Interesting Paleontology

Findings

Neanderthal man. "These were in fact the remains of an old individual with arthritis"[2]. He is indistinguishable from modern man [3].

Cro-Magnon man is "indistinguishable in body and brain from modern man" [4]. "The fossilized remains are identical with those of people living today"[3].

Homo Errectus was regarded as subhuman because its brain size was once thought to be too small to be human. It's now known that its size is nearly the average size of modern man[5].

Peking man, one Homo Errectus, was built from a single tooth. Davidson Black became convinced that it was a human tooth. He then confidently announced a new genus of man[5].

Rhodesia man, another Homo Errectus: Paleontologists pointed out that "this creature had undoubtedly suffered from tooth decay. It was difficult to imagine how this disease of civilization could have attacked prehistoric man. And two very old holes in the side of the skull caused the experts even greater perplexity. In the view of Professor Mair of Berlin they looked like the entry and exit holes of a modern bullet"[6].

Nebraska man was constructed from a single tooth. Years later the entire skeleton was found. The tooth belonged to an extinct species of pig[7].

Southwest Colorado man was also constructed from a single tooth.  It is now known that the tooth actually belonged to a horse[7].

Java Ape-Man (1891) was built from a small piece of skull, a fragment of a left thighbone and three molar teeth collected over a range of 70 feet in an old riverbed mixed with bones of extinct animals. Professor Virchow of Berlin said "There is no evidence at all that these bones were part of the same creature"[7]. The knee bone of another supposed ape-man (1926) turned out to be the knee bone of an extinct elephant [7].

Piltdown man (1912) was declared to the public as being a human ancestor but was nothing more than a ape's jaw placed with a human skull. The entire hoax was exposed 40 years later in Popular Science, October 1956[5].

Pliopithecus and Proconsul were considered huminid because they looked like a cross between monkeys not because they looked part human[5].

Dryopithecus is based on a lower jaw fragment that later became known as that of an extinct ape[5].

Oreopithecus was once thought to be ancestral to man because of its teeth and pelvis. It is now regarded as an aberrant ape or an aberrant relative of monkeys[5].

Ramithecus, based on a set of teeth, went from putative first human in 1961 to extent relative of the orangutan in 1982[1].

Australopithecus Africanus was found to be the skull of a baby ape whose apelike features had not yet fully developed[4].

Australopithicus Robustus and Australopithecus Boise: These skulls have crests on top. Crests appear in male apes but not in humans or any supposed hominid before it or after it[5].

Australopithecus Afarensis (Lucy) is based on fragments found 2 miles apart among layers in the strata 200 feet apart. These fragments were claimed to belong to the same person [8]. Roger Lewin notes that Lucy seems to be an ape's head on a human's body[9].

Despair

"We've got to have some ancestors. We'll pick those.' Why? 'Because we know they have to be there, and these are the best candidates.' That's by and large the way it has worked. I am not exaggerating." Gareth Nelson of the American Museum of Natural History[2].

"Variations among ape fossils is sufficiently great such that a scientist whose imagination was fired by the desire to find ancestors could easily pick out some features in an ape fossil and decide that they were 'pre-human'...the record of reckless speculation of human origins is so astonishing that it is legitimate to ask whether much science is yet to be found in this field at all" Solly Zuckerman[10].

"We Paleontologists have said that the history of life supports the story of gradual adaptive change, all the while really knowing that it does not" Miles Eldredge[10].

"The more one studies paleontology, the more certain one becomes that evolution is based on faith alone"" T.L. Moor[3].

"It is, in fact, a common fantasy, promulgated mostly by the scientific profession itself, that in the search for objective truth, data dictate conclusions ...Data are just as often molded to fit preferred conclusions" Roger Lewin[1].

"The creation account in Genesis and the theory of evolution could not be reconciled. One must be right and the other wrong. The story of the fossils agreed with the account of Genesis. In the oldest rocks we did not find a series of fossils covering the gradual changes from the most primitive creatures to developed forms, but rather in the oldest rocks developed species suddenly appeared. Between every species there was a complete absence of intermediate fossils" D.B. Gower[13].

"Evolution itself is accepted by zoologists, not because it has been observed to occur or can be proved by logical coherent evidence, but because the only alternative - special creation - is clearly incredible" D.M.S. Watson[3].

"Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation which is unthinkable" Arthur Keith[3].

"The incessant repetition of this unproved claim glossing lightly over the difficulties, and the assumption of an arrogant attitude toward those who are not easily swayed by fashions of science, are considered to afford scientific proof of the doctrine" Richard Goldschmidt[11].

Bibliography
1. Lewin, Roger. Bones of Contention, NY:Simon and Schuster, 1987.
2. Johanson, David and Shreeve, James. Lucy's Child, NY: Williams Morrow and Co., 1989.
3. Ranganathan, B.G. Origins? Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1988.
4. Falk, Dean. Braindance, NY: Henry Holt and Co., 1992.
5. Howell, F. Clark. Early Man, NY: Time Life Books, 1973.
6. Pfieffer, John. The Emergence of Man, NY: Harper and Row, 1969.
7. Criswell, W.A. Did Man Just Happen?, Zondervan Publishing House.
8. Johanson, Donald. "Ethiopia Yields First Family of Early Man", National Geographic, December 1976.
9. Lewin, Roger. In the Age of Mankind, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books, 1988.
10. Johnson, Phillip. Darwin on Trial, Regnery Gateway, 1991.
11. Whitcomb, John. The Early Earth, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1986.
12. Wendt, Herbert. From Ape to Man, NY: The Bubbs Merril Co;, 1972.
13. Gower, D.B., "Scientist Rejects Evolution," Kentish Times, England, December 11, 1975