At Evolution News: The Standard Story of Human Evolution: A Critical Look

_{Eric Hedin

October 26, 2022

Human evolution, Intelligent Design}

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Despite disagreements, there is a standard story of human evolution that is retold in countless textbooks, news media articles, and documentaries. Indeed, virtually all the scientists I am citing here accept some evolutionary account of human origins, albeit flawed.
Starting with the early hominins and moving through the australopithecines, and then into the genus Homo, I will review the fossil evidence and assess whether it supports this standard account of human evolution. As we shall see, the evidence — or lack thereof — often contradicts this evolutionary story.

Photo: Ardipithecus ramidus, by Tiia Monto, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons.

Early Hominins

In 2015, two leading paleoanthropologists reviewed the fossil evidence regarding human evolution in a prestigious scientific volume titled Macroevolution. They acknowledged the “dearth of unambiguous evidence for ancestor-descendant lineages,” and admitted,

[T]he evolutionary sequence for the majority of hominin lineages is unknown. Most hominin taxa, particularly early hominins, have no obvious ancestors, and in most cases ancestor-descendant sequences (fossil time series) cannot be reliably constructed.¹

Nevertheless, numerous theories have been promoted about early hominins and their ancestral relationships to humans.

One leading fossil is described below:

Ardipithecus ramidus: Irish Stew or Breakthrough of the Year?

In 2009, Science announced the long-awaited publication of details about Ardipithecus ramidus (pictured above), a would-be hominin fossil that lived about 4.4 million years ago (mya). Expectations mounted after its discoverer, UC Berkeley paleoanthropologist Tim White, promised a “phenomenal individual” that would be the “Rosetta stone for understanding bipedalism.”¹⁷ The media eagerly employed the hominin they affectionately dubbed Ardi to evangelize the public for Darwin.
Discovery Channel ran the headline “‘Ardi,’ Oldest Human Ancestor, Unveiled,” and quoted White calling Ardi “as close as we have ever come to finding the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans.”¹⁸ The Associated Press declared, “World’s Oldest Human-Linked Skeleton Found,” and stated that “the new find provides evidence that chimps and humans evolved from some long-ago common ancestor.”¹⁹ Science named Ardi the “breakthrough of the year” for 2009,²⁰ and introduced her with the headline, “A New Kind of Ancestor: Ardipithecus Unveiled.”²¹

Calling Ardi “new” may have been a poor word choice, for it was discovered in the early 1990s. Why did it take some 15 years to publish the analyses? A 2002 article in Science explains the bones were “soft,” “crushed,” “squished,” and “chalky.”²² Later reports similarly acknowledged that “portions of Ardi’s skeleton were found crushed nearly to smithereens and needed extensive digital reconstruction,” including the pelvis, which “looked like an Irish stew.”²³
Claims about bipedal locomotion require accurate measurements of the precise shapes of key bones (like the pelvis). Can one trust declarations of a “Rosetta stone for understanding bipedalism” when Ardi was “crushed to smithereens”? Science quoted various paleoanthropologists who were “skeptical that the crushed pelvis really shows the anatomical details needed to demonstrate bipedality.”²⁴

Even some who accepted Ardi’s reconstructions weren’t satisfied that the fossil was a bipedal human ancestor. Primatologist Esteban Sarmiento concluded in Science that “[a]ll of the Ar. ramidus bipedal characters cited also serve the mechanical requisites of quadrupedality, and in the case of Ar. ramidus foot-segment proportions, find their closest functional analog to those of gorillas, a terrestrial or semiterrestrial quadruped and not a facultative or habitual biped.”²⁵ Bernard Wood questioned whether Ardi’s postcranial skeleton qualified it as a hominin,²⁶ and co-wrote in Nature that if “Ardipithecus is assumed to be a hominin,” then it had “remarkably high levels of homoplasy [similarity] among extant great apes.”²⁷ A 2021 study found that Ardi’s hands were well-suited for climbing and swinging in trees, and for knuckle-walking, giving it a chimp-like mode of locomotion.²⁸ In other words, Ardi had ape-like characteristics which, if we set aside the preferences of Ardi’s promoters, should imply a closer relationship to apes than to humans. As the authors of the Nature article stated, Ardi’s “being a human ancestor is by no means the simplest, or most parsimonious explanation.”²⁹Sarmiento even observed that Ardi had characteristics different from both humans and African apes, such as its unfused jaw joint, which ought to remove her far from human ancestry.³⁰
Whatever Ardi was, everyone agrees the fossils was initially badly crushed and needed extensive reconstruction. No doubt this debate will continue, but are we obligated to accept the “human ancestor” position promoted by Ardi’s discoverers in the media? Sarmiento doesn’t think so. According Time magazine, he “regards the hype around Ardi to have been overblown.”³¹

Full article at Evolution News.

Notes

Bernard Wood and Mark Grabowski, “Macroevolution in and around the Hominin Clade,” Macroevolution: Explanation, Interpretation, and Evidence, eds. Serrelli Emanuele and Nathalie Gontier (Heidelberg, Germany: Springer, 2015), 347-376.
Michel Brunet et al., “Sahelanthropus or ‘Sahelpithecus’?,” Nature 419 (October 10, 2002), 582.
Michel Brunet et al., “A new hominid from the Upper Miocene of Chad, Central Africa,” Nature 418 (July 11, 2002), 145-151. See also Michel Brunet et al., “New material of the earliest hominid from the Upper Miocene of Chad,” Nature 434 (April 7, 2005), 752-755.
Smithsonian Natural Museum of Natural History, “Sahelanthropus tchadensis,” https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/sahelanthropus-tchadensis (accessed November 30, 2020).
“Skull Find Sparks Controversy,” BBC News (July 12, 2002), http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2125244.stm (accessed October 26, 2020).
Milford Wolpoff et al., “Sahelanthropus or ‘Sahelpithecus’?” Nature 419 (October 10, 2002), 581-582.
Roberto Macchiarelli et al., “Nature and relationships of Sahelanthropus tchadensis,” Journal of Human Evolution 149 (2020), 102898.
Macchiarelli et al., “Nature and relationships of Sahelanthropus tchadensis.”
Madelaine Böhme, quoted in Michael Marshall, “Our supposed earliest human relative may have walked on four legs,” New Scientist (November 18, 2020), https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24833093-600-our-supposed-earliest-human-relative-may-have-walked-on-four-legs/ (accessed November 30, 2020).
Bob Yirka, “Study of partial left femur suggests Sahelanthropus tchadensis was not a hominin after all,” Phys.org (November 24, 2020), https://phys.org/news/2020-11-partial-left-femur-sahelanthropus-tchadensis.html (accessed November 30, 2020).
Potts and Sloan, What Does It Mean to Be Human?, 38.
John Noble Wilford, “Fossils May Be Earliest Human Link,” New York Times (July 12, 2001), http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/12/world/fossils-may-be-earliest-human-link.html (accessed October 26, 2020).
John Noble Wilford, “On the Trail of a Few More Ancestors,” New York Times (April 8, 2001), http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/08/world/on-the-trail-of-a-few-more-ancestors.html (accessed October 26, 2020).
Leslie Aiello and Mark Collard, “Our Newest Oldest Ancestor?” Nature 410 (March 29, 2001), 526-527.
K. Galik et al., “External and Internal Morphology of the BAR 1002’00 Orrorin tugenensis Femur,” Science 305 (September 3, 2004), 1450-1453.
Sarmiento, Sawyer, and Milner, The Last Human, 35.
Tim White, quoted in Ann Gibbons, “In Search of the First Hominids,” Science 295 (February 15, 2002), 1214-1219.
Jennifer Viegas, “‘Ardi,’ Oldest Human Ancestor, Unveiled,” Discovery News (October 1, 2009), https://web.archive.org/web/20110613073934/http://news.discovery.com/history/ardi-human-ancestor.html (accessed October 26, 2020).
Randolph Schmid, “World’s Oldest Human-Linked Skeleton Found,” NBC News (October 1, 2009), https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna33110809 (accessed October 26, 2020).
Ann Gibbons, “Breakthrough of the Year: Ardipithecus ramidus,” Science 326 (December 18, 2009), 1598-1599.
Gibbons, “New Kind of Ancestor,” 36-40.
White, quoted in Gibbons, “In Search of the First Hominids,” 1214-1219, 1215-1216.
Michael Lemonick and Andrea Dorfman, “Ardi Is a New Piece for the Evolution Puzzle,” Time (October 1, 2009), http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1927289,00.html (accessed October 26, 2020).
Gibbons, “New Kind of Ancestor,” 36-40, 39.
Esteban Sarmiento, “Comment on the Paleobiology and Classification of Ardipithecus ramidus,” Science 328 (May 28, 2010), 1105b.
Gibbons, “New Kind of Ancestor,” 36-40.
Bernard Wood and Terry Harrison, “The Evolutionary Context of the First Hominins,” Nature 470 (February 17, 2011), 347-352.
Thomas C. Prang, Kristen Ramirez, Mark Grabowski, and Scott A. Williams, “Ardipithecus hand provides evidence that humans and chimpanzees evolved from an ancestor with suspensory adaptations,” Science Advances 7 (February 24, 2021), eabf2474.
New York University, “Fossils may look like human bones: Biological anthropologists question claims for human ancestry,” ScienceDaily (February 16, 2011), https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110216132034.htm (accessed October 26, 2020).
See Eben Harrell, “Ardi: The Human Ancestor Who Wasn’t?,” Time (May 27, 2010), http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1992115,00.html (accessed October 26, 2020).
Harrell, “Ardi: The Human Ancestor Who Wasn’t?”

Comments

Asauber: The above is bare assertion, completely devoid of evidence, something that I guess “sounds good”, otherwise, meaningless. It’s like something from the Proverbial Randomy Science-Like Phrase Generator. But I have told you, several times, where you can find evidence and discussion of why that is the case in a book, easily available and not expensive, written expressly for general, non-specialist readers. Have you bothered to even try and find that book and read it? Of course not. Stop asking for evidence if you're not going to look at it when someone tells you where to find it.JVL_{October 28, 2022
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AF , so was William Smith making his decisions as a geologist or as a palaeontologist , there is a difference .Marfin_{October 28, 2022
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Or let's give a shout out to women in science. Let's hear it for Mary Anning, arguably the first working paleontologist. No atheist agenda there, just making a living.Alan Fox_{October 28, 2022
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Show me the test methods show me the empirical experimentation , then I will consider palaeontology a reliable scientific field...
I find that hard to believe. And who do you think you are, James Tour? ;) Seriously, do you think paleontology is some kind of scam? Start with William Smith. He made a map of Britain based on his knowledge and research of rock strata (he worked in the mining industry as a surveyor). He noticed that fossils and strata matched. His research, discoveries and conclusions were pragmatic and useful. He was able to reliably predict where new extraction sites for minerals should be located.Alan Fox_{October 28, 2022
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AF & DC So Radiometric dating (rocks to date the fossils) , biostratigraphy (fossils to date the rocks) and comparative anatomy (well if they look alike they must be ancestral) these are the best tools available to the palaeontologist , no wonder its not considered a real science , these guys are historians at best . Show me the test methods show me the empirical experimentation , then I will consider palaeontology a reliable scientific field , and not a search to prove what you already believe.Marfin_{October 28, 2022
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Luskin's article fails even in the usual style of ID criticisms of mainstream science. Paleontologists regularly have to revise provisional conclusions when new discoveries are made. I notice he does not mention Ardipithecus ramidus at all.Alan Fox_{October 27, 2022
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Luskin's next article is up:
The Human Fossil Record Lacks Intermediaries - Casey Luskin - October 27, 2022 https://evolutionnews.org/2022/10/the-human-fossil-record-lacks-intermediaries/
bornagain77_{October 27, 2022
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as to "indeed the embryos of each species develop in only one way.”
"There is always an observable consequence if a dGRN (developmental gene regulatory network) subcircuit is interrupted. Since these consequences are always catastrophically bad, flexibility is minimal, and since the subcircuits are all interconnected, the whole network partakes of the quality that there is only one way for things to work. And indeed the embryos of each species develop in only one way.” – Eric Davidson – developmental biologist The Diverse Early Embryonic Development of Vertebrates and Implications Regarding Their Ancestry David W. Swift - July 21, 2022 Excerpt: It is well known that the embryonic development of vertebrates from different classes (e.g., fish, reptiles, mammals) pass through a “phylotypic stage” when they look similar, and this apparent homology is widely seen as evidence of their common ancestry. However, despite their morphological similarities, and contrary to evolutionary expectations, the phylotypic stages of different vertebrate classes arise in radically diverse ways. This diversity clearly counters the superficial appearance of homology of the phylotypic stage, and the plain inference is that vertebrates have not evolved from a common vertebrate ancestor. The diversity extends through all stages of early development—including cleavage and formation of the blastula, gastrulation, neurulation, and formation of the gut and extraembryonic membranes. This paper focuses on gastrulation, during which the germ layers originate and the vertebrate body-plan begins to form.,,, https://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2022.1/pdf "The earliest events leading from the first division of the egg cell to the blastula stage in amphibians, reptiles and mammals are illustrated in figure 5.4. Even to the untrained zoologist it is obvious that neither the blastula itself, nor the sequence of events that lead to its formation, is identical in any of the vertebrate classes shown. The differences become even more striking in the next major phase of embryo formation - gastrulation. This involves a complex sequence of cell movements whereby the cells of the blastula rearrange themselves, eventually resulting in the transformation of the blastula into the intricate folded form of the early embryo, or gastrula, which consists of three basic germ cell layers: the ectoderm, which gives rise to the skin and the nervous system; the mesoderm, which gives rise to muscle and skeletal tissues; and the endoderm, which gives rise to the lining of the alimentary tract as well as to the liver and pancreas.,,, In some ways the egg cell, blastula, and gastrula stages in the different vertebrate classes are so dissimilar that, where it not for the close resemblance in the basic body plan of all adult vertebrates, it seems unlikely that they would have been classed as belonging to the same phylum. There is no question that, because of the great dissimilarity of the early stages of embryogenesis in the different vertebrate classes, organs and structures considered homologous in adult vertebrates cannot be traced back to homologous cells or regions in the earliest stages of embryogenesis. In other words, homologous structures are arrived at by different routes." - Michael Denton - Evolution: A Theory in Crisis - pg 145-146 Evolution by Splicing – Comparing gene transcripts from different species reveals surprising splicing diversity. – Ruth Williams – December 20, 2012 Excerpt: A major question in vertebrate evolutionary biology is “how do physical and behavioral differences arise if we have a very similar set of genes to that of the mouse, chicken, or frog?”,,, A commonly discussed mechanism was variable levels of gene expression, but both Blencowe and Chris Burge,,, found that gene expression is relatively conserved among species. On the other hand, the papers show that most alternative splicing events differ widely between even closely related species. “The alternative splicing patterns are very different even between humans and chimpanzees,” said Blencowe.,,, http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view%2FarticleNo%2F33782%2Ftitle%2FEvolution-by-Splicing%2F Frequent Alternative Splicing of Human Genes – 1999 Excerpt: Alternative splicing can produce variant proteins and expression patterns as different as the products of different genes. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC310997/ Widespread Expansion of Protein Interaction Capabilities by Alternative Splicing - 2016 In Brief Alternatively spliced isoforms of proteins exhibit strikingly different interaction profiles and thus, in the context of global interactome networks, appear to behave as if encoded by distinct genes rather than as minor variants of each other.,,, Page 806 excerpt: As many as 100,000 distinct isoform transcripts could be produced from the 20,000 human protein-coding genes (Pan et al., 2008), collectively leading to perhaps over a million distinct polypeptides obtained by post-translational modification of products of all possible transcript isoforms (Smith and Kelleher, 2013). http://iakouchevalab.ucsd.edu/publications/Yang_Cell_OMIM_2016.pdf
bornagain77_{October 27, 2022
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embryogenesis
You want to call gestation a development event. Fine, now how is this useful for anything to do with Evolution? No one understands how gestation works or has shown that it leads to anything new. Aside: Gestation is what has to be explained, not an explanation for anything to do with Evolution.
cascading gene activation
What is this and why is it relevant for Evolution?jerry_{October 27, 2022
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A Listener's Guide to the Meyer-Marshall Debate: Focus on the Origin of Information Question - Casey Luskin - December 4, 2013 Excerpt: "There is always an observable consequence if a dGRN (developmental gene regulatory network) subcircuit is interrupted. Since these consequences are always catastrophically bad, flexibility is minimal, and since the subcircuits are all interconnected, the whole network partakes of the quality that there is only one way for things to work. And indeed the embryos of each species develop in only one way." - Eric Davidson - developmental biologist http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/12/a_listeners_gui079811.html What are gene regulatory networks, and why are they a problem for Darwin’s theory? - Stephen Meyer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_AdxcTQ1no The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories - Stephen C. Meyer - 2004 Excerpt: This problem has led to what McDonald (1983) has called "a great Darwinian paradox" (p. 93). McDonald notes that genes that are observed to vary within natural populations do not lead to major adaptive changes, while genes that could cause major changes--the very stuff of macroevolution--apparently do not vary. In other words, mutations of the kind that macroevolution doesn't need (namely, viable genetic mutations in DNA expressed late in development) do occur, but those that it does need (namely, beneficial body plan mutations expressed early in development) apparently don't occur.6 According to Darwin (1859:108) natural selection cannot act until favorable variations arise in a population. Yet there is no evidence from developmental genetics that the kind of variations required by neo-Darwinism--namely, favorable body plan mutations--ever occur.,,, ,,, If an engineer modifies the length of the piston rods in an internal combustion engine without modifying the crankshaft accordingly, the engine won't start. Similarly, processes of development are tightly integrated spatially and temporally such that changes early in development will require a host of other coordinated changes in separate but functionally interrelated developmental processes downstream. For this reason, mutations will be much more likely to be deadly if they disrupt a functionally deeply-embedded structure such as a spinal column than if they affect more isolated anatomical features such as fingers (Kauffman 1995:200). http://www.discovery.org/a/2177
bornagain77_{October 27, 2022
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@27
One could say the same about pink weightless unicorns on a frictionless surface. First I ever heard of something that’s nonsense becomes logical because one can conceive of it. We are into a new territory of the absurd here.
I'm coming from a philosophical background. It's more or less standard in philosophy to say that everything conceivable is logically possible. One could, I think, conceive of pink weightless unicorns on a frictionless surface. They just aren't physically possible. @28
First because there is no such thing as a developmental event at least in terms of biology.
Then what would you call stages of embryogenesis and cascading gene activation?PyrrhoManiac1_{October 27, 2022
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Why are changes in the timing of developmental events biologically impossible
First because there is no such thing as a developmental event at least in terms of biology. So how can something that does not exist be a possible explanation? It just sounds good but is also absurd.jerry_{October 27, 2022
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Clearly they are not logically impossible, since we can conceive of them!
One could say the same about pink weightless unicorns on a frictionless surface. First I ever heard of something that’s nonsense becomes logical because one can conceive of it. We are into a new territory of the absurd here.jerry_{October 27, 2022
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@25:
The above is bare assertion, completely devoid of evidence, something that I guess “sounds good”, otherwise, meaningless. It’s like something from the Proverbial Randomy Science-Like Phrase Generator.
I borrowed the phrase from Oyama's The Ontogeny of Information. It's quite good. Inoculated me against simplistic neo-Darwinism at an early age.PyrrhoManiac1_{October 27, 2022
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"changes in timing of developmental events generate new functional structures" My 2 cents, The above is bare assertion, completely devoid of evidence, something that I guess "sounds good", otherwise, meaningless. It's like something from the Proverbial Randomy Science-Like Phrase Generator. Andrewasauber_{October 27, 2022
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Marfin/18 AF beat me to the punch in comment 19 where he does a great job listing both the current tools in paleontology and the limitations thereof.chuckdarwin_{October 27, 2022
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Why are changes in the timing of developmental events biologically impossible?
*retches popcorn* ETA *leaves Freudian slip alone*Alan Fox_{October 27, 2022
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@21
But such developments are impossible biologically and logically.
Why are changes in the timing of developmental events biologically impossible? (Clearly they are not logically impossible, since we can conceive of them!)PyrrhoManiac1_{October 27, 2022
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Perhaps better put, changes in timing of developmental events generate new functional structures. If those functional structures alter organismal goals in ways that tend to facilitate differential reproductive success, evolution by natural selection is the net effect. In other words, the causal mechanisms are developmental and ecological — natural selection isn’t some additional causal mechanism, but rather, it’s what tends to happen as a result of these causal mechanisms interacting over time.
But such developments are impossible biologically and logically. In addition, there is zero evidence any such process occurred once in history let alone the thousands of times that would be necessary. It is essentially a begging the question fallacy. Must have happened so what sounds good. But it is actually impossible to have happened.jerry_{October 27, 2022
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Again, Darwinists have no clue how 'biological form' is achieved in the first place, so obviously much less can they have any realistic clue of how a 'transformation of forms' might actually take place. As Doug Axe, (no slouch in molecular biology), stated, "We have no idea how a single cell produces an adult",,,.
"The mere fact that a firefly comes from a single cell that then develops into a firefly puts it in a completely different league [from an iPhone]. That doesn’t happen with smartphones. Factories make smartphones. Fireflies come from fireflies and come from an initial fertilized cell. It’s absolutely mind-boggling. We have no idea how a single cell produces an adult. These things are marvelous." - Doug Axe - The Problem with Theistic Evolution - video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkAxRY41ndU
And as Alexander Tsiaras stated at the 7:25 minute mark of the following video, "The magic of the mechanisms inside each genetic structure saying exactly where that nerve cell should go, the complexity of these, the mathematical models on how these things are indeed done, are beyond human comprehension. Even though I am a mathematician, I look at this with the marvel of how do these instruction sets not make these mistakes as they build what is us. It's a mystery, it's magic, it's divinity."
Alexander Tsiaras: Conception to birth — visualized – video – 7:25 minute mark https://youtu.be/fKyljukBE70?t=443
And in keeping with the fact that Darwinists have no realistic clue how a single cell turns into the 30 trillion cells that make up a typical human body, it should not be surprising to find out that there is a stark lack of 'intermediate fossils', (i.e. transformation of biological forms), when we look at the fossil record as a whole, The entire fossil record, when viewed in its entirety, instead of just piecemeal, (and with a heavy Darwinian bias as it is with human fossils), is VERY antagonistic to the entire Darwinian narrative. From the Cambrian explosion onward, the entire fossil record simply refuses to conform to Darwinian expectations. Charles Darwin himself acknowledged that the Cambrian explosion was a problem for his theory,
“Consequently, if the theory be true, it is indisputable that, before the lowest Silurian or Cambrian stratum was deposited long periods elapsed, as long as, or probably far longer than, the whole interval from the Cambrian age to the present day; and that during these vast periods the world swarmed with living creatures… To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods, I can give no satisfactory answer… The case at present must remain inexplicable; and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views here entertained.” – Charles Darwin – Chapter IX, “On the Imperfection of the Geological Record,” On the Origin of Species, – fifth edition (1869), pp. 378-381.
In fact the Cambrian explosion is now, 160 years on, even more of a problem for Darwin’s theory than it was in Darwin’s day. As Stephen Meyer noted in the following recent video at the 8:00 minute mark, “The Cambrian Explosion,, has become more explosive”
‘The Cambrian Explosion,, has become more explosive” – Stephen Meyer Takes On Darwin’s Tree – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXKAMR94-rc
And what makes the Cambrian explosion so explosive, so ‘un-Darwinian, and so ‘upside-down’, to what Darwin predicted is the fact that it is phyla, (which are among the very highest taxonomic categories), that are found to be ‘explosively’ appearing in the Cambrian explosion first without any plausible precursors. As the following article states, “the major pulse of diversification of phyla occurs before that of classes, classes before that of orders, orders before that of families. The higher taxa do not seem to have diverged through an accumulation of lower taxa.”
Jerry Coyne’s Chapter on the Fossil Record Fails to Show “Why Evolution is True” – Jonathan M. – December 4, 2012 Excerpt: Taxonomists classify organisms into categories: species are the very lowest taxonomic category. Species are classified into different genera. Genera are classified into different families. Families are classified into different orders. Orders are classified into different classes. And classes are classified into different phyla. Phyla are among the very highest taxonomic categories (only kingdom and domain are higher), and correspond to the high level of morphological disparity that exists between different animal body plans. Phyla include such groupings as chordates, arthropods, mollusks, and echinoderms. Darwin’s theory would predict a cone of diversity whereby the major body-plan differences (morphological disparity) would only appear in the fossil record following numerous lower-level speciation events. What is interesting about the fossil record is that it shows the appearance of the higher taxonomic categories first (virtually all of the major skeletonized phyla appear in the Cambrian, with no obvious fossil transitional precursors, within a relatively small span of geological time). As Roger Lewin (1988) explains in Science, “Several possible patterns exist for the establishment of higher taxa, the two most obvious of which are the bottom-up and the top-down approaches. In the first, evolutionary novelties emerge, bit by bit. The Cambrian explosion appears to conform to the second pattern, the top-down effect.” Erwin et al. (1987), in their study of marine invertebrates, similarly conclude that, “The fossil record suggests that the major pulse of diversification of phyla occurs before that of classes, classes before that of orders, orders before that of families. The higher taxa do not seem to have diverged through an accumulation of lower taxa.” Indeed, the existence of numerous small and soft-bodied animals in the Precambrian strata undermines one of the most popular responses that these missing transitions can be accounted for by them being too small and too-soft bodied to be preserved. - per evolution news
And as James Valentine explained, “The record of the first appearance of living phyla, classes, and orders can best be described in Wright’s (1) term as ‘from the top down’.”
The Ham-Nye Creation Debate: A Huge Missed Opportunity – Casey Luskin – February 4, 2014 Excerpt: “The record of the first appearance of living phyla, classes, and orders can best be described in Wright’s (1) term as ‘from the top down’.” (James W. Valentine, “Late Precambrian bilaterians: Grades and clades,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 91: 6751-6757 (July 1994).) - per evolution news
And as Chen Junyuan, one of the world’s leading researchers on the Cambria explosion, observed, “Darwin’s tree is a reverse cone shape”
Chinese microscopic fossil find challenges Darwin’s theory – 11 November, 2014 Excerpt: One of the world’s leading researchers on the Cambria explosion is Chen Junyuan from the Nanjing Institute of Palaeontology and he said that his fossil discoveries in China show that “Darwin’s tree is a reverse cone shape”. A senior research fellow at Chengjiang Fauna [fossil site], said, “I do not believe the animals developed gradually from the bottom up, I think they suddenly appeared”. As a medical professional and former atheist, I ignorantly believed that Darwin’s evolutionary theory was a scientific fact. The fact is, Darwinism has never been more than an unproven theory,,, per scmp
Moreover, it is not only the Cambrian explosion where the fossil record is, basically, completely upside-down from what Darwin’s theory predicts. The following study which “looked at nearly one hundred fossil groups” that appeared subsequent to Cambrian explosion, found that “This pattern, known as ‘early high disparity’, turns the traditional V-shaped cone model of evolution on its head.”
Scientific study turns understanding about evolution on its head – July 30, 2013 Excerpt: evolutionary biologists,,, looked at nearly one hundred fossil groups to test the notion that it takes groups of animals many millions of years to reach their maximum diversity of form. Contrary to popular belief, not all animal groups continued to evolve fundamentally new morphologies through time. The majority actually achieved their greatest diversity of form (disparity) relatively early in their histories. ,,,Dr Matthew Wills said: “This pattern, known as ‘early high disparity’, turns the traditional V-shaped cone model of evolution on its head. What is equally surprising in our findings is that groups of animals are likely to show early-high disparity regardless of when they originated over the last half a billion years. This isn’t a phenomenon particularly associated with the first radiation of animals (in the Cambrian Explosion), or periods in the immediate wake of mass extinctions.”,,, Author Martin Hughes, continued: “Our work implies that there must be constraints on the range of forms within animal groups, and that these limits are often hit relatively early on. Co-author Dr Sylvain Gerber, added: “A key question now is what prevents groups from generating fundamentally new forms later on in their evolution.,,, - per phys org
That the fossil record is severely discordant, even ‘upside-down’, to what Darwin’s theory predicts is not just some fringe belief that is held by the dreaded creationists, but is something that is readily, and widely, acknowledge by leading Paleontologists. At the 16:49 minute mark of the following 2021 video, Dr. Gunter Bechly, who is a paleontologist himself, quotes many leading Darwinian paleontologists who also agree that the fossil record is severely discordant with Darwin’s theory.
Gunter Bechly Explains What The Fossil Evidence Really Says – video (2021) https://youtu.be/V15sjy7gtVM?t=1009 Günter Bechly video: Fossil Discontinuities: A Refutation of Darwinism and Confirmation of Intelligent Design – 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7w5QGqcnNs The fossil record is dominated by abrupt appearances of new body plans and new groups of organisms. This conflicts with the gradualistic prediction of Darwinian Evolution. Here 18 explosive origins in the history of life are described, demonstrating that the famous Cambrian Explosion is far from being the exception to the rule. Also the fossil record establishes only very brief windows of time for the origin of complex new features, which creates an ubiquitous waiting time problem for the origin and fixation of the required coordinated mutations. This refutes the viability of the Neo-Darwinian evolutionary process as the single conceivable naturalistic or mechanistic explanation for biological origins, and thus confirms Intelligent Design as the only reasonable alternative.
Thus, given the fact that the entire fossil record, (when viewed in its entirety instead of just piecemeal), simply does not conform to Darwinian expectations, (and is even ‘upside-down’ to Darwinian expectations), then, obviously, we have more than sufficient reason to be VERY suspicious of the claims from Darwinists that the fossil record for human evolution is, supposedly, a ‘slam dunk’. And indeed, when we zoom-in on the fossil evidence that purports to ‘unquestionably’ establish that humans evolved from some chimp-like ancestor, (as Casey Luskin is currently doing in his series), we find that things are not nearly as neat and tidy as Darwinists have falsely portrayed them to be to the general public with their imaginary 'just-so stories'bornagain77_{October 27, 2022
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Martin, are you aware of two evolutionary concepts: anagenesis and cladogenesis? Beyond a certain limit, no more than a million years, molecular phylogenetics (the powerful tool to settle fine details of taxonomic relationships) is unavailable and paleontologists have to rely on techniques such as comparative anatomy, radiometric dating, biostratigraphy to categorize fossils. Which fossil species are direct ancestors of other fossil species or of modern species is usually impossible to determine definitively. Conclusions are always provisional and subject to revision in light of further discoveries. Human evolution subsequent to cladogenesis from our most recent common ancestor is a case in point. There is only Homo sapiens now and whether we are a chronospecies directly descended from Ardipithecus ramidus is still under discussion.Alan Fox_{October 27, 2022
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CD , I am afraid you failed to answer my question, so what test or experimentation can be done on a fossil to show it is ancestral to another fossil , please provide an answer. You see I am afraid interpretive approaches is all you have . When palaeontologists disagree why do they not say well lets put such and such a fossil under our tried and trusted test to prove its validity as the ancestor you say it is, because there is no way of putting any fossil ever found to a test that does not exist.Marfin_{October 27, 2022
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PM1 at 15, That's just storytelling, nothing more.relatd_{October 27, 2022
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CD at 12, Just repeating the party line. Evolution is not goal directed, supposedly. It is nothing more than a form of storytelling. For one creature to "upgrade" requires the addition of information in the correct place to do something useful. Take the supposed development of the human brain. It - Evolution - supposedly made it larger. That, by itself, does not take into account the fact that the skull then needs to be made larger. And that extra brain mass does what? Random stuff? Take the human eye. It is not just an eyeball. You need an optic nerve that is connected to the "right" part of the brain. And the brain needs to have the correct image processing software. Where did that come from? The human body can go through alleged "evolutionary" changes in a TV show or movie but that does NOT mean it can happen in real life. EVOLUTION IS STORYTELLING - Fictional storytelling.relatd_{October 27, 2022
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@14 The causal mechanisms that generate biological form are going to be discovered through developmental systems theory. As Susan Oyama likes to put it, evolution is the change in timing of developmental events. Perhaps better put, changes in timing of developmental events generate new functional structures. If those functional structures alter organismal goals in ways that tend to facilitate differential reproductive success, evolution by natural selection is the net effect. In other words, the causal mechanisms are developmental and ecological -- natural selection isn't some additional causal mechanism, but rather, it's what tends to happen as a result of these causal mechanisms interacting over time. I read Origin of Species a few years ago, and came away convinced that Darwin's basic idea is that speciation by natural selection is a cumulative effect of ecological interactions. The idea that it has some mysterious creative power of its own is not consistent with Darwin's own best observations and inferences.PyrrhoManiac1_{October 27, 2022
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ChuckyD, with no causal mechanism, you've got less than nothing. Again, Darwinists simply have no clue how ”biological form” is achieved in the first place, much less do they have any mechanism, via Natural Selection, to explain how a ‘transformation of biological form’ might actually take place. i.e. It turns out to be all “just-so story’ telling on the part of Darwinists with no actual causal mechanism(s) for Darwinists to base their ‘just-so stories’ on. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-evolution-news-the-standard-story-of-human-evolution-a-critical-look/#comment-768651bornagain77_{October 27, 2022
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@12: The original article in Science looks pretty interesting -- from what I can tell, I don't have institutional access. I was intrigued by their suggestion that "some modern ape similarities might have evolved in parallel in response to similar selection pressures." For a long time, it was conjectured that the last common ancestor of hominids and African great apes was a knuckle-walker, because both chimpanzees and gorillas are knuckle-walkers. It seemed more parsimonious to posit that the LCA was a knuckle-walker than to posit that knuckle-walking evolved twice, once in gorillas and again in chimpanzees. But now it seems that the evolved-twice scenario is getting more plausible. That seems consistent with a new article just out in Scientific American about how complicated the evolution of hominid bipedalism may have been: "Fossils Upend Conventional Wisdom about Evolution of Human Bipedalism"PyrrhoManiac1_{October 27, 2022
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BA77: I'm not going to waste time responding to sources like Answers in Genesis or Evolution News. Again, you've missed the whole point of my original comment: Casey Luskin once again trying to create a tempest in a teapot using old and/or outdated information. Marfin: If you look closely at the AMNH article, it is critical of interpretive approaches in paleontology as a "big mess" (which, itself is hyperbole), not the fossil record itself. It urges a cooperative interpretive approach and inclusion of fossils, such as Miocene apes, not typically considered. The gist of the article is this:
In reviewing the studies surrounding these diverging approaches, Almécija and colleagues with expertise ranging from paleontology to functional morphology and phylogenetics discuss the limitations of relying exclusively on one of these opposing approaches to the hominin origins problem. "Top-down" studies sometimes ignore the reality that living apes (humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and hylobatids) are just the survivors of a much larger, and now mostly extinct, group. On the other hand, studies based on the "bottom-up" approach are prone to giving individual fossil apes an important evolutionary role that fits a preexisting narrative.
chuckdarwin_{October 27, 2022
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The main thing about australopithecines (including related genera Ardipithecus and Paranthropus) is that they were not missing links on a ladder from apes to humans. They were their own distinct group of animals that had their own distinct ecological niches, and they were amazingly successful -- for at least two million years, they were the most intelligent and resourceful animals in their environments, and quite plausibly anywhere on the planet. They managed to live, using brains only slightly larger than those of a modern chimpanzee, in environments considerably more dangerous than where modern chimps live -- more big predators, less readily available food and shelter. They are, in their own way, an amazing success story. Australopithecines weren't just bipedal apes and they weren't just really small dumb humans. They were their own kind of being, certainly evolved from other kinds of Miocene apes, and quite probably ancestral to Homo, but with a mosaic of features that is all their own.PyrrhoManiac1_{October 27, 2022
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Of supplemental note, although Darwinists tell many 'historical narratives (Mayr)', i.e. 'just-so stories', about how it is possible for 'Natural Selection' to transform an ape-like creature into a human, Natural Selection, (via the widely acknowledged "waiting time problem' in population genetics), is found to be grossly inadequate in its power to transform any creature into any other creature.
The waiting time problem in a model hominin population – 2015 Sep 17 John Sanford, Wesley Brewer, Franzine Smith, and John Baumgardner Excerpt: The program Mendel’s Accountant realistically simulates the mutation/selection process,,, Given optimal settings, what is the longest nucleotide string that can arise within a reasonable waiting time within a hominin population of 10,000? Arguably, the waiting time for the fixation of a “string-of-one” is by itself problematic (Table 2). Waiting a minimum of 1.5 million years (realistically, much longer), for a single point mutation is not timely adaptation in the face of any type of pressing evolutionary challenge. This is especially problematic when we consider that it is estimated that it only took six million years for the chimp and human genomes to diverge by over 5 % [1]. This represents at least 75 million nucleotide changes in the human lineage, many of which must encode new information. While fixing one point mutation is problematic, our simulations show that the fixation of two co-dependent mutations is extremely problematic – requiring at least 84 million years (Table 2). This is ten-fold longer than the estimated time required for ape-to-man evolution. In this light, we suggest that a string of two specific mutations is a reasonable upper limit, in terms of the longest string length that is likely to evolve within a hominin population (at least in a way that is either timely or meaningful). Certainly the creation and fixation of a string of three (requiring at least 380 million years) would be extremely untimely (and trivial in effect), in terms of the evolution of modern man. It is widely thought that a larger population size can eliminate the waiting time problem. If that were true, then the waiting time problem would only be meaningful within small populations. While our simulations show that larger populations do help reduce waiting time, we see that the benefit of larger population size produces rapidly diminishing returns (Table 4 and Fig. 4). When we increase the hominin population from 10,000 to 1 million (our current upper limit for these types of experiments), the waiting time for creating a string of five is only reduced from two billion to 482 million years. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4573302/
Shoot, as if that was not bad enough for Darwinists, “biological form, was eventually excluded from the conceptual framework of the Modern Synthesis, (neo-Darwinism), as irrelevant.,,, At present, the problem of biological form remains unsolved.”
On the problem of biological form – Marta Linde-Medina (2020) Excerpt: Embryonic development, which inspired the first theories of biological form, was eventually excluded from the conceptual framework of the Modern Synthesis, (neo-Darwinism) as irrelevant.,,, At present, the problem of biological form remains unsolved. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12064-020-00317-3
In short, Darwinists simply have no clue how ''biological form'' is achieved in the first place, much less do they have any mechanism, via Natural Selection, to explain a 'transformation of biological form'. i.e. It turns out to be all "just-so story' telling on the part of Darwinists with no known causal mechanism(s) to 'transform biological form(s)' for Darwinists to base their 'just-so stories' on. Supplemental notes,
Jan. 2022 Fossil Record refutes human evolution https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-fox-news-adam-and-eve-are-compatible-with-evolution/#comment-744141 Sept: 2022 - Genetic Evidence falsifies the claim the humans evolved from apes. And falsifies it in a ‘hard’ manner. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-evolution-news-did-life-first-arise-by-purely-natural-means/#comment-765765 Darwinists simply have no evidence that morphology, and/or biological form, is reducible to mutations to DNA. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/evangelical-scientists-getting-it-wrong/#comment-740247 Population Genetics falsifies, instead of confirms, Darwinian claims for human evolution https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/christian-darwinists-must-now-backtrack-re-adam-and-eve/#comment-741335 Human exceptionalism falsifies Darwinian claims for human evolution https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/evangelical-scientists-getting-it-wrong/#comment-740249 Darwinists, (in what makes the ‘problem’ of explaining the origin of the human species pale in comparison), have no clue whatsoever why I, as an individual person within the human species, should even come into existence as a person with unique individual subjective conscious experience https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/casey-luskin-the-mytho-history-of-adam-eve-and-william-lane-craig/#comment-740568
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Early Hominins

Ardipithecus ramidus: Irish Stew or Breakthrough of the Year?

Notes

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