Pro hasn"t met my three criteria. I"ll let the readers choose whom they wish to believe between honest scientist and those committed to Darwinism. No matter what fossils are found they can be claimed as "transitional" either because they are claimed to look a little bit more human than the usual apes or a little bit more ape-like than the usual humans. What makes this approach unscientific nonsense is that all known ape fossils are within the range of modern or extinct apes while all known human fossils are within the range of modern or extinct humans. The only reason evolutionists give them intermediate status is because they are ideologically commitment to a Darwinist viewpoint. Small stature in humans is known to produce abnormal anatomical features resembling ape-like characteristics, such as the jaw and dentition (because the individuals have the same number of teeth as us in a much more confined space) and the length of the arms. That is why many pygmy's faces look different to ours (showing prognathous teeth and jaws). Just a few miles to the east of Olduvai George where Homo habilis was found, in the forests of Zaire are the Mbuti people who in stature, brain capacity, and way of life, are comparable to the habilines. So clearly the habilines and Neanderthals were human. Zukerman"s views were confirmed by Charles Oxnard, Professor of Anatomy and Human Biology at the University of Western Australia in the 1980s. Far from being abandoned, many specialists today agree with them; if I had room I"d quote them. Eohippus was discovered in 1841 by paleontologist Richard Owen, who did not call it Eohippus because, upon careful observation, it did not look like a "hippus" (horse) at all. He called it "Hyracotherium" because it resembled a modern day Hyrax (a Daman). The skull and teeth of Hyracotherium are different than that of the modern Hyrax, but its bone structure, size, habitat and way of life are very similar, suggesting it was of the same kind. Further, the birth of three toed horses still happens today, so Merychippus to Eqqus is just variation in the horse kind, not evolution of one species into another. Evolution holds that life evolved from very simple to complex forms, but the first forms of life preserved in the fossil record are far from being "simple." Some species of the unjustly called "primitive" amoebas have as much information in their DNA as 1,000 Encyclop"dia Britannicas. I"m out of room, more next round.