Don Patton PhD. Refutes Human Evolution - Part 2 of 3 - Homo Erectus - posted by bornagain 7777777 (bornagain7777777) - tangle.com

Homo erectus 'to' modern man: evolution or human variability?
Homo Erectus -Man, Ape, or Ape-man?

http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v8/i1/erectus.asp



The Javan and Peking forms of erectus in particular came under considerable attack by creationists in the 1970s and 1980s.8-10 The thrust of these critiques was that all erectus forms were extremely ape-like and even possibly fraudulent. A great deal was made of the fact that almost every Peking fossil mysteriously disappeared in 1941, leaving students nothing to work on but casts (see Figure 1).11 Java Man was also regarded as suspect, on account of its discoverer Dubois having allegedly hidden two fully human Javan skulls for many years in order to strengthen his claims for the 'Pithecanthropus' or erectus specimen known as Java Man (see Figure 2).12 These so-called Wadjak skulls are variously reported as from nearby river gravels or from cave deposits many kilometres away. In any case, evolutionist Loring Brace claims that Dubois did make some preliminary reports about these skulls.13 Further doubt was raised because the fully modern femur of Dubois' Java Man was found in the following year 15 metres away from where the skull cap was located.14 Brace and Montagu in 1977 state that 'Curiously, Dubois waited until the 1920s to also reveal he had found four more human thigh bones in the area where his Pithecanthropus material had been discovered.' (Emphasis added.)15

(Actually the Wadjak skulls were discovered in river gravels nearby, but their age has always been a matter of some dispute.)

Naturally, one of the most important questions is that of time. If the standard geological time-scale is correct, then the very slight changes in erectus morphology over a period of 1.3 million years of existence may carry a little more weight. Yet we must also remember that this type had displayed a remarkable degree of structural stasis over the whole period from c.1.7mya to about 350kya. The morphology of the earliest specimens such as WT 15000 differs insignificantly from the much later specimens such as the Peking and Javan examples, the only significant difference being restricted to the endocranial volume. At full adulthood, the Turkana Boy would have possessed a capacity of about 1000-1050cc, compared to later Chinese examples which were as high as 1200cc.26

According to Molnar, the modern human range runs from about 700cc to 2200cc,27 and this puts every adult erectus specimen comfortably into the range of modern humans, and this range also covers every adult example of archaic sapiens, Neanderthal, and Cro-Magnon Man.

Writing in 1985, Pellegrino conceded that the differences between H. erectus and modern man are merely superficial.28 On the same page he even discusses the probability that H. erectus and H. sapiens are one and the same species.

Now obviously if the distinctions between erectus and modern humans are merely superficial as Pellegrino admitted, then the differences between the earliest and the latest erectus specimens, and between erectus and archaic and Neanderthal sapiens are even more superficial; that is, there is a great probability that all erectus, Neanderthal and H. sapiens are closely related, with genetic, dietary, climatic, and other environmental diversity in evidence.

As Beasley29 and Lubenow30 have recently published excellent papers on the question of the archaic H. sapiens, it is not my intention to go into that question in any great detail.

There are literally thousands of hominid fossils in existence and of these, over 300 are classified as either Neanderthal or erectus.31 We have a large enough sample to be certain about the accuracy of the diagnostic features of all groups. Admittedly taxonomic names count for less than the actual morphological structures of the various human races, past and present; but from an evolutionary viewpoint the small degree of change in erectus populations over an alleged period of one and a quarter million years must be disappointing, especially if the cranial capacities of the earliest and latest examples all lie within the modern range of humans. Pellegrino wrote in 1985- '(Between the first and the last erectus specimens), there are no major morphological excursions; merely a thicker brow ridge here, a subtle variation of tooth structure there, and not much else. It looks as if a substantial stretch of human evolution was characterized not by change, but by stasis.' (Emphasis added.)32

In actual fact, there are some examples of erectus which display quite a large ECV, such as Vertesszöllos.33 To make matters even more interesting, there are human skulls in Australia, dated as modern, which exhibit clear and unambiguous erectus features. Found in Victoria (Kow Swamp), and New South Wales (Willandra Lakes, Mungo), several of these Australian aboriginal remains have fully modern human-sized brains of around 1250cc, yet they all possess the heavy supraorbital tori, flattish receding foreheads, prognathic faces, and large jaws so typical of the earliest and the latest erectus specimens.

These skulls are dated from less than 15,000 years to around 35,000 years BP.34 Attwood and Edwards found it - '… a conundrum' that the Kow Swamp people with their more-erectus features lived later than the Lake Mungo people of New South Wales which were more 'modern' in appearance, and which date from around 35,000 BP.35

please see:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v8/i1/erectus.asp

Genesis 1:27 And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Don Patton PhD. Refutes Human Evolution - Part 2 of 3 - Homo Erectus
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