Gorilla-like jaw casts doubt on human ancestor, according to a report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 104, p6568, 17 April 2007.
Scientists at Tel Aviv University have studied the jaw of a recently discovered Australopithecus afarensis fossil and found that it “closely matches that of gorillas”. They were surprised at this because A. afarensis is believed to be a human ancestor and should have a jaw more like a chimpanzee – the ape believed to be closest to humans on the evolutionary tree. The researchers claim their findings “cast doubt on the role of A. afarensis as a modern human ancestor.”
An Australopithecine named A. robustus also has a gorilla-like jaw, but a another fossil named Ardipithecus ramidus has a chimp-like jaw and the Tel Aviv researches suggest the evolutionary tree for humans needs to be re-drawn.
Editorial Comment: The most famous Austrolpithecus afarensis is “Lucy”, a fossil commonly presented as a human ancestor in evolutionary museums and displays. These results add to the overwhelming evidence that Lucy and all Australopithecines were apes.
The fact that they are now extinct only proves that there were more kinds of apes in the past than there are now. It does not prove that they evolved into people. Extinction of apes is the opposite of evolution, but fits the Biblical history of the world, where many kinds of creatures were separately created but some have died out as the world degenerated.
The study described above also reminds us that most of the fossils claimed to be ape-human intermediates are woefully incomplete, and as more bones are found they show that the original specimens were either fully ape or fully human. This is also what you would expect from reading Genesis, which tells us the humans and animals were made as completely different beings.
Evidence News 24 April 2007
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