Despite this lack of transitional-form fossils, which are so important for the theory of evolution, books, magazines and some textbooks still make references to "transitional forms." Many of these-Archaeopteryx or Lucy-for instance, have become emblems for the theory of evolution. One sometimes encounters headlines in newspapers and magazines to the effect that "The Missing Link has been Found."Such reports claim that some newly discovered fossil represents the transitional form that evolutionists have been seeking all these years. That being so, then what are these transitional fossils?

As this chapter will show, most of the so-called transitional forms are in reality nothing of the sort. They are all fossils of unique and fully developed species, having no ancestral relationship with any other species. Using biased interpretations and fraudulent methods, however, evolutionists depict these as transitional forms. But as you shall see, all these so-called transitional forms are the subject of debate among evolutionists themselves. Indeed, even some evolutionists who don't hesitate to face facts declare that these are not transitional forms at all!

The Coelacanth

Belonging to the class Osteichthyes, this is a large species of fish some 150 centimeters (59 inches) long and covered in thick scale resembling armor plating. Its first fossil remains are found in strata from the Devonian Period, 408 to 360 million years old. Until 1938, many evolutionist ichthyologists assumed that this creature had walked along the sea bed, using its two pairs of giant fins, and that it represented a transitional form between sea and land animals. To support these claims, evolutionists pointed to the bony structures in the fins of the coelacanth fossils in their possession.

A development in that year, however, totally undermined these claims. A living coelacanth was caught in the sea of Madagascar! Moreover, studies on this species, thought to have disappeared at least 70 million years ago, showed that it had undergone no changes at all for 400 million years.

In its April 2003 issue, Focus magazine described the astonishment this caused:

Even the discovery of a living dinosaur would have been less surprising. Because fossils show that the coelacanth existed 150-200 million years before the appearance of the dinosaurs. The creature put forward by many scientists as the ancestor of land-dwelling vertebrates, believed to have disappeared at least 70 million years ago, had been found 110

THE COELACANTH: A FISH WHICH EVOLUTIONISTS USED AS A PROPAGANDA VEHICLE UNTIL A LIVING SPECIMEN WAS DISCOVERED With the discovery in 1938 of a living coelacanth, for years portrayed as a transitional form between fish and reptiles, this creature had to be removed from the evolutionists' so-called list of proofs.

Subsequent years saw the capture of another 200 or so living coelacanths (Latimera chalumnae). It was realized that these fish, which had remained completely unaltered, lived at depths of 150 to 600 meters (.093 to .372 of a mile) and possessed a perfect body design. In 1987, Professor Hans Fricke of the Max Planck Institute descended in the mini-sub Geo to a depth of 200 meters (.124 of a mile) near the Comoro islands to the east of Africa and observed these fish in their natural environment. He saw that their bony fins had no function equivalent to the extensions in tetrapods (four-legged land animals) that allow them to walk on land.

Focus magazine described the result of his study:

The flexible fins had no similar functions to those in four-footed land vertebrates. These allowed the creature to swim head-down and in all directions, even backwards. 111

The coelacanth, showing no trace of any changes over 400 million years, left evolutionists in a difficult position. Also bearing in mind the continental drift that's occurred over that 400-million-year period, evolutionists appear to be in a terrible predicament. Focus writes:

According to the scientific facts, all the continents were joined together some 250 million years ago. This enormous area of land was surrounded by a single giant ocean. Around 125 million years ago, the Indian Ocean opened up as the result of continents changing places. The volcanic caves in the Indian Ocean, which form a large part of the coelacanth's natural habitat, came about under the influence of this movement of continents. An important truth emerges in the light of all these facts. These animals, which have been in existence for some 400 million years, have remained unchanged despite the many changes in their natural environment! 112

The fact that the coelacanth remained unchanged for 400 million years clearly contradicts the thesis that new species came into being through evolution and are constantly undergoing an evolutionary process.

Moreover, the coelacanth reveals a deep gulf between land and sea creatures, which the theory of evolution links together with an imaginary transition. As Professor Keith P. Thomson writes in his book, The Story of the Coelacanth:

For example, the first coelacanth certainly had the same rostral organ, intracranial joint, paired fins, vertebral column, hollow notochord, and reduced teeth . . . as a whole has not evolved much since the Devonian, but it also tells us that there is a big gap in the record: We are missing the sequence of even older ancestral fossil.113

The Coelacanth's Complex Structure Refutes Evolution

In addition to the fact that the coelacanth appeared suddenly with no evolutionary ancestor behind it and underwent no changes over millions of years, the fish's complex body structure also faces evolutionists with a difficult predicament. Professor Michael Bruton, director of the world- famous JLB Smith Institute in South Africa, describes the coelacanth as a very complex creature:

Birth is one of the complex features of these creatures. Coelacanths give birth to their young. The orange-sized eggs hatch inside the fish. Furthermore, there is evidence that they are nourished by an organ resembling the placenta in the mother's body. In addition to providing oxygen and nutrients from the mother to the young, the placenta is a complex structure which also disposes of waste products. Fossil embryos from the Carboniferous Period (360-290 million years ago) show that this complex system existed before the appearance of mammals.114

With the discovery of a living coelacanth, very detailed studies were made of it.

According to fossils, fish emerged some 470 million years ago. The coelacanth emerged 60 million years after that. It is astonishing that this creature, which would be expected to possess very primitive features, actually has a most complex structure.115

These are real lethal blows to the theory of evolution: The presence of the placenta-like organ and the complex structure for perceiving electromagnetic currents-in such perfect form, in such ancient periods-clearly reveals that there was no evolutionary process from the simple to the complex in this fish's natural history, as the theory of evolution would have us believe.

Another Blow to Evolution Theory from the Coelacanth: Blood Characteristics

In 1966, one coelacanth was frozen immediately after being caught. Scientists who studied the fish's blood were astonished to find the coelacanth had blood like a shark's!

All bony fish apart from the coelacanth meet their need for water by drinking sea water and expelling the excess salt from their bodies. The system in the coelacanth's body, however, is like that of the shark, a member of the cartilaginous fish family (Chondrichthyes). The shark converts the ammonia released as a result of protein breakdown into urea, and maintains levels of urea in its blood that would be lethal to human beings. It regulates the levels of these substances according to the salinity of the surrounding water. And since the blood reaches an isotonic level with sea water-when the osmotic pressures of the water inside and outside are equalized, and they achieve the same density-there is no loss of water from shark tissues to the outside.

It was also revealed that the coelacanth's liver possess the necessary enzymes to create urea. In other words, this fish possesses unique blood characteristics not found in any other species in its class and which appeared in sharks only tens of millions of years later.

According to Focus, Professor Keith S. Thomson described the discovery of the coelacanth's shark-like blood as "an evolutionary problem." The magazine then stated further that, based on molecular analyses, that no evolutionary link could be established between sharks, of the cartilaginous fish class, and coelacanths, members of the bony fish class. No evolutionary account can explain the similarity between the two species. Even molecular analyses-to which evolutionists generally resort in accounting for similarities-serve no purpose here. The only possible explanation is that these animals were created, by God.

Seymouria

Some evolutionists refer to this species of amphibian as "the ancestor of reptiles." But with the discovery that reptiles were around 30 million before that species first appeared on Earth, it emerged that Seymouria is no transitional form. The oldest Seymouria fossils date back to the Lower Permian Period-280 million years ago. Yet the oldest known reptile species, Hylonomus and Palaeothyris, were found in Lower Pennsylvanian strata, which date back 330 to 315 million years ago.116 It is of course impossible for the ancestor of reptiles to have lived long after them.

Therapsida

Therapsids are a species that evolutionists portray as a transitional form between reptiles and mammals-an invalid claim, which we can briefly review.

Fossils belonging to the order Therapsida do not confirm evolutionists' claims. First of all, Therapsids do not appear in the fossil record in the chronological order Darwinism expects. In order for evolutionists' claims to be true, Therapsida fossils should trace a line from the fully reptilian jaw to the fully mammalian one. Yet no such progression can be seen in the fossil record.

In his book Darwin on Trial, the well-known critic of Darwinism, Philip Johnson makes the following comment:

An artificial line of descent [between reptiles and mammals] can be constructed, but only by arbitrarily mixing specimens from different subgroups, and by arranging them out of their actual chronological sequence.117

The only feature common to both Therapsids and mammals are their ear and jaw bones. Considering the differences between the reptile and mammalian reproductive systems and other organs, the question of how reptiles might have evolved into mammals is a long way from being answered. The further one investigates, the more complicated the situation becomes. How could mammals-a group including such different species as primates, horses, bats, whales, polar bears, squirrels and ruminants-have evolved from reptiles by means of mutations and natural selection? This question goes unanswered.

Archaeopteryx

Archaeopteryx, which lived some 150 million years ago, is the species animal most often put forward by evolutionists as evidence for evolution. A great many of them suggest that Archaeopteryx is an extinct transitional form, exhibiting both reptile and bird characteristics. However, such modern evolutionist authorities as Alan Feduccia discount this claim as false.

The latest studies on fossils of Archaeopteryx have revealed that this was no transitional form, but a species of bird, with a few features slightly different from those of birds living today.

Herewith, some evolutionist claims regarding Archaeopteryx as a transitional form, and answers to them:

1. The subsequently discovered breastbone: Until recently, Archaeopteryx was portrayed as having no sternum or breastbone, which lack was put forward as most important evidence that it was unable to fly. (The breastbone lies under the rib cage and is where the muscles essential for flight are attached. All modern-day bird, flying or flightless, and even bats, which belongs to a family very different from birds, have breastbones.)

The seventh Archaeopteryx fossil discovered in 1992 proved, however, that this argument was false. That fossil did in fact possess the breastbone which up until then, evolutionists had discounted.118

This discovery removed the fundamental basis of the claims that Archaeopteryx was a semi-bird, and flightless.

2. The structure of its feathers: One of the most important pieces of evidence that Archaeopteryx was able to fly is the bird's feather structure. Its asymmetrical feather structure, identical to that of modern-day birds, shows that it was capable of perfect flight. As stated by the well-known paleontologist Carl O. Dunbar, "because of its feathers [Archæopteryx is] distinctly to be classed as a bird."119

The paleontologist Robert Carroll offers this explanation on the subject:

The geometry of the flight feathers of Archæopteryx is identical with that of modern flying birds, whereas nonflying birds have symmetrical feathers. The way in which the feathers are arranged on the wing also falls within the range of modern birds . . . According to Van Tyne and Berger, the relative size and shape of the wing of Archæopteryx are similar to that of birds that move through restricted openings in vegetation, such as gallinaceous birds, doves, woodcocks, woodpeckers, and most passerine birds. . . . The flight feathers have been in stasis for at least 150 million years. . . .120

3. The claws on its wings and the teeth in its beak: Evolutionists formerly considered the fact that Archaeopteryx had claws on its wings and teeth in its mouth as one of the major proofs that it was a transitional form. Yet these features do not demonstrate any relationship between this animal and reptiles. Two modern-day species of bird, Touraco corythaix and Opisthocomus hoazin, also have claws that help them to cling onto branches. These animals are fully-fledged birds, with no reptilian features. The argument that Archaeopteryx must be a transitional form because it had claws is therefore invalid.

Neither do the teeth in Archaeopteryx's mouth make it a transitional form. Evolutionists are wrong to suggest that these teeth are a reptilian characteristic. Some modern-day reptiles have teeth, but others do not. More importantly, species of toothed birds are not limited to Archaeopteryx. Though they are no longer alive today, when we look at the fossil record-at the same period as Archaeopteryx, afterward, or even at very recent history-we find a separate bird group that we may refer to as toothed birds.

More important is that the tooth structure of Archaeopteryx and other birds is very different from that of dinosaurs, these birds' so-called ancestors. According to measurements by such well-known ornithologists as L. D. Martin, J. D. Stewart and K. N. Whetstone, Archaeopteryx and other birds' teeth are flat-topped and broad-rooted. On the other hand, the teeth of the Theropod dinosaurs, claimed to have been the ancestors of birds, are irregularly topped and narrow-rooted.121 The same researchers also compared the wrist bones of Archaeopteryx and its alleged Theropod ancestors, revealing that there was no similarity between them.122

Similarities between this creature and dinosaurs suggested by John Ostrom, one of the most eminent authorities to claim that Archaeopteryx evolved from dinosaurs, were revealed by such anatomists as S. Tarsitano, M. K. Hecht and A. D. Walker to be false interpretations.123

4. Archaeopteryx's ear structure: A. D. Walker studied the ear structure of Archaeopteryx and stated that it was the same as that in present-day birds.124

(1) Hoatzin (2) Drawing of a theropod dinosaur

5. Archaeopteryx's wings: J. Richard Hinchcliffe of the University of Wales Biological Sciences Department used modern isotopic techniques in his study of embryos and established that the three dinosaur digits on the forelimbs are I-II-III, whereas bird wing digits are II-III-IV. This is a major difficulty for the proponents of the so-called Archaeopteryx-dinosaur link.125 Hinchcliffe's research and observations were carried in the famous magazine Science in 1977:

Doubts about homology between theropod and bird digits remind us of some of the other problems in the "dinosaur-origin" hypothesis. These include the following: (i) The much smaller theropod forelimb (relative to body size) in comparison with the Archaeopteryx wing. Such small limbs are not convincing as proto-wings for a ground-up origin of flight in the relatively heavy dinosaurs. (ii) The rarity in theropods of the semilunate wrist bone, known in only four species (including Deinonychus). Most theropods have relatively large numbers of wrist elements, difficult to homologize with those of Archaeopteryx. (iii) The temporal paradox that most theropod dinosaurs and in particular the birdlike dromaeosaurs are all very much later in the fossil record than Archaeopteryx.126

6. Incompatible timing: The incompatible timing identified by Hinchcliffe is one of the most lethal blows dealt to evolutionists' claims regarding Archaeopteryx. In his book Icons of Evolution, published in 2000, the American biologist Jonathan Wells emphasizes how Archaeopteryx was made into an icon for the theory of evolution, even though the evidence showed that it was not a primitive ancestor of birds at all. One of the indications of this, according to Wells, is that the Theropod dinosaurs suggested as the ancestors of Archaeopteryx are actually younger than it:

But two-legged reptiles that ran along the ground, and had other features one might expect in an ancestor of Archaeopteryx, appear later. 127

This all goes to show that Archaeopteryx is not a transitional form, but merely belongs to a separate classification, which may be described as toothed birds. Building a relationship between this animal and theropods is exceedingly inconsistent. In an article called "Demise of the 'Birds are Dinosaurs' Theory," the American biologist Richard L. Deem had this to say about the idea of the so-called bird-dinosaur evolution and Archaeopteryx:

The results of the recent studies show that the hands of the theropod dinosaurs are derived from digits I, II, and III, whereas the wings of birds, although they look alike in terms of structure, are derived from digits II, III, and IV . . . There are other problems with the "birds are dinosaurs" theory. The theropod forelimb is much smaller (relative to body size) than that of Archaeopteryx. The small "proto-wing" of the theropod is not very convincing, especially considering the rather hefty weight of these dinosaurs. The vast majority of the theropods lack the semilunate wrist bone, and have a large number of other wrist elements which have no homology to the bones of Archaeopteryx. In addition, in almost all theropods, nerve V1 exits the braincase out the side, along with several other nerves, whereas in birds, it exits out the front of the braincase, through its own hole . . . . There is also the minor problem that the vast majority of the theropods appeared after the appearance of Archaeopteryx. 128

Confuciusornis

8.Other ancient bird fossils:

In 1995, two research paleontologists from the Vertebrate Paleontology Institute in China, Lianhai Hou and Zhonghe Zhou, discovered a new bird fossil they named Confuciusornis. This bird, 140 million years old, more or less the same age as the 150- million-year-old Archaeopteryx, had no teeth, and its beak and feathers exhibited the same features as modern birds. On the wings of this bird-with its skeletal structure the same as those of birds of today- were claws like those of Archaeopteryx. The structures known as pygostyles, which support the tail feathers, could also be seen.129

Another fossil, found in China in November 1996, confused matters even more. The existence of this 130 million-year-old bird, known as Liaoningornis, was announced by L. Hou, L. D. Martin and Alan Feduccia in a paper in Science magazine.

Liaoningornis possessed a breastbone to which the flight muscles cling in modern birds. It was also identical to them in almost all other respects. The only difference was that it had teeth in its mouth. This demonstrated that toothed birds did not possess the primitive structure claimed by evolutionists.130

Another fossil which tore down evolutionists' claims concerning Archaeopteryx was Eoalulavis. Some 25 to 30 million years younger than Archaeopteryx, at 120 million years of age, Eoalulavis had the same wing structure as some flying birds today. This proved that creatures identical in many respects to modern birds were flying in the skies 120 million years ago.131

Liaoningornis

In 2002, Ricardo N. Melchor, Silvina de Valais and Jorge F. Genise announced in Nature magazine that they had found footprints belonging to birds which had lived 55 million years before Archaeopteryx:

The known history of birds starts in the Late Jurassic epoch (around 150 Myr ago) with the record of Archaeopteryx. . . . ... Here we describe well-preserved and abundant footprints with clearly avian characters from a Late Triassic redbed sequence of Argentina at least 55 Myr before the first known skeletal record of birds.132

It was thus definitively demonstrated that Archaeopteryx and other archaic birds did not constitute transitional forms. The fossils did not indicate that different bird species had evolved from one another. On the contrary, they proved that modern birds and certain Archaeopteryx-like species lived together. Some of these birds, such as Confuciusornis and Archaeopteryx, went extinct, and only a limited number came down to the present day.

Eoalulavis, established to be 120 million years old

Jeholornis

One bird fossil, found in China and given the name Jeholornis, had a long tail. This led some evolutionists to portray it as evidence that birds had evolved from dinosaurs. The fact is, however, that many species in nature may share similar features with another species, and not even evolutionists can build an ancestral links among most of them.

The octopus's eye, for instance, bears a close resemblance to the human eye. Yet not even evolutionists suggest that there is any evolutionary link between the two. Like birds or bats, flies also have wings, yet it is impossible, even for evolutionists, to propose an evolutionary link among them. For that reason, the fact that there are certain similarities between dinosaurs and birds cannot be used as evidence that the former are the ancestors of the latter.

A drawing and fossil of the bird Jeholornis

Professor Alan Feduccia, an ornithologist who has for years opposed the theory that birds evolved from dinosaurs and has revealed the errors in that thesis, offers the following analysis, despite being an evolutionist himself:

If one views a chicken skeleton and a dinosaur skeleton through binoculars they appear similar, but close and detailed examination reveals many difference. Theropod dinosaurs, for example, had curved, serrated teeth, but the earliest birds had straight, unserrated peg-like teeth. They also had a different method of tooth implantation and replacement.133

Stephen Jay Gould

In addition, mosaic creatures are known to contain features of different groups. Even prominent evolutionist authorities such as Stephen Jay Gould accept that these are not evidence for the theory of evolution.134

The Australian platypus, for instance, has mammalian, reptilian and avian features at the same time. Yet evolutionists are unable to offer an explanation of this animal in terms of their theory. The fact that a bird has a long tail is no proof that it evolved from dinosaurs. The creatures the theory of evolution needs to find as proofs are genuine transitional forms, not mosaics. Transitional forms should have organs which are deficient, missing, half-formed or not fully functional. By contrast, all the organs of mosaic creatures are fully formed and flawless.

Jeholornis, for instance, is a complete, powerful flying bird. Furthermore, this fossil was identified as being 100 million years old. Some 50 million years before this bird, there were other flying specimens, such as Archaeopteryx. To maintain that birds' half-dinosaur, half-bird ancestors lived 50 million years after them is not, of course, logical.

A platypus

Microraptor gui

In January 2003, a 130-million-year-old fossil called Microraptor gui was announced to the world. It was suggested that this fossil belonged to a four-winged dinosaur which glided from tree to tree, and that this discovery confirmed that birds had evolved from dinosaurs. However, scientists soon announced that the new species did not constitute evidence to support this claim.

For example, "Lord of the Wings," an article by Christopher P. Sloan that appeared in the May 2003 edition of National Geographic magazine, stated that Microraptor gui continued to puzzle evolutionists and that many scientists took the view that this creature was flightless. Sloan writes:

But the Chinese team that studied M. gui, led by Xu Xing and Zhou Zhonghe of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, doesn't think this animal ran or flapped well enough to take off. Its leg feathers would've tripped it up like a hurdler in a ball gown.

A drawing and fossil of Microraptor gui

Instead, the ample feathers could have formed an airfoil or parachute similar to those of flying squirrels and other tree-dwelling gliders, the scientists say. 135

Other scientists also object to the thesis that this creature began to fly while gliding from tree to tree: They do not regard it as reasonable for these creatures to waste energy by beating their wings when there was an easier alternative. Other researchers also maintain that Microraptor gui's feet feathers were unsuited to flight, even by gliding.

In short, the dino-bird theory is a dogma kept alive by means of propaganda and preconception. As we have seen in the example of Microraptor gui, speculation along those lines has eventually been disproved and condemned to abandonment.

Sinovenator changii is not the Ancestor of Birds

Evolutionists suggest that the 130 million year old dinosaur fossil Sinovenator changii, discovered in China, is the ancestor of birds. Yet the oldest known bird, Archaeopteryx, lived 150 million years ago; in other words it is 20 million years older than the fossil in question. That being so, it's impossible for Sinovenator changii to be the ancestor of birds, because it lived at the same time as birds which have the same features as modern-day birds, and even 20 million years after them.

Sinovenator changii

Despite no feathers being found on the fossil, assuming that it was actually feathered and concluding from this that dinosaurs are definitely the ancestors of birds is of course not scientific. Moreover, even the feathers on dinosaur fossils previously found in the Yixian Region are debatable. Many scientists agree that the structures seen in these fossils are not feathers.

None of the possible feathered dinosaurs is a certainty. Even if some feather-like structures are found in fossils of these creatures, it has not been established that these really were feathers. As we saw in preceding pages, authorities such as Feduccia maintain that these are collagen fibers-and that it's a grave error to regard them as feathers.136

The Myth of Equine Evolution

In the field of the origin of mammals, the myth of equine evolution has for long been the foundation of Darwinists' arguments. This is all a myth, however, based on imagination rather than scientific facts.

Until recently, dramatizations of the evolution of the horse headed the evidence for the theory of evolution. Today, however, many evolutionists openly admit the invalidity of the equine evolution scenario. A four-day meeting at the Chicago Museum of Natural History in November 1980, attended by 15 evolutionists, considered the problems of the theory of gradual evolution. One speaker, Boyce Rensberger, described how the portrayal of the horse's evolution had no scientific foundations:

The popularly told example of horse evolution, suggesting a gradual sequence of changes from four-toed fox-sized creatures living nearly 50 million years ago to today's much larger one-toed horse, has long been known to be wrong. Instead of gradual changes, fossils of each intermediate species appear fully distinct, persist unchanged, and then become extinct. Transitional forms are unknown.137

This series of horses in a museum actually consists of various creatures that lived at different times and in different places, assembled in an arbitrary order. There is no evidence in the fossil record of the horse's so-called ancestors.

In expressing this important problem in such an honest manner, Rensberger was saying that the gravest dilemma facing the whole theory in the fossil record was that of transitional forms.

The well-known evolutionist paleontologist Niles Eldredge of New York's American National History Museum, says the following about this scenario:

I admit that an awful lot of that [imaginary story] has gotten into the textbooks as though it were true. For instance, the most famous example still on exhibit downstairs [in the American Museum] is the exhibit on horse evolution prepared perhaps 50 years ago. That has been presented as literal truth in textbook after textbook. Now I think that that is lamentable.138

The so-called evolutionary tree of the horse consists of various mammals that lived in different periods, strung together in the light of evolutionists' expectations. The sizes and features of the animals in this imaginary tree, as well as the periods they lived in, clearly reveal the inconsistencies within that series. (1) The present day (2) 25 million years ago (3) 50 million years ago

So, what is the foundation of the equine evolution hypothesis? The exhibits consisted of setting out, from small to large, of fossils belonging to different species that lived in India, South America, North America and Europe at very different times, arranged in the light of the power of evolutionists' imaginations. Various researchers have proposed more than 20 charts of the evolution of the horse-which, by the way, are totally different from one other. There is no agreement among evolutionists concerning these very different family trees. The only common feature in these classifications is the belief that a dog-like creature Eohippus or "dawn horse" (Hyracotherium), which lived in the Eocene period some 55 million years ago, was the first ancestor of the horse. However, Eohippus, which became extinct millions of years ago, is almost identical to the mammal known as the hyrax, which lives today in Africa and has no connection to horses at all.139

The invalidity of the claim of equine evolution is being seen more clearly every day with the discovery of new fossils. Fossils of horse breeds alive today (Equus nevadensis and Equus occidentalis) have been found in the same strata as Eohippus.140 This shows that the modern-day horse was alive at the same time as its alleged ancestor, and proves that the process of equine evolution never happened.

Eohippus, believed to have been the first ancestor of the horse, has nothing to do with and no similarity to the horse, although it bears a close resemblance to the hyrax, which lives in present-day Africa.

In his book The Great Evolution Mystery, which considers subjects which Darwinism is unable to explain, the evolutionist writer Gordon R. Taylor describes the essence of the horse-series myth:

But perhaps the most serious weakness of Darwinism is the failure of paleontologists to find convincing phylogenies or sequences of organisms demonstrating major evolutionary change. . . . The horse is often cited as the only fully worked-out example. But the fact is that the line from Eohippus to Equus is very erratic. It is alleged to show a continual increase in size, but the truth is that some variants were smaller than Eohippus, not larger. Specimens from different sources can be brought together in a convincing-looking sequence, but there is no evidence that they were actually ranged in this order in time.141

All this reveals that the plans of equine evolution, one of the soundest pieces of evidence for the theory of evolution, are imaginary and possessed of no validity whatsoever. Like other species, horses came into being with no evolutionary ancestors behind them.

Horses appear fully formed in the fossil record, with all their features in tact. If horses had really come into being through evolution, then they must have undergone transitional stages such as those shown on the right on this page and those overleaf. Yet there is very definitely no trace of such forms in the fossil record. (1) A fully formed and complete present-day horse. (2) Example of an imaginary transitional form.

If horses had come into existence by means of evolution, as evolutionists maintain, then deformed, crippled and odd-looking creatures would have emerged at every stage. Yet the fossil record reveals that there were no such flawed, deficient animals in the natural history of the horse; and that they were created fully and completely. (3) An imaginary transitional form of which there is no trace in the fossil record (4) One of many examples of a fully formed horse (5-6) Imaginary transitional forms, of which there are no trace in the fossil record

Ramapithecus

Ramapithecus is regarded as one of the worst errors of the theory of evolution. This name was given to fossil remains found in India in 1932, which were claimed to represent the first step in the separation of human beings and apes, some 14 million years ago. Evolutionists used it as iron-clad evidence over the 50 years from its first discovery in 1932, until it was realized to be completely erroneous in 1982.

In the May 1977 edition of Scientific American, the American evolutionist Dr. Elwyn Simons wrote the following about Ramapithecus: "This extinct primate is the earliest hominid or distinctively man-like, member of man's family tree. The finding of many new specimens of it has clarified its place in human evolution." He then added, with even greater confidence, "pathway can now be traced with little fear of contradiction from generalized hominids-to the genus Homo."142

The importance of Ramapithecus in human evolution was realized with an article Simons wrote for Time magazine in November 1977, in which he stated: "Ramapithecus is ideally structured to be an ancestor of hominids. If he isn't, we don't have anything else that is."143

(1) Dryopithecus (2) Ramapithecus

An article by Dr. Robert B. Eckhardt, published in Scientific American in 1972, considered the conclusions from 24 different measurements of Ramapithecus teeth and those of Dryopithecus (an extinct species of gorilla). Dr. Eckhardt compared these measurements to ones he had previously taken from chimpanzees. According to these comparisons, the difference between the teeth of living chimpanzees was greater than that between Ramapithecus and Dryopithecus. Eckhardt summed up his conclusions:

Ramapithecus was once considered to be partially man-like, but is now known to be fully ape-like.144

Like Eckhardt, Richard Leakey had his doubts about Ramapithecus. According to Leakey, it was far too early to come to any definite decision about Ramapithecus, which consisted of a few jawbones. Leakey summarized his thoughts in these words: "The case for Ramapithecus as a hominid is not substantial, and the fragmentary material leaves many questions open."145

Unlike the U shape in monkeys, the structure of the human jaw is parabolic (more V-shaped), in such a way as to permit speech, and this had been known for a long time. It was thought that Ramapithecus possessed a parabolic jaw like that of humans.

But the reconstructions made by Elwyn Simons in 1961, based on a piece of the Ramapithecus lower jaw and code-numbered YPM 13799, showed a totally parabolic structure in all teeth except for the incisors. That reconstruction was accepted by a number of authors and used in various studies. In 1969, however, Genet and Varcin showed that using the exact same fragments, different reconstructions could also be made with a U shape just like that in monkeys.. Furthermore, many living species of monkey possess the same characteristics as Ramapithecus. One baboon (Theropithecus galada) living at high elevations in Ethiopia is short, with a deep face and shorter incisors than other monkeys, just like Ramapithecus and the Australopithcines.

However, a 1982 article in Science magazine called "Humans Lose an Early Ancestor" declared that this new transitional form was erroneous and nothing more than an extinct orangutan:

A group of creatures once thought to be our oldest ancestors may have just been firmly bumped out of the human family tree, according to Harvard University paleontologist David Pilbeam. Many paleontologists have maintained that ramamorphs are our oldest known ancestors, evolving after we split away from the African apes. But these conclusions were drawn from little more than a few jaw bones and some teeth. The heavy jaw and thickly enameled teeth resemble those of early human ancestors," says Pilbeam, but in more significant aspects, such as the shape of its palate, the closely set eye sockets that are higher than they are broad, and the shape of the jaw joint, it looks more like an orangutan ancestor. 146

The Turkana Boy

The best-known of the Homo erectus fossils found in Africa is the so-called "Turkana Boy" discovered near lake Turkana in Kenya. The fossil is that of a 12-year-old child who, it is estimated, would have grown to a full height of 1.83 meters. The fossil's erect skeletal structure is identical to that of modern-day humans. The American paleontologist Alan Walker says that he doubts "the average pathologist could tell the difference between the fossil skeleton and that of a modern human". Walker says that he laughed when he saw the skull, because "it looked so much like a Neanderthal."147 Homo erectus is, therefore, a modern human race.

Alan Walker and Richard Leakey	THE DIFFERENT HUMAN RACES ARE NO EVIDENCE OF EVOLUTION

The conclusion reached by scientists who support the above thesis can be summarized as follows: H. erectus is not a different species from H. sapiens, but a race within our species. There is a huge gulf between H. erectus, a human race, and the apes that precede it in the "human evolution" scenario: Australopithecus, H. habilis and H. rudolfensis). In other words, the first human fossils to appear in the fossil record emerge suddenly and at the same time, with no evolutionary process.

Lucy

This is the name of the famous fossil discovered in 1974 by the American anthropologist Donald Johanson. Many evolutionists have claimed that Lucy is a transitional form between man and his so-called ape-like ancestors. Subsequent studies, however, revealed that Lucy was merely an extinct species of ape.

Lucy represents a species belonging to the genus Australopithecus-an ape genus referred to earlier which has been revealed to have nothing to do with human evolution. This particular species (Australopithecus afarensis) has a brain the same size as that of chimpanzees, and its ribs and jawbone are exactly the same as those of present-day chimpanzees. Its arms and legs show that the creature walked in the same way as a chimpanzee. Even its pelvis resembles that of chimpanzees.148

Donald Johanson (right), finder of the fossil "Lucy," examining another Australopithecus afarensis fossil.

Again, though evolutionists point to the ape-like features of creatures belonging to the Australopithecus group, of which Lucy is a part, they maintain that it had a human-like posture and gait. Yet research has shown that this is not the case. The Harvard anthropologist William Howells writes that Lucy's gait was not a transition towards that of human beings:

There is general agreement that Lucy's gait is not properly understood, and that it was not something simply transitional to ours.149

University of California professor of anthropology Adrienne Zihlman states that Lucy's fossil remains match up remarkably well with the bones of a pygmy chimp.150

In an article in New Scientist, Dr. Jeremy Cherfas says the following about Lucy's skull:

Lucy, alike Australopithecus afarensis, had a skull very like a chimpanzee's, and a brain to match.151

The French magazine Science et Vie gave Lucy a cover story in its May 1999 edition. The article titled "Adieu Lucy" ("Farewell to Lucy") wrote that apes of the Australopithecus genus needed to be removed from the human family tree. In this article, based on the finding of a new Australopithecus fossil, St W573, the following statements appeared:

A new theory states that the genus Australopithecus is not the root of the human race. . . . The results arrived at by the only woman authorized to examine St W573 are different from the normal theories regarding mankind's ancestors This destroys the hominid family tree. Large primates, considered the ancestors of man, have been removed from the equation of this family tree. . . . Australopithecus and Homo (human) species do not appear on the same branch. Man's direct ancestors are still waiting to be discovered. 152

Another article by Tim Friend in USA Today made the following comment about Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis), who is portrayed as a direct ancestor of Man:

Lucy's scientific name is Australopithecus afarensis. She looked very similar to a modern bonobo chimpanzee, with a small brain, a protruding face and large molar teeth. But Lucy has been losing favor over the past 10 years as the direct ancestor of the genus Homo. Lucy has ape-like features not found in supposed descendants. 153

The article also devotes some space to the views of Smithsonian Museum of Natural History's "Origin of Man" program head Richard Potts, according to which Potts and a great many other evolutionists now accept the need for Lucy to be removed from the human family tree.154

KNM-ER 1470 (Homo rudolfensis)

Richard Leakey described the skull which he identified as KNM-ER 1470 and estimated to be 2.8 million years old, as the greatest discovery in the history of anthropology. It prompted an enormous reaction. According to Leakey, this creature had a small skull volume like that of Australopithecus, but a human-like face, and was the missing link between Australopithecus and Man. Shortly after, however, it was realized that the "human-like" face of the KNM-ER 1470 skull, used as the cover story in scientific magazines, was actually the result-maybe even deliberate-of errors in putting together the parts of the skull. Professor Tim Bromage, who works on the anatomy of the human face, summarizes this fact with the help of computer simulations he produced in 1992:

When it [KNM-ER 1470] was first reconstructed, the face was fitted to the cranium in an almost vertical position, much like the flat faces of modern humans. But recent studies of anatomical relationships show that in life, the face must have jutted out considerably, creating an ape-like aspect, rather like the faces of Australopithecus. 155

The paleontologist J. E. Cronin says this on the subject:

KNM-ER 1470, like other early Homo specimens, shows many morphological characteristics in common with gracile australopithecines that are not shared with later specimens of the genus Homo.156

C. Loring Brace of University of Michigan reached the following conclusion regarding the skull following analyses he performed on its jaw and tooth structure: "from the size of the palate and the expansion of the area allotted to molar roots, it would appear that ER 1470 retained a fully Australopithecus-sized face and dentition."157

The skulls portrayed as transitional forms constitute a totally imaginary classification. (1) Homo habilis skull (2) A reconstruction of Homo rudolfensis

Alan Walker, a John Hopkins University professor of anthropology who has studied KNM-ER 1470 at least as much as Leakey, maintains that this creature should not be included with such human species as Homo erectus or H. rudolfensis, but rather in the Australopithecus genus.158

In short, classifications such as H. habilis or H. rudolfensis, which are sought to be portrayed as a transitional form between Australopithecus and H. erectus, are purely imaginary. As most researchers now accept, these creatures are all members of the Australopithecus genus. All their anatomical features indicate that these creatures were all species of ape.

This fact was made even clearer by the evolutionary anthropologists Bernard Wood and Mark Collard in their study published in Science magazine in 1999. They declared that Homo habilis and H. rudolfensis (the skull 1470 species) categories were imaginary, and that the fossils included in these categories needed to be studied within the genus Australopithecus:

More recently, fossil species have been assigned to Homo on the basis of absolute brain size, inferences about language ability and hand function, and retrodictions about their ability to fashion stone tools. With only a few exceptions (1, 2), the definition and use of the genus within human evolution, and the demarcation of Homo, have been treated as if they are unproblematic. But are the criteria set out above appropriate and workable, and is this a proper use of the genus category? (3-5). We provide an overview of the genus category and show that recent data, fresh interpretations of the existing evidence, and the limitations of the paleoanthropological record invalidate existing criteria for attributing taxa to Homo. . . . Regardless of any formal definitions, in practice fossil hominin species are assigned to Homo on the basis of one or more out of four criteria. . . . It is now evident, however, that none of these criteria is satisfactory. The Cerebral Rubicon is problematic because absolute cranial capacity is of questionable biological significance. Likewise, there is compelling evidence that language function cannot be reliably inferred from the gross appearance of the brain, and that the language-related parts of the brain are not as well localized as earlier studies had implied. . . ..

In other words, with the hypodigms of H. habilis and H. rudolfensis assigned to it, the genus Homo is not a good genus. Thus, H. habilis and H. rudolfensis (or Homo habilis sensu lato for those who do not subscribe to the taxonomic subdivision of "early Homo") should be removed from Homo. The obvious taxonomic alternative, which is to transfer one or both of the taxa to one of the existing early hominin genera, is not without problems, but we recommend that, for the time being, both H. habilis and H. rudolfensis should be transferred to the genus Australopithecus.159

The conclusion arrived at by Wood and Collard confirms what we have been saying: There are no primitive human ancestors in history. The creatures purported to be so are actually apes which should be included under Australopithecus. The fossil record shows that these extinct species of ape have no evolutionary relationship to Homo, the human species that appear suddenly in that record.

Sahelanthropus tchadensis

One of the most recent discoveries to overturn the theory of evolution's claims regarding the origin of man is a fossil found in the central African country of Chad in the summer of 2002.

Sahelanthropus tchadensis

This fossil, named Sahelanthropus tchadensis, set the cat among the pigeons in evolutionist circles. In its report announcing the discovery of the fossil, the world famous magazine Nature admitted that, "New-found skull could sink our current ideas about human evolution."160

Daniel Lieberman of Harvard University said that this new discovery "will have the impact of a small nuclear bomb."161

The reason for this is that according to the criteria currently adopted by evolutionists, despite the fossil being 7 million years old, it possessed a more human-like structure than apes of the Australopithecus genus which are 5 million years old and claimed to be man's oldest ancestor. This showed that the evolutionary relationships constructed among all these extinct species of ape on exceedingly subjective and preconceived grounds of similarity to man, were entirely fictitious.

In "Oldest Member of Human Family Found," an article in the July 11, 2002, edition of Nature magazine, John Whitfield confirmed this view by using a quotation from George Washington University evolutionist paleontologist Bernard Wood:

When I went to medical school in 1963, human evolution looked like a ladder. The ladder stepped from monkey to man through a progression of intermediates, each slightly less ape-like than the last. . . . ... Now human evolution looks like a bush. . . . How they (fossils) are related to each other and which, if any of them, are human forebears is still debated.162

With regard to the newly discovered fossil, the comments of Henry Gee, editor of Nature magazine and a prominent palaeoanthropologist, were of great importance. In an article published in The Guardian newspaper, he touched on the debate on the fossil:

Whatever the outcome, the skull shows, once and for all, that the old idea of a "missing link" is bunk. . . . But it should now be quite plain that the very idea of the missing link, always shaky, is now completely untenable.163

Nature, July 11, 2002

Orrorin tugenensis

Discovered in 2000 and described as "the Millennium Man," Orrorin tugenensis is a species based on twelve small fossils. The French researchers who discovered the fossil, Martin Pickford (Collège de France) and Brigitte Senut (National Museum of Natural History, Paris) claimed that this species walked on two legs. Yet this view has not received wide acceptance among evolutionists. Most evolutionists think that this species could not have walked in a bipedal manner. Professor Leslie Aiello of the University of London thinks that the claim that the species was in fact bipedal is not based on sound foundations, and even that the species might be the ancestor of apes, not of human beings.164

Fossil findings of Orrorin tugenensis, known as Millennium Man.

Under these circumstances, evolutionists, who hoped to regard the fossil as human-like, had to throw the Lucy fossil-on whose behalf they had engaged in so much propaganda-into the trash bin. That was because the researchers who discovered Orrorin tugenensis suggested that in morphological terms, this species was closer to the genus Homo than to the Australopithecines, in other words, that it was closer than Australopithecus afarensis, to which Lucy belongs, and A. amanensis. The researchers maintain that evolution cannot have worked backwards and recommend that the genus Australopithecus be removed from the family tree.165

In conclusion, Orrorin tugenensis assumed its place in the literature as another fossil that merely confused the evolutionists' family tree and placed them in another terrible dilemma.

The New Java Fossil, Sm4

A fossil consisting of the calvarium (upper skull) and established as dating back to the Pleistocene Period (1.8 million to 10.000 years BCE)) was found in the region of Sangbungman in Indonesia. Evolutionist researchers maintained that this skull, with a brain volume of 1006 cubic centimeters, was a transitional form from man's alleged primitive ancestors to modern human beings. The fossil, known as Sm4 for short, was claimed to be an evolutionary transitional form between H. erectus specimens (Sangiran and Ngangdong) previously discovered in Java. It was also suggested that one important feature of the Sm4 fossil was that its brainstem region was livelier than those of the other Java specimens, resembling Homo sapiens in this regard. However, these evolutionist claims were based on preconceptions.

Evolutionists describe the H. erectus fossils as primitive human beings, and portray them as so-called transitional forms in their imaginary family tree. The fact is, however, as the preceding chapters show, there is evidence that H. erectus was alive at the same time as humans, Homo sapiens.

Furthermore, it is also estimated that the skull, calculated to have a volume of 1006 cubic centimeters, in all likelihood belonged to a young or middle-aged male. Bearing in mind that the largest ape skull is no larger than 650 cubic centimeters, this means it definitely belongs to a human. The eyebrow ridges are of very reasonable dimensions for any present-day human. To such an extent, in fact, that if that fossil being were alive today and walked through a crowded area in modern-day clothes, nobody would pay him any attention.

Despite being an evolutionist himself, Kenneth Mowbray, an American Museum of Natural History palaeoanthropologist who studied the fossil, opposes the classification of Sm4 as a transitional form, stating that the differences observed in the Indonesian fossil skull stem from natural variety seen in any species. Mowbray says this in his interpretation on National Geographic's website:

If you look at modern human populations, you see people with skulls that are short and round, and skulls that are long and narrow; these are normal variances within any population.166

In short, evolutionist speculation regarding the Sm4 fossil is based on no scientific evidence. Sm4 is the fossil of a human being, and not a transitional form.

Ardipithecus ramidus kaddaba

In 2001, Haile Selassie, an anthropologist at the University of California, claimed that the fossil he had discovered in Ethiopia was the first ancestor of man. Given the name Ardipithecus ramidus kaddaba, it supposedly represented a half-human half-ape creature that evolutionists had been hoping to find for the last 150 years. This discovery, announced in the July 12, 2001 edition of Nature and the July 13, 2001 edition of Science, also appeared in such magazines as Time.167

However, there were several inconsistencies in the reports concerning the fossil, and even evolutionists accept that it will be a matter for debate whether this creature will be regarded as a transitional form in the so-called evolution of mankind. For instance, in an article called "Return to the Planet of the Apes," Henry Gee, senior editor at Nature magazine in which the results of the research were published, stated that such a description based on these remains was debatable:

The designation of A. r. kadabba as a subspecies will be controversial...168

Nevertheless, the fossil was still described as a primitive form of human being, in a manner totally based on evolutionist prejudices, and was regarded as suitable for filing in an apparent gap in the evolutionary family tree.

In his criticism, Henry Gee explains why these evolutionist interpretations do not reflect the facts. He states that, looking at these bones, there were several possibilities as to these creatures' life style and behavior, , but that no account could be fully scientifically satisfactory:

I doubt that the status of these creatures can be resolved to general satisfaction.169

In short, these facts clearly reveal that the alleged evolutionary relationship between man and ape is unfounded .

To examine the inconsistencies displayed by evolutionist scientists with regard to this fossil:

1. The bones were found kilometers (miles) away from one another and on different dates:

The fossil consists of seven bone fragments and four teeth. Pointing to a single toe fragment, Time magazine claimed that the creature "walked upright."170 On the final page of the 8-page article, however, it's stated that this toe was found 16 kilometers (10 miles) away from the other bones. When the original report in Nature is examined, it is revealed that "To date, 11 hominid specimens have been recovered at five localities since the first (a partial mandible) was recovered from Alayla in 1997."171 The toe fragment was discovered in 1999, and is 0.6 million years younger than the other bones found. In other words, all the bones found do not belong to the same creature, nor even to creatures which lived in the same period!

A toe bone claimed to belong to A. r. kaddaba

Interpreting bones collected in such a way, commenting about the features of a living thing, and attempting to locate this creature somewhere in human evolution is nothing more than propaganda, and has nothing whatsoever to do with science.

2. The fossil's tooth structure conflicts with the imaginary tree of human evolution:

Morphologically speaking, A. r. kaddaba is regarded as part of the Ardipithecus group, since it bears certain similarities to Ardipithecus ramidus which Tim White found in 1992. However, the fossil's tooth structure is inconsistent with that grouping, because the fossil is 1.5 million years older than the one discovered in 1992. As stated in Time, however, the 4.4 million-year-old teeth of ramidus have more ape-like features than the 5.8 million-year-old kaddaba teeth. In other words, the younger fossil's teeth are more ape-like than those of the older one. But according to the evolution theory, the ape-like structures should disappear as time goes by. This fact, reported by evolutionists as insignificant, is actually important in revealing that the imaginary ape-man chronology is full of inconsistencies.

Donald Johanson, a professor of anthropology and director of the Institute of the Human origins at Arizona State University, refers to the preconceived classification being made:

. . . when you put 5.5 million-year-old fossils together with 4.4 million-year-old ones as members of the same species, you're not taking into consideration that these could be twigs on a tree. Everything's been forced into a straight line 172

An Ardipithecus ramidus tooth

3. This creature is an extinct species of chimpanzee

Some evolutionists regard Ardipithecus as a link in the chain between human beings and apes. Henry Gee, however, says that this fossil resembles a chimpanzee much more than it does a human.

In an article published in the July 13, 2001 edition of Science, Bernard Wood makes the following comment:

It is a mistake to feel that one has to squeeze this [fossil] into the category of human or chimp ancestor.173

Time magazine cites these words by Wood,

This might be the first example of a creature it's not possible to label as hominid ancestor or chimp ancestor. But that doesn't make it the last common ancestor of both. I think it's going to be very hard to pin the tail on that donkey.174

Evolutionists seek to portray extinct species of ape as parts of a chain between human beings and apes. These creatures, described with the appendix of -pithecus, which means "tailless ape" in Latin, are actually extinct tailless species of ape and constitute no evidence for human evolution. The fossils described as the ancestors of human beings are in fact extinct chimpanzees. Lucy, for instance, the best-known -pithecus (Australopithecus afarensis), has a brain the same size as that of a chimp, and identical ribs and jawbone to those of chimpanzees, while her legs and arms show that she walked like chimpanzees. Even her pelvis is that of chimpanzees.175

John Mastropaolo, regarded as one of the world's most eminent authorities on fossil science, studied the toes for himself, comparing kadabba's toes with those of humans, chimpanzees and baboons. Mastropaolo compared anatomical criteria from a mathematical perspective and arrived at very different conclusions. The toe did not resemble chimpanzee or baboon toes, and the resemblance between it and human toes was insufficient. His conclusions were announced on August 27, 2002, at a conference in San Diego held by the American Physiological Society. The final part of the article said that its identification as a bipedal evolutionary ancestor was purely speculative:

Accordingly, the objective ancestry analyses for fossil bones assert that the conclusions of Haile-Salassie and Robinson were farfetched speculations.176

In conclusion, as stated in Nature, the Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba fossil resembles a chimpanzee and has nothing to do with the origins of mankind.

Kenyanthropus platyops

The fossil Kenyanthropus platyops, discovered in 2001 and known as "flat-faced man," was proclaimed by its finders, Meave Leakey and her team, to be the ancestor of man. The fact is, however, that this 3.5-million-year-old fossil skull totally overturned the so-called family tree depicting human evolution, so beloved of evolutionists, and further complicated the inconsistencies.

This fossil, which even the world's most prominent evolutionists are unable to fit into their imaginary scheme, has more advanced features, according to evolutionist criteria, than certain species of chimpanzees (such as Lucy) that lived after it. Therefore, that fossil with its very different characteristics totally overturned evolutionists' assumptions, since they were at a loss where to place it.

A report concerning K. platyops on the BBC website.

Looking at all the fossils so far discovered and discussed here, we can see clearly that there is no evolutionary scheme with apes evolving from a common ancestor and turning, stage by stage, into man. On the contrary, the plan is in complete chaos.

The imaginary evolutionary tree: Every fossil discovered merely further confuses the imaginary picture of human evolution, and increases the number of inconsistencies.

Underneath the diagram appeared this comment:

Scientists are struggling to sort the relationships between their diverse collection of hominids. 178

Daniel E. Lieberman Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University, made the following comments regarding Kenyanthropus platyops in an article in Nature magazine:

The evolutionary history of humans is complex and unresolved. It now looks set to be thrown into further confusion by the discovery of another species and genus, dated to 3.5 million years ago. . . . The nature of Kenyanthropus platyops raises all kinds of questions, about human evolution in general and the behaviour of this species in particular. Why, for example, does it have the unusual combination of small cheek teeth and a big flat face with an anteriorly positioned arch of the cheekbone? All other known hominin species with big faces and similarly positioned cheek bones have big teeth. I suspect the chief role of K. platyops in the next few years will be to act as a sort of party spoiler, highlighting the confusion that confronts research into evolutionary relationships among hominins.179

The BBC report appeared under the captions "Flat-faced man is puzzle," "Confusing picture," "Scientific challenge" and said,

The discovery by Meave Leakey, of the National Museums of Kenya, and colleagues threatens to blur still further the already murky picture of man's evolution.180

Dr. Fred Spoor, the famous evolutionist from University College, London, commented of the fossil, "It raises a lot of questions."181

Meave Leakey

In short, the theory of evolution is in a terrible dilemma, as can be seen from these statements and confessions. In the field of paleontology in particular, every new discovery presents the theory with a new contradiction. Evolutionists, who set out an imaginary table for so-called human evolution, place fossils belonging to various extinct species of monkey and human races and try to make them compatible with their schemas.

Yet no fossil is actually compatible, since human beings did not evolve from a common ancestor with apes. Throughout history, human beings have always been human beings, and monkeys have always been monkeys. For that reason, the theory of evolution will find itself in yet another quandary with every new scientific discovery.

The Dmanisi Skulls

In 2002, three fossil skulls were discovered in the Dmanisi region of Georgia, near the capital, Tbilisi. Some evolutionists sought to depict these skulls as transitional forms between human beings and their alleged ancestors, while many others were obliged to admit that these skulls overthrew a number of evolutionist claims. One was Daniel E. Lieberman from Harvard University, who said that the skull would totally undermine some peoples' ideas that the first human beings migrated from Africa.182

The following comments about the three fossil skulls appeared in Science magazine:

Taken together, the three Dmanisi skulls suggest that our ancestors left Africa earlier, and at an earlier stage of evolution, than had long been assumed. But where exactly do the Dmanisi remains fit on the hominid family tree-and do they represent one or more species? Those questions are sparking much debate...183

Evolutionists could not decide how to classify these skulls, and each one put forward a different idea. Science devoted space to these views:

. . . the team classifies the new skull, like the other two, as Homo erectus. . . . In fact, some features of the diminutive new skull also resemble H. habilis. . . . Indeed, says Rightmire, if the researchers had found these bones first, they might have called the fossils H. habilis.184

In other words, according to Rightman, the reason for this fossil being classified as Homo erectus was the fact that other fossils found in the same region were also classified as H. erectus. These statements all make it clear that the fossils are described totally in accord with evolutionists' wishes, preconceptions and expectations.

On the other hand, Ian Tattersall of the American Museum of Natural History classified the fossils neither as H. erectus nor as H. habilis:

This specimen underlines the need for a thorough going reappraisal of the diversity of early . . . Homo 185

The Dmanisi fossil skulls, announced by National Geographic magazine as "The finding that shakes the Scientific World," further increases the inconsistencies in evolutionists' claims regarding the alleged evolution of humans.

National Geographic magazine announced the new fossil under the caption "Skull Fossil Challenges Out-of-Africa Theory." This article contained the views of David Lordkipanidze, who performed the research in question in Georgia and discovered the fossils:

The variation among the hominids recovered at Dmanisi makes it difficult to say exactly who these people were, said Lordkipanidze. He suggests that the variation may force scientists to rethink the definition of "Homo."186

Reid Ferring, a member of the same team and at the same time an archaeologist at University of North Texas, has this to say:

The Dmanisi fossils show much more variation than we would have expected from any group of humans at that time.187

These were not the only evolutionists to offer different interpretations of these fossils. Eric Delson of The City University of New York, Alan Walker of Pennsylvania State University and Milford H. Wolpoff of University of Michigan have also offered totally incompatible views regarding them.

Since the theory of evolution has no scientific foundations and is kept alive by means of fictitious scenarios and propaganda techniques, it is equally impossible to find any fossil that might support it. Darwinists have written an imaginary natural history and have sought to fit fossils into that. Yet the exact opposite actually happened, with each new fossil discovery placing the theory into an ever deeper quandary.

The Fossil Forgery Known as Piltdown Man

The Piltdown Man forgery

In 1949, however, Kenneth Oakley of the British Museum Paleontology Department requested that a fluorine test, a new method of determining age, be performed on certain old fossils. The Piltdown Man fossil was duly subjected to the test, and the conclusion was most surprising, showing that Piltdown Man's jawbone contained no fluorine. This meant that the jawbone had been under the earth for no more than a few years. The skull, which contained a low level of fluorine, was only a few thousand years old.

Subsequent chronological investigations based on the fluorine method revealed that the skull was indeed only a few thousand years old. It was also realized that the teeth in the jawbone had been artificially abraded, and that the primitive tools found beside the fossil had been carved with steel implements. The forgery was confirmed by Weiner's detailed analyses in 1953. The skull was human and 500 years old, and the jawbone belonged to a recently dead orangutan!

Evolutionists interpreting the Piltdown Man

The teeth had been specially added and ordered later in order to give the impression they belonged to a human being, and the joints had been filed. Then all the parts had been stained with potassium-dichromate to age them-stains that disappeared when the bones were dipped in acid. Le Gros Clark, one of the team who uncovered the forgery, was unable to conceal his astonishment: "The evidences of artificial abrasion immediately sprang to the eye. Indeed so obvious did they seem it may well be asked-how was it that they had escaped notice before?"190 At this, Piltdown Man, which had been on display for nearly 40 years, was hurriedly removed from the British Museum.

The "Nebraska Man" Scandal

In 1922 Henry Fairfield Osborn, director of the American Museum of Natural History, announced that a fossil molar from the Pliocene Period had been discovered near Snake Valley in Western Nebraska. This tooth, it was claimed, bore features common to both humans and apes. Before long, in-depth scientific debates on the subject had begun. Some people interpreted this tooth as Pithecanthropus erectus, and others regarded it as being closer to man. This fossil, which gave rise to considerable debate, was given the name of Nebraska Man. A scientific name for it was also produced: Hesperopithecus haroldcooki.

Many authorities supported Osborn. Based on this single tooth, pictures of Nebraska Man's skull and reconstructions of his body were drawn. This in fact went even further, with depictions being produced of Nebraska Man, his wife and children, in their natural environment.

Imaginary drawings of Nebraska Man and his family

All these fantasies were spun from a single tooth. Evolutionist circles so adopted this fictitious man that when one researcher, William Bryan, opposed such definitive verdicts being given on the basis of just one tooth, the heavens fell down on top of him.

In 1927, however, other parts of the skeleton were found. According to these, the original tooth actually belonged neither to an ape nor to a human being, but to a species of extinct wild American pig, Prsothennops. William Gregory captioned his article in which he announced the error, "Hesperopithecus: Apparently Not an Ape, Nor a Man."191 In conclusion, all the pictures of Hesperopithecus haroldcooki and his family were swiftly withdrawn from the literature.

The Fake Dino-Bird Archaeoraptor

Unable to find what they sought in Archaeopteryx, the proponents of the theory of evolution pinned their hopes on certain other fossils in the 1990s. A string of "dino-bird fossil" claims began appearing in the media in those years. It was shortly realized, however, that all these claims were the work of misinterpretation, and even of fraud.

The first example of these dino-bird claims came with the story of the fossil feathered dinosaur found in China, which appeared in 1996 to great media attention. A fossil reptile given the name Sinosauropteryx had been found, although some evolutionist paleontologists who examined the fossil suggested that it actually had bird feathers, unlike all known reptiles. Studies performed the following year, however, revealed that the fossil possessed no feature resembling bird feathers.

An article called "Plucking the Feathered Dinosaur" in Science magazine stated that the structures perceived as feathers by evolutionist paleontologists actually had nothing to do with feathers at all:

Exactly 1 year ago, paleontologists were abuzz about photos of a so-called "feathered dinosaur," which were passed around the halls at the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. The Sinosauropteryx specimen from the Yixian Formation in China made the front page of The New York Times, and was viewed by some as confirming the dinosaurian origins of birds. But at this year's vertebrate paleontology meeting in Chicago late last month, the verdict was a bit different: The structures are not modern feathers, say the roughly half-dozen Western paleontologists who have seen the specimens. . . . Larry Martin of Kansas University, Lawrence, thinks the structures are frayed collagenous fibers beneath the skin 192

An even greater dino-bird storm erupted in 1998. In its July edition of that year, National Geographic magazine stated that the idea that birds had evolved from dinosaurs finally rested on sound scientific foundations. The article devoted considerable space to the fossil found in China, maintaining that it possessed both avian and reptilian characteristics. The writer, Christopher P. Sloan, was so convinced by the interpretation of the fossil that he wrote, "We can now say that birds are theropods just as confidently as we say that humans are mammals."193 This species, said to have lived 125 million years ago, was given a scientific name: Archaeoraptor lioaningensis.

However, this fossil was actually a forgery, consisting of five different fossils expertly put together. One group of researchers, including three paleontologists, confirmed the forgery with the help of computer tomography a year later. The dino-bird was in fact the work of a Chinese evolutionist. Chinese amateurs had assembled their dino-bird together from 88 bones and teeth, using adhesive and plaster. The front part of the Archaeoraptor consisted of a bird fossil, and its tail and hindquarters contained bones from four different species.

Have they not looked at the birds above them, with wings outspread and folded back? Nothing holds them up but the All-Merciful. He sees all things. (Surat al-Mulk, 19)

The interesting thing about this was the way National Geographic unhesitatingly published such a simple forgery, and suggested, based on this, that the scenario of bird evolution had now been proven. Dr. Storrs Olson of the Smithsonian Institution Museum of National History, said that he had warned National Geographic beforehand that this fossil was a forgery, but that the magazine's management had totally ignored this. According to Olson, "National Geographic has reached an all-time low for engaging in sensationalistic, unsubstantiated, tabloid journalism."194

In the following letter to Peter Raven, a National Geographic employee, Olson described in some detail the behind-the-scenes goings-on in the magazine's dino-bird storm:

Prior to the publication of the article "Dinosaurs Take Wing" in the July 1998 National Geographic, Lou Mazzatenta, the photographer for Sloan's article, invited me to the National Geographic Society to review his photographs of Chinese fossils and to comment on the slant being given to the story. At that time, I tried to interject the fact that strongly supported alternative viewpoints existed to what National Geographic intended to present, but it eventually became clear to me that National Geographic was not interested in anything other than the prevailing dogma that birds evolved from dinosaurs.

Sloan's article takes the prejudice to an entirely new level and consists in large part of unverifiable or undocumented information that "makes" the news rather than reporting it. His bald statement that "we can now say that birds are theropods just as confidently as we say that humans are mammals" is not even suggested as reflecting the views of a particular scientist or group of scientists, so that it figures as little more than editorial propagandizing. This melodramatic assertion had already been disproven by recent studies of embryology and comparative morphology, which, of course, are never mentioned.

More importantly, however, none of the structures illustrated in Sloan's article that are claimed to be feathers have actually been proven to be feathers. Saying that they are is little more than wishful thinking that has been presented as fact. The statement on page 103 that "hollow, hairlike structures characterize protofeathers" is nonsense considering that protofeathers exist only as a theoretical construct, so that the internal structure of one is even more hypothetical.

The hype about feathered dinosaurs in the exhibit currently on display at the National Geographic Society is even worse, and makes the spurious claim that there is strong evidence that a wide variety of carnivorous dinosaurs had feathers. A model of the undisputed dinosaur Deinonychus and illustrations of baby tyrannosaurs are shown clad in feathers, all of which is simply imaginary and has no place outside of science fiction.

Sincerely,

Storrs L. Olson

Curator of Birds

National Museum of Natural History

Smithsonian Institution 195

This fossil forgery indicates two important facts: First, people seeking evidence for the theory of evolution can easily be taken in by forgeries.

Second, certain scientific magazines, which have assumed the mission of imposing the theory of evolution on readers, completely disregard the possibility that discoveries that they think they can use on behalf of the theory of evolution may be wrongly or otherwise interpreted, and thus use them for propaganda purposes. In other words, they behave dogmatically, not scientifically, and can easily make logical concessions to defend the theory of evolution in which they believe so strongly.

Another important aspect is that there is no evidence that birds evolved from dinosaurs. Since no evidence can be found, forgeries are made, or else the existing evidence is distorted and misinterpreted. In fact, there is no evidence that birds could have evolved from a different living class. On the contrary, all the evidence shows that birds appeared suddenly on earth with all their individual bodily characteristics.