Darwin is absolutely correct, isn't he? Wait till you read this
Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Hu man Race is the second chapter of Human Devolution. It summarizes the essential points made in Forbidden Archeology, the first book co-authored by ISKCON scientists Drutakarma Dasa (Michael A. C remo) and Sadaputa Dasa (Richard L. Thompson). In its 932 pages, the authors present a massive amount of evidence that contradicts the idea that anatomically modern humans evolved over six million years from apelike hominid ancestors.
PROBLEMS WITH THE CURRENT THEORY
Scientists agree that hominids (now hominins), the group that today includes humans and their supposed ancestors, were split from the African apes around six million years ago. From some of these early hominids came Australopithecus around four to five million years ago. From one of the many species of Australopithecus, arose Homo habilis, the first toolmaker. Next, came the Homo erectus, the first hominid to use fire, followed by the early modern humans and the Neanderthals. Finally, anatomically modern humans arrived on the scene around 100,000 years ago. It all sounds perfectly clear when you hear a teacher say it, when you read it in a book, or when you see it in a museum display or on television, but behind the scenes there are major ongoing disputes about each stage of this progression.
When scientists say that humans came from apes they do not mean the modern apes we see in zoos, such as gorillas and chimpanzees. Rather, they refer to the extinct Dryopithicine apes of Africa, supposedly the ancesrors of both modern apes and modern humans who lived around five to twenty million years ago. There are many species of Dryopithecus, however, and scientists cannot yet say exactly which of these extinct apes is supposed to be our ancestor. Nor can they tell us much about the first hominids, the ones that existed before Australopithecus.
Many new fossils keep surfacing which scientists claim to be the missing links, but the picture remains confusing and contradictory. In all these cases, scientists are speculating about fragmented fossil remains, seeing human ancestry when they are most likely to be simple varieties of apes with a few features in common with modern humans. These features are, however not necessarily signs of evolutionary connection.
ARGUMENTS AGAINST AUSTRALOPITHECUS
Despite the confusion surrounding Australopithecus, many scientists still accept this creature as a direct human ancestor. But many important scientists disagree.
Lord Zuckerman, a respected British zoologist, carried out exacting statistical studies showing that Australopithecus was not a human ancestor. Charles E. Oxnard, a professor of physical anthropology in Australia confirms this fact on basis of anatomical studies which place Australopithecus close to the gibbons and orangutans, not African apes and humans. Scientists who believe Australopithecus is a human ancestor do so because they see signs of upright walking ability and other human features in t he fossil bones. But Oxnard's studies show a creature just as likely to be found swinging through the trees as walking upright on the ground.
Donald Johanson, the discoverer of a famous Australopithecus specimen named Lucy, believes that the Australopithecus walked upright, but his critics point to the long curved fingers and toes and other anatomical features and show that these creatures spent a lot of time in trees.
In 1970s, Johanson put forward the idea that Lucy was the oldest human ancestor, and from her, one branch went towards Homo habilis, Homo erectus, and then Home sapiens. The second branch led to remaining Australopithecines and as these Australopithecines evolved they grew more robust. Then a new fossil of Australopithecus was discovered which was more robust and unfortunately for Johanson, much older than the oldest specimen of the sub-branch. This discovery completely messed-up the neat little diagram drawn by Johanson.
As physical anthropologist Pat Shipman put it, "The best answer we can give right now is that we no longer have a very clear idea of who gave rise to whom." Shipman said that in 1986, but the situation has hardly changed since then. Some scientists are not even sure whether Australopithecus originated in Africa or Asia.
Human Devolution further goes on to describe the deficiencies in arranging Homo habilis and Homo erectus in the evolutionary line. In the case of Homo erectus, for a long time scientists had never found any limb bones that could be positively connected with a Homo erectus skull. Yet for decades, scientists had been making full-scale models of the Homo erectus, as if they really knew the correct relative sizes of the head and limbs. In his books, Louis Leakey gives many anatomical reasons why neither Homo erectus not the Australopithecines should be considered ancestral to modern humans. His dissenting view is rarely, if ever, mentioned in modern textbooks about human evolution.
CONTROVERSIAL NEANDERTHALS
In 1856, some German workmen uncovered some bones in a cave of the Neander valley. The bones were turned over to a local naturalist, and the Neanderthals have been a source of endless controversy in science ever since. Some scientists think that they are intimately related to humans while others think that they are just a side branch that went extinct, leaving no descendents. Physical anthropologists Erik Trinkaus and Pat Shipman (1994) wrote The Neanderthals: Of Skeletons, Scientists, and Scandals, which details in lively prose the twists and turns of the scientific debates on the Neanderthal. The authors demonstrate that scientists have been victims of bias and prejudice, and that they have sometimes used their positions of authority to influence the outcome of scientific debate.
One might expect that we should get closer to finding a clearer picture of human evolution. Wrong. Today the heaviest disputes in human evolution studies are those concerning the recent evolutionary event of all – the emergence of modern humans. Some say modern humans emerged in Africa and spread all over the world, but others say modern humans emerged separately in Africa, Asia, and Europe. Although Darwinist scientists present a united front to the public proclaiming loudly that the evolution of humans from apelike ancestors is an established fact, they have not found the actual evolutionary path. But if the path has not been found, how can they assert, except as a matter of faith, that the evolution of humans from apelike ancestors actually did occur?
COMING UP …
A large amount of evidence that contradicted the established evolutionary doctrines has been eliminated from scientific discussion by a process of knowledge filtration. This evidence shows that anatomically modern humans existed millions of years ago. If accepted, this evidence would destroy the evolutionary scenario outlined above.
Michael A.Cremo (Drutakarma Dasa) is a disciple of Srila Prabhupada and research associate of the Bhaktivedanta Institute.