August 1, 2003, Vol.3, No.15.
Two new articles every two weeks.
Bible Question? E-mail
us.
THIS ISSUE: "Of
Apes and Men" (see below)
and "Of Rocks and Bones"
Of Apes and Men
guest article by Harry E. "Buddy" Payne,
Jr.
 "And
God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature alter
his kind, cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after
his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth
after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing
that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that
it was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after
our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the
sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over
all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon
the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image
of God created he him; male and female created he them."
(Genesis 1:24-27)
If you have visited a zoo and spent some time watching the
monkeys, the apes, and especially the chimpanzees, you surely
have noticed the many characteristics which these animals have
in common with human beings. You probably thought to yourself
that they look as if they might be our distant cousins. You may
have even thought that somewhere back in time humans, monkeys,
and apes had the same ancestors. Of course, you would not be
the first to think such thoughts.
Carolus Linnaeus, the great Swedish biologist of the 18th
century, who is given credit for establishing the modern system
of classifying all living things, classified human beings (homo
sapiens) as relatives of monkeys and apes. He did not mean to
imply that there was any common ancestor for humans and monkeys
because he believed strongly that God had created them separately.
However, he did recognize that the characteristics of men and
apes are more similar to one another than to those of any other
creature.
Not until after the publication of Charles Darwin's books
The Origin of the Species and The Descent of Man
in the mid and late19th century did the notion that humans and
apes evolved from a common ancestor become widely accepted. Darwin
proposed that the species in Linnaeus, system were not fixed
creations of God which had remained essentially unchanged since
creation. He said that all the species living today came from
common ancestors in the past by a process of gradual evolution.
This process, according to Darwin, was guided by nature (natural
selection), not by God. Thus, in particular, apes and men evolved
from a common ancestor many thousands or millions of years ago.
The general theory of evolution, which states that all living
things have a common ancestor, has come to be believed so strongly
that it is taught in many places as an established fact. You
have been taught by your teachers, television or books that men
and apes are the result of a long process of evolution which
began on earth some 4.5 billion years ago. The following quotes
from Thread of Life by Roger Lewin (published by the Smithsonian
Institute) are typical.
Primates apparently evolved in the late Cretaceous from
creatures resembling today's tree shrews. The primate line gave
rise to two groups: the prosimians, including tarsiers, lemurs,
and lorises; and the anthropoids, the monkeys, apes and humans.
(page 220)
Humans are not just a part of the rich pattern of evolving
life; through possession of our sense of awareness, we know we
have evolved and are evolving still. (page 249)
Obviously, the account in Genesis quoted above presents an
entirely different picture. Man and the beasts were distinct
creations by God. Man was specially made in the image of God
and was given power to control all the other creatures. The Bible
claims to be the inspired word of God. There is much evidence
to convince you that the Bible must have been written under God's
direction, as you will learn later in this series. If the Bible
is God's Word then, of course, its account of the origin of men
and apes is the true account and the subject is closed.
However, there is much evidence from God's world that can
also help us answer our questions about men and apes. From the
scientific evidence, is it more reasonable to believe men and
apes were created separately or that they evolved from a common
ancestor? We shall examine some of the evidence together and
see that God's Word and God's world testify to the same truth.
The only direct evidence from nature with regard to the ancestry
of men and apes is the remains of dead men, apes, or intermediates
from the ancient past. If scientists could find, identify, and
date a sequence of fossil skeletons showing the evolution of
men and apes from a primitive ancestor, it would go a long way
toward supporting the general theory of evolution. But such a
sequence has not been found, nor in fact can it be. Certainly
parts of fossil skeletons have been found and great claims have
been made, but the fossil record of supposed human and primate
evolution is (at the very best) sparse. Interpretations of the
fossils that have been found do not agree. There are as many
ape to man genealogies as there are experts. In spite of this,
the National Academy of Sciences has put out the following statement
on human evolution:
Studies in evolutionary biology have led to the conclusion
that mankind arose from ancestral primates...The 'missing links'
that troubled Darwin and his followers are no longer missing.
Today, not one but many such connecting links, intermediate between
various branches of the primate family tree, have been found
as fossils. These linking fossils are intermediate in form and
occur in geological deposits of intermediate age. They thus document
the time and rate at which primate and human evolution occurred.
(Science and Creationism, National Academy Press, Washington
DC, 1984)
Every one of the supposed "missing links" in the
primate family tree has been seriously questioned and/or discarded
from the human family tree. William R. Fix, in his book The
Bone Peddlers, examines each of the major finds through 1979
and shows that all of them are beset with problems, disqualified
by later finds or exposed as hoaxes. A sequence of fossils forming
our ancient family tree cannot be found because there
is no way to determine whether a given fossil is the ancestor
of another fossil as required by the theory of evolution. Richard
Lewontin of Harvard University made the following insightful
observations:
All the fossils which have been dug up and are claimed
to be ancestors, we haven't the faintest idea whether they are
ancestors. Because... all you've got is Homo sapiens there, you've
got that fossil there, you've got another fossil there...and
it's up to you to draw the lines. Because there are
no lines. I don't think any one of them is likely to be the direct
ancestor of the human species. But how would you know if it's
that one?
The only way you can know that some fossil is the direct
ancestor is that it's so human that it is human. There is a contradiction
there. If it is different enough from humans to be interesting,
then you don't know whether it's an ancestor or not. And if it's
similar enough to be human, then it's not interesting. ("Agnostic
Evolutionists", by Tom Bethell, Harper's Magazine,
February, 198, page 61)
The scanty fossil evidence with regard to apes and humans
is more reasonably interpreted from the creationist viewpoint.
All of the fossils proposed as "missing links" in the
evolution of apes and men are in reality either apes or men.
They do not fit somewhere between. Apes and humans existed in
the past, as they do in the present, as separate types with a
large but limited variation potential within each type. The similarities
(such as the striking similarities in their skeletons) between
apes and men, past and present, are better explained as the result
of a basic plan used by the Creator to serve as a model for creating
many different forms of life. What need was there for the Creator
to start all over with a totally new plan for each new creation?
Would you have done so?
In addition to the fossil evidence there are a number of essential
differences between men and apes which also testify that men
and apes were separate creations.
1. Men have a unique ability to use language. Apes can communicate
only in limited ways by using noises and gestures. One chimpanzee
named Washoe mastered 67 signs from the standard American sign
language for the deaf, but there is no comparison between this
learning by imitation and rewards and man's ability to learn
an alphabet, spelling and writing. Man can use language to name,
discuss, abstract and symbolize. There is absolutely no evidence
that man's ability to use language evolved. The difference between
men and apes in the use of language is a difference in kind,
not a difference in degree.
2. Man's unique ability to transmit knowledge from one generation
to the next has led to tremendous progress in developing technology
and civilization. While there are some animals that seem to have
intricate social systems (e.g. ants, bees, baboons) these are
all instinctive and remain the same from one generation to the
next. In this, too, man is different in kind from all of the
animals.
3. Man is a moral, esthetic and religious being; apes and
other animals are not. How can a random, impersonal, and nonmoral
process like evolution produce human beings with moral principles,
personal consciences, a deep appreciation for beauty, and a capacity
to worship God? There is no evidence that the apes possess such
abilities. Here too men and apes are different in kind, not just
in degree.
The evidence from God's world convinces us that it is more
reasonable to believe that men and apes were separate creations.
They were designed by the Creator based on similar blueprints,
but were made distinctly different with the capacity to vary
within limits. This testimony agrees completely with the testimony
of God's Word.
Let us all give praise to God!
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