When it comes to the issue of transitional fossils in the case of human evolution, creationists often claim that none of the hominid fossils discovered are transitional fossils at all, insisting that they are either all-ape or all-human (and thus can be easily classified into ‘ape’ and ‘human’ categories). Scientists disagree, and point out that the fossils are from a number of closely related species intermediate between apes and humans.
Creationists also claim that evolution is somehow weakened by the fact that scientists often disagree on the classification of hominid fossils, failing to realize that in evolutionary theory, one would expect to find the fossils hard to classify, and that if the fossils could easily be placed into clear-cut categories, it would lend credence the creationist story instead.
Ed Brayton has a post up where he includes the following chart (by Jim Foley) that shows several of the major hominid specimens and how the major creationist writers classify them:
If the fossils are easily classified into ‘ape’ and ‘human’ categories, why do creationists disagree so much on how to classify them? If the lines dividing the fossils into neatly packaged categories are indeed as clear as they would like you to believe, why can’t the leading lights of ’scientific creationism’ see those lines and agree on them? Don’t the creationists realize that, contrary to their pet story, the difficulty of classifying the hominid fossils is due to the fact that the fossils are intermediates and not all-ape or all-human as they like to claim? Again, the confusion and disagreements are simply what we would expect if the evolutionary explanation, and not the creationist one, were true.
Without even realizing it, the creationists have made our point for us yet again. If only the ’scientific creationists’ were open-minded and scientific enough to fully comprehend the implications of this, they would realize that their creation myth has more holes than a porous sponge and decide to join the rest of us in reality.
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Hi Shalini,
Nice to see you’re blogging again. I enjoyed reading Scientia Natura, greatly disappointed when it ended.
Yes, the very fact that their god would make it difficult to tell the difference, doesnt speak much for intelligent design or good creation. It should be clearly distinguished – maybe with a nice little lable saying “Made in Heaven”
That’s a really good point.