Human Evolution Tree and March of Progress

Genesis Apologetics

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Natural history museums and school textbooks display human evolution trees or March of Progress infographics that supposedly show humans evolving from ape -like creatures over millions of years.

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When looking at these graphics over the last 100 years, it becomes really obvious how inconsistent these lineups have been over the generations.

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Consider Piltdown Man or Eoanthropus docini, which was based on a skull found in 1912.

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This was thought of as the official missing link between ape and man and portrayed in classrooms, textbooks, and museums as one of the leading proofs of human evolution.

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It was even on the front cover of leading evolution textbooks for decades. However, it was exposed in 1953 as a forgery after carrying the role of missing link for 41 years.

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Javaman or Pythacanthropus erectus also played its role in the lineup, even though it was based on just a single tooth and a skull cap and thigh bone found about a year apart and 50 feet from each other in East Java.

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Numerous museum exhibits and statues were made of this creature around the world. Javaman toppled in the 1930s and 40s when other experts studied the bones and reclassified them as Homo erectus, a label given to fossils that are simply human but vary in shape and size as humans still do today.

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It seems like people who want to believe in evolution are quick to jump on the smallest amount of evidence that support their theory and run with it, publishing volumes about such scant evidence.

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This is still true today, with paleo -experts being incredibly motivated and well -funded to discover new fossils that paint the ape -to -human connection.

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Check out this clip from modern paleo -expert Dr. Berger at his recent Google Talk. In the late 1990s,

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I was privileged enough to win the first National Geographic Prize for Research and Exploration.

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When I went to receive that medal in Washington, I was hauled up into those sort of magnificent offices up on the top floor of National Geographic, sat across from Gilbert Grosvenor, then

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CEO, and Bill Allen, the powerful editor of the magazine, and they said something I hope all of you hear sometime in your life.

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They said to me, you can have anything you want, any amount of money you want to do anything you want. Now, they, of course, meant that within some reason,

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I presumed, but I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to apply technology to the search for these incredibly rare fossils and the sites that they come from.

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Today, you won't find a single human evolution tree or lineup that leading paleo -experts will agree on, but we can look at a few that have been published in leading sources.

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This one was prepared by Professor Klein at Stanford, and was published on the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth to show how much we've learned about human evolution since Darwin's time.

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Check out the 8 question marks on the chart. These represent the inferred relationships, or guesses, between the different fossil icons.

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It's the same with the dashed lines and thin solid lines. They show the theoretical evolutionary connections between the fossil icons.

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These question marks, dashed lines, and thin solid lines are all based on guesswork. If you take a close look at this chart, you'll find there's no fossil evidence connecting

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Arte to Afarensis, none connecting Afarensis to Habilis, none connecting Habilis to Ergaster or Erectus, and no fossil evidence whatsoever connecting them to Homo sapiens through some intermediate form.

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The solid lines drawn from the early Australopithecine apes to the first humans is all speculation and inference.

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Here is the latest tree from the Scientific American. Its branches have more than a dozen breaks that connect the fossil icons.

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The colored bars represent actual fossil data. The breaks represent inferences or guesses.

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It sure looks more like a broken apart bush than a clear tree of evolution leading to humans. The idea of human evolution is one of the most fluent, ever -changing theories on the face of the planet.

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It seems like there's a new story for each generation. Articles and studies keep coming out with headlines like,

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We still have not found the missing link between us and apes. And the human -ape missing link is still missing.

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And new fossils keep redrawing the human evolution tree and pushing back supposed human evolution hundreds of thousands of years.

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Harvard scientist Dr. Pilbeam made a good point when he said, If you brought in a smart scientist from another discipline and showed him the meager evidence we've got for human evolution, he'd surely say,

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Forget it. There isn't enough to go on. It makes much more sense that humans were put here by God in complete functioning form.

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We did not evolve into the image of God. We were made in the image of God, drawn from the dust, and given the dominion charge to be stewards over the

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Earth. If we evolved, then how can things like human conscience be explained? And what about the all -or -nothing systems we have, like our complex five -part hearing system that has mechanical, hydraulic, chemical, and electrical systems that all work together in perfect unison?

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And what about the complexities of the eye? And which evolved first, blood, veins, or a pumping heart?

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I mean, you really need all three at the same time for the system to work. And what about blood coagulation?

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There are five really complicated automatic systems that our bodies put into motion the second we are cut that automatically stop bleeding.

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Without that entire stepwise system in place right from the start, every person would have bled to death after their first cut, leaving no way for evolution.

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All these things had to be in place at the same time for everything to work. Truly, we are wonderfully and fearfully made.

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Looking for answers about what the Bible teaches about creation, the fossil record, dinosaurs? Download the

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Genesis Apologetics app from the iTunes or Google Play stores for answers to these questions and more.