Ardi, the so called missing link

Scientists are abuzz over the release of fossil findings that claim to be much older than previous human remains and come closer to the elusive missing that bridges the gap between the evolution of apes and humans.

For starters, I’m not a big believer in evolution.  I believe God created man from the dust of the earth, not through millions of years of gradual changes as the strong survived and the weak died out.  It bothers me greatly that this is taught as scientific fact in schools for the simple reason that it is called the theory of evolution for a reason.  If it’s a theory, that means it hasn’t been proven or it can’t be proven.  And if it is a theory, alternative points of view should be discussed but those come from religion and apparently religion has nothing to teach us so it should be removed from public school at all costs.

Perhaps more frustrating about the Ardi finding is the fact that scientists are jumping to conclusions about what this new fossil teaches us.  It appears that Ardi walked on two feet like a human and had many other human like traits that scientists didn’t expect one of our “ancient ancestors” to possess so early in our evolution.  Based on one skeleton scientists are rethinking everything they know about early humans.

Rethinking things is fine when new evidence is presented. I’m all for that.  But the way these new conclusions are being trumpeted as if we have finally find the answer to all that we were missing is absolutely ridiculous.  This is one skeleton.  It happens to be far more complete than some of the previous heralded finds but still just one skeleton. 

What puzzles me more than anything about science’s search for the missing link is how little evidence there is compared to what we can still find from what supposedly took place millions of years before man was on earth.  Dinosaurs supposedly died out 65 million years ago – Ardi’s remains date back only about 4 million years.  Why are there an abundance of skeletal remains from 65 million years ago but nothing of ape/human remains.  You could make the argument that dinosaurs were much bigger and their bones would take much longer to break down and decay than a human’s.  But I would have to believe that 60 million plus years is more than enough time to make up for the difference in size.

While scientists trumpet this latest proof in the evolution of humanity, I’d recommend that we take everything with a grain of salt.  I believe the Bible for what it’s worth and believe that God created me special, not as a long term science project with apes.  But using sciences own criteria I feel fully confident that in a few more years there will be another “big discovery” that will change the way we look at early human history once again.