[lbo-talk] Creationists and the Pithecanthropines

c b cb31450 at gmail.com
Mon Apr 23 13:33:49 PDT 2012


Creationists and the Pithecanthropines by C. Loring Brace University of Michigan

This article was originally published in Creation/Evolution, Issue XIX (Winter 1986-87) by the National Center for Science Education, and is reprinted by permission of Dr. Brace.

Dr. C. Loring Brace is professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan and curator of physical anthropology at the university's Museum of Anthropology. He is a leading authority on human fossils and evolution.

The Middle Pleistocene stretch of time - what I have called the "Pithecanthropine Stage" of human evolution (Brace, 1979) - is a fascinating period to anthropologists and is of interest here for two main reasons. First, the pithecanthropines represent a splendid characterization of life forms that are evolutionarily intermediate between apes and humans; and, second, the pithecanthropines have brought forth pronouncements from creationists that are so blatantly contrary to fact that some kind of public effort is necessary simply to set the record straight.

For that million-year stretch of time between about 1.5 million and 500,000 years ago, the only kind of hominid for which we have any evidence is a form that most anthropologists now refer to as Homo erectus. The first such specimen was discovered in Java nearly a century ago by Dutch physician and anatomist Eugene Dubois who labeled it Pithecanthropus erectus. Modern appraisers usually do not feel that it is distinct enough from Homo to warrant a separate generic name, but Dubois' species erectus is accepted by nearly all.

One "modern" appraiser who has rejected Dubois' initial claims and more recent assessments of his Java finds is Duane Gish. Curiously, in this matter he is not supported by the director of his own institute, Dr. Henry Morris, who declared that "Homo erectus was a true man, but somewhat degenerate in size and culture" (Morris, 1974:174). In contrast, Dr. Gish has concluded, "We believe that the claim for a manlike status for Pithecanthropus should be laid to rest" (Gish, 1979:127). The dilemma of the creationists, of course, is the fact that their own preconceptions require them to categorize something as either ape or human. When they actually encounter a creature that is in between, then they have to throw it in one or the other of the modern categories, and it is not surprising that a form with genuinely intermediate features should be randomly assigned to each of the only possibilities they will accept. From the point of view of their own logic, they are both equally correct. From an examination of the actual evidence, they are both demonstrably wrong.

It should be instructive to spend a moment and find out why Gish has reached the conclusion of his choice. There are two ostensible reasons. First, he raises a matter which he claims illustrates why Dubois' own findings are not to be believed. Toward this end he states, "Dubois concealed the fact that he also discovered at nearby Wadjak and at approximately the same level two human skulls (known as the Wadjak skulls) with a cranial capacity . . . somewhat above the present average" (Gish, 1979:124-125). He suggests that Dubois withheld publication until 1922 since otherwise his "Java Man" would not have been accepted as a "missing link." The same point is made by a number of other opponents of evolution, one of whom suggests that Dubois' action amounted to "a practical confession of fraud" (Kofahl and Segraves, 1975:127). As Gish has noted, "His failure to reveal this find to the scientific world at the same time he exhibited the Pithecanthropus bones can only be labelled as an act of dishonesty" (Gish, 1979: 125).

To put the matter straight, "nearby Wadjak" is a good one hundred miles of mountainous countryside away from Trinil, the site of Dubois' Pithecanthropus. Nor is it accurate to call them "approximately the same level" when one is well over half a million years old and the other is less than ten thousand. Finally, Dubois did publish preliminary accounts of his Wadjak material in 1889 and 1890 before his Trinil discoveries were even made, and he recapitulated these in print in 1892 before becoming involved in what he correctly realized was the far more significant Pithecanthropus issue. If there is a question of honesty involved, it has nothing to do with Dubois.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/brace.html



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