Now these four finds are the weak props supporting the desperate claim of the brute origin of man. Dr. Chapin says (Social Evolution, p. 68): “Other skulls and bone parts of prehistoric man have been found, and preserved in museums, but the specimens described (the four above mentioned) are sufficient to illustrate the type of evidence they constitute.” The later finds measuring close to normal capacity, doubtless are the bones of the descendants of Adam. Even by the admission of this text-book author, the evidence from other remains is no more convincing than that from these four types. Some evolutionists say that the pithecanthropus, the Heidelberg man, the Piltdown man, and the Neanderthal man, form an unbroken line of descent from the ape, each in turn becoming less like the ape, and more like man. Others claim that the pithecanthropus was the end of a special branch of the apes; the Heidelberg man the last of another extinct branch; the Piltdown man and the Neanderthal man, likewise the last of other extinct species. In this case, all four finds have no evidential value whatever. All these confusing guesses from evidence so scant and uncertain, stamp evolution a “science falsely so called.”
If these branches, species, or races of ape-like creatures ended, as claimed, in the age to which these alleged remains belonged, they could not have been the ancestors of the human race, and these alleged links were not links at all. Some evolutionists say that the Neanderthal race became extinct 25,000 years ago. If so, they were not our ancestors. We are curious to know what caused the extinction of all these races. Prof. R. S. Lull confesses, “However we account for it, the fact remains that ancient men are rare.” Most unbiased students would say such men never existed. The entire absence of human remains during the 750,000 years and more is a demonstration against the brute origin of man, and a proof of special creation.
It will be remembered that there is no complete skeleton among all the remains, nor enough parts to make one altogether, nor to make any large part of a skeleton,—not even an entire skull. What bones are found are not joined together, and some of them scattered so widely apart, that no one can be certain they belong to the same individual. Some of the bones belong to an ape, and some to man,—doubtless modern man. Ardent evolutionists, with a zeal worthy of a better cause, have taken a fractional bone of a man, and a bone of an ape, and fashioned a composite being, and called it an ape-man, and their ancestor.
Every one of these finds is disputed by scientists, and even by evolutionists. And all these doubtful relics would not fill a small market basket. Yet some are ready to say that evolution is no longer a guess or a theory, but a proven fact. Text books like Chapin’s Social Evolution are placed in the hands of pupils giving only the arguments in favor, and the student, even if disposed to question this flimsy and unsupported theory, is helpless in the hands of an adroit professor. Dr. Gruenberg’s high school text book teaches that man is descended from the pithecanthropus, the Heidelberg, the Piltdown and the Neanderthal man, without the slightest intimation that such descent is at all disputed or questioned. What right has anyone to teach this false and unproved theory as the truth?
30. CONFESSED COLLAPSE OF “PROOF”
The claim that the pithecanthropus, the Heidelberg man, the Piltdown man, and the Neanderthal man, were the ancestors of man, collapses under the admissions of evolutionists themselves. The eminent Wassman says: “There are numerous fossils of apes, the remains of which are buried in the various strata from the lower Eocene to the close of the alluvial epoch, but not one connecting link has been found between their hypothetical ancestral forms and man at the present time. The whole hypothetical pedigree of man is not supported by a single fossil genus or a single fossil species” (all italics ours). Darwin says: “When we descend to details, we can prove that not one species has changed.” How, then, can man be descended from the brute?
Even H. G. Wells, who seems ready to endorse the most extravagant views, says (Outline of History, p. 69), “We can not say that it (the pithecanthropus) is a direct human ancestor.” On p. 116, is a “Diagram of the Relationship of Human Races,” showing that neither the pithecanthropus, the Heidelberg man, the Piltdown man, nor the Neanderthal man, could have been an ancestor of the human race, because each were the last of their species, and therefore had no descendants.
Dr. Keith, a London evolutionist, says that the Piltdown man is not an ancestor of man, much less an intermediate between the Heidelberg man and the Neanderthal man. Sir Ray Lancaster confesses he is “baffled and stumped” as to the Piltdown man. Dr. Keith says the “Neanderthal man was not quite of our species.”
Dr. Osborn says that the Heidelberg man “shows no trace of being intermediate between man and the anthropoid ape.” Again, speaking of the teeth of the St. Brelade man, Dr. Osborn says, “This special feature alone would exclude the Neanderthals from the ancestry of the higher races.”
Prof. R. S. Lull says, “Certain authorities have tried to prove that the pithecanthropus is nothing but a large gibbon, but the weight of authority considers it prehuman, though not in the line of direct development in humanity.”