The Truth About Human Origins - Apologetics Press

530 Pages·2006·3.15 MB·English

Apologetics Press, Inc.
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© Copyright 2003
ISBN: 0-932859-58-5
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced
in any form without permission from the publisher, except in
the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or critical re­
views.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication
Brad Harrub (1970 - ) and Bert Thompson (1949 - )
The Truth About Human Origins
Includes bibliographic references, and subject and name indices.
ISBN 0-932859-58-5
1. Creation. 2. Science and religion. 3. Apologetics and Polemics
I. Title
213—dc21 2003111100
DEDICATION
On occasion, there are certain individuals who quietly step
into our lives—and who leave such an indelible imprint that
we find our existence changed forever.
This book is dedicated to four such individuals, whom we
never will be able to repay for their unwavering moral and fi­
nancial support of our work, and who expect nothing in re­
turn for their incredible generosity—except our continued
pledge to teach and defend the Truth.
This book (and numerous others like it) never could have
come to fruition without the ongoing support of these two
Christian couples who, although separated by many miles,
walk side by side in their combined efforts to ensure the suc­
cess of Apologetics Press.
This side of heaven, few will know the full impact of their
sacrifices. Fortunately, God does.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dedication

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Chapter 1—The “Record of the Rocks” [Part I] . . . . . . 3

Biological Taxonomy and Human Evolution . . . . . . 4

Did Man Evolve from the Apes? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

An Examination of the “Record of the Rocks” . . . . . 12

Aegyptopithecus zeuxis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Dryopithecus africanus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Ramapithecus brevirostris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Orrorin tugenensis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Australopithecus (Ardipithecus) ramidus . . . . . 27

Australopithecus anamensis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Kenyanthropus platyops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Chapter2—The “Record of the Rocks” [Part II] . . . . 41

Australopithecus afarensis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Lucy’s Rib Cage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Lucy’s Pelvis and Gender . . . . . . . . . . 47

Lucy’s Appendages—Made for Bi­

pedalism, or Swinging from Trees?. . 50

Australopithecine Teeth:

More Evidence that

Lucy was Arboreal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Australopithecine Ears:

Human-like or Ape-like? . . . . . . . . . 54

Lucy: Hominid or Chimp? . . . . . . . . 55

Australopithecus africanus/

Australopithecus boisei . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

The Laetoli Footprints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Homo habilis/Homo rudolfensis . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Homo erectus/Homo ergaster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Homo sapiens idaltu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

- i -
What Does the “Record of
the Rocks” Really Show? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

The Parade of Fossil Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Neanderthal Man. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Nebraska Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Piltdown Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Java Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Rhodesian Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Chapter3—Molecular Evidence of Human Origins . . 99

Chromosomal Counts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Real Genomic differences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

“Mitochondrial Eve” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

The Demise of Mitochondrial Eve . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

The Molecular Clock

—Dating Mitochondrial Ancestors . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Serious Errors in Mitochondrial

DNA Data in the Scientific Literature. . . . . . . . . . . 126

Neanderthal vs. Human DNA—

Is It a Match? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Chapter 4 — The Problem of Gender

and Sexual Reproduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

“Intellectual Mischief and Confusion”—

Or Intelligent Design? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

From Asexual to Sexual Reproduction—

The Origin of Sex. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

The Lottery Principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

The Tangled Bank Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . 145

The Red Queen Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . . 147

The DNA Repair Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . 148

Why Sex? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

The 50% Disadvantage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Mars and Venus, or X and Y? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

Differences Among Various Species . . . . . . . . . . . 164

- ii
-
Differences in Animal and Human Sexuality . . . . 167

The Complexity of the Human

Reproductive System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

Anatomical Differences

Between Human Males and Females . . . . . . . . . . 173

Cellular Differences Between

Human Males and Females . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

The Future of Human Reproduction . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Chapter5—TheP roblem of Language . . . . . . . . . . 183

Evolutionary Theories

on the Origin of Speech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

Adam—The First Human

to Talk and Communicate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

Tower of Babel—and

The Universal Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

The Brain’s Language

Centers—Created by God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Anatomy of Speech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Birds of a Feather—Or Naked Ape? . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

Complexity of Language—Uniquely Human . . . . 202

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

Chapter6—TheP roblem of the Brain . . . . . . . . . . . 209

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

History of the Brain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

The Evolution of the Brain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

Growing Neurons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

The Brain Versus a Computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Twelve Cranial Nerves. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244

Chapter 7 — The Evolution

of Consciousness [Part I] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

The Origin of Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248

The Origin of the Genetic Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

The Origin of Sex. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252

- iii -
The Origin of Language and Speech . . . . . . . . . . . 253

The Origin of Consciousness—

“The Greatest of Miracles” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

Importance of Human Consciousness . . . 253

“Mystery” of Human Consciousness . . . . 256

Consciousness in General . . . . . . . . 257

Consciousness and the Brain . . . . . . 259

Consciousness and the Mind . . . . . . 260

Consciousness Defined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

Why—and How—Did Consciousness Arise? . . . . . 271

Why Did Consciousness Arise? . . . . . . . . 272

Why Do We Need Consciousness? . . . . . 276

How Did Consciousness Arise? . . . . . . . . 286

Evolutionary Bias and the

Origin of Human Consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . 296

What Does All of This have to do with

the Origin of Human Consciousness? . . . . . . . . 301

Radical Materialism—A “Fishy” Theory . . . . . . . . . . 306

Do Animals Possess Consciousness? . . . . . . . . . . . 313

The Brain, the Mind, and

Human Consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328

Materialism, Supernaturalism,

and the Brain/Mind Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . 330

The Concept of Mind. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333

Chapter 8 — The Evolution

of Consciousness [Part II] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347

Theories of the Origin

of Human Consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347

The “Hard Problem” of Human Consciousness . . 350

“Failure is not an Option” . . . . . . . . . . . . 352

Theories of Human Consciousness . . . . . . . . . . . . 353

Dualism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354

Monism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361

Psychical Monism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363

- iv -
Radical Materialism (Functionalism) . . . . 364

Panpsychism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373

Epiphenomenalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375

Identity Theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382

Nonreductive Materialism/

Emergent Materialism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

Dualist-Interactionism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419

Chapter 9 — The Problem

of Skin Color and Blood Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429

What is a “Race”?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435

Why So Many Racial Characteristics? . . . . . . . . . 439

The Origin of Man’s “Colors” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443

Other Factors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448

Differences Between Human

and Animal Blood Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453

Components of Human Blood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 454

Different Blood Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457

The Adam and Eve Issue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458

Humans, Animals, and Blood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459

What about Blood Types of Other Animals?. . . . . 459

What about Hibernation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460

What about Birds? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461

What about Fish? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461

Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461

Chapter 10—Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467

Subject Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507

Name Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513

- v
-

Ever since Copernicus decided to put the Sun at the center
of the solar system, various scientists and philosophers have
worked overtime in their efforts to diminish the role of human­
kind in the Universe. As a result, we have gone from being the
crowning glory of God’s creation, to a hairless ape stuck on a
small planet circling a mediocre sun in the distant reaches of
one arm of a single galaxy that is one among billions of others.
Some of the most widely read authors in the evolutionary camp
(such as Carl Sagan, Stephen Jay Gould, Steven Weinberg, and
Richard Dawkins) have repeatedly emphasized the lack of our
uniqueness, and the “luck” supposedly related to our very ex­
istence (mundane as it may be).
Thus, man is viewed as occupying neither the center of the
Universe, nor any sort of preeminent place in the living world;
rather, we are nothing more, nor less, than the product of the
same natural, evolutionary processes that created all of the
“other animals” around us. In short, we are at best a “cosmo­
logical accident.” Or, to express the idea in the words of the
late, eminent evolutionist of Harvard, George Gaylord Simp­
son: “Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that
did not have him in mind. He was not planned. He is a state of
matter, a form of life, a sort of animal, and a species of the Or­
der Primates, akin nearly or remotely to all of life and indeed
to all that is material” (1967, p. 345).
According to the most extreme version of this view, it is the
utmost arrogance on man’s part to identify any characteristic
that distinguishes him from members of the animal kingdom.
Any differences we might think we perceive are merely a mat­
ter of degree, and for all the things we may do better, there are
other things we certainly do worse. Other primates, in partic­
ular, are worthy of coequality because they are supposed to
- vii -