The Bible tells us how man came to exist. We are told clearly and simply that “God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them” (Genesis 1:27). God made man different from all the animals: man was created in God’s image with a responsible and never-dying soul, and he was able to think. What a wonder!
Evolutionists reject the Genesis account of how man came to exist. They have to find some other theory to explain our amazing separate existence in this world, distinct from the animal kingdom. In many books about the history of mankind you are confronted with man’s supposed animal ancestors, and you are told that apes and chimpanzees shared these same ancestors. You might find a series of drawings of ape-like creatures becoming progressively less hairy and more erect as they adapt to walking on two feet.
Evolutionists are looking for evidence to prove that we descended from some animal; that somehow, millions of years ago, a group of animals started to walk on two feet; and that natural selection caused some survival advantage in this. But, in fact, if we applied the theory of natural selection we might conclude that a weaker, less agile animal in the process of learning to walk on two feet would have a distinctly-smaller chance of survival from its enemies. The sort of explanation put forward by some evolutionists involves back-to-front reasoning along these lines: our early ancestors who were good at walking on two legs were clearly at an advantage on dry land “because millions of years later, we walk on two legs instead of four”.
Much of the supposed evidence which is presented as support for the evolution of man from ape-like ancestors falls into one of the following three classes:
1. Hoaxes, where human and ape fossil bones have been combined and people have been led to believe the bones belonged to one individual. An example is the Piltdown Man, where the skull was from a modern human and the jawbone and teeth were from an orangutan. Then there was the tale of Nebraska Man – an ape-man derived from one tooth, which turned out to be from a species of extinct pig.
2. Emphasis is placed on the ape-like qualities of fossilised human remains. The-best known example is probably Neanderthal man who is depicted as a club-dragging, unintelligent, hairy ape-man, but was actually just a type of ordinary man. Some fossil evidence suggests that rickets and arthritis may have caused the rather unusual stance in some of these people.
3. Similarities between remains of ape-like creatures and human remains are exaggerated, with the aim of making the ape-like remains appear more like those of humans. “Lucy” is possibly the most famous of the fossil finds which fit into this category.
Lucy was found in 1973 in northern Ethiopia by a Professor Donald Johanson. She was considered to be an important find because those that found her appeared to be able to identify a knee joint which indicated that she had walked upright. In their desire to show the supposed progress from ape-like creatures to man, evolutionists latch on to any suggestion that a creature from the past walked upright. One commentator on the BBC website states that this form of movement, “known as ‘bipedalism’, is the single most important difference between humans and apes, placing Lucy firmly within the human family”.
However, there is further evidence which suggests that Lucy was actually a “knuckle-walking” creature, employing a specialised four-limbed walking method used by some living apes; it is quite different to walking upright. Further analysis of Lucy’s remains, and other remains similar to hers, also reveals that she belonged to a group of animals that had the long arms and curved fingers and toes of animals that swing through trees. Evolutionists dismiss these facts by saying they are just the evolutionary “left-overs” from previous generations.
Scientists who have studied Lucy’s remains doubt that she walked with straight legs like humans; they think it more likely that she kept her hips and knees bent, like chimpanzees do when they walk. These scientists go on to say that “there was an even closer match between Lucy’s proportions and a type of bipedalism shown by orangutans”. What does this lead you to conclude? That Lucy was probably just some type of ape, a relative of chimpanzees or orangutans?
There is no definitive scientific proof that man, known to scientists as homo sapiens, descended from ape-like creatures. One leading scientist who believes in evolution stated: “The fossils that decorate our family tree are so scarce that there are still more scientists than specimens. The remarkable fact is that all the physical evidence we have for human evolution can still be placed, with room to spare, inside a single coffin.”
Not only do the evolutionists have a problem on their hands as they try to find physical evidence of our supposed amazing transformation into physically-inferior bipedal creatures, but they also have the much greater problem of trying to explain how the human mind “evolved” with the capacity and desire for spiritual activity, thought and language.
In our natural state, our hearts rebel against the fact that we are created by God and so are accountable to Him. Many people detest this thought and, in an attempt to dismiss God from their world, they prefer to believe that they are descended from apes. David, who lived thousands of years ago, had a far greater insight into the natural world around him than many of today’s scientists. Read the whole of Psalm 8 but especially verses 3 to 5:
“When I look up unto the heavens, which Thine own fingers framed,
Unto the moon, and to the stars, which were by Thee ordained;
Then say I, What is man, that he remembered is by Thee?
Or what the son of man, that Thou so kind to him shouldest be?
For Thou a little lower hast him than the angels made;
With glory and with dignity Thou crowned hast his head.”
S M Campbell
[This is the eighth in the series entitled “How Did It All Begin?”. This article was first published in the June 2006 issue of The Young People’s Magazine. For the previous article, see Fossils.]