Creationism or Turkana Boy?
I recently heard some commentary on Turkana Boy, and I just had to share some thoughts with you.
Until Turkana Boy was found in 1984, creationists would refute the idea of evolution based on claims that the skeletal remains most often used as evidence to show a relationship between Neadertals and homo erectus (leading to homo sapiens), were only fragmented, and therefore inconclusive. Arguments have been made that the occurrence of homo erectus was actually a result of disease and poor living conditions. Wow, that sounds really stupid! Granted disease and living conditions can do a lot to alter a person or being, but the idea that it produced a small number of almost-humans… well that’s almost as unbelievable as Noah’s Ark! (Almost.)
I found a site that no doubt angers the creationists to read, so I’ll quote it here, and they can just pretend that it doesn’t exist. That shouldn’t be too hard for them.
“In the 1988 video Mysteries of Mankind, produced by National Geographic, Richard Leakey talks about this fossil:
‘I think [the Turkana Boy] is remarkable because it’s so complete, but perhaps another aspect that is often overlooked is that many people who don’t like the idea of human evolution have been able to discount much of the work that we’ve done on the basis that it’s built on fragmentary evidence. There have just been bits and pieces, and who knows, those little bits of bone could belong to anything. To confront some of these people with a complete skeleton that is human and is so obviously related to us in a context where it’s definitely one and a half million years or even more is fairly convincing evidence, and I think many of the people who are fence-sitters on this discussion about creationism vs. evolution are going to have to get off the fence in the light of this discovery.’ “
So… Genesis (written by a human in a time of severe ignorance about the world), or physical proof? Gee, that’s a hard one!
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