Thursday, December 1, 2022

Creation Moment 12/1/2022 - Museum depictions of ‘human ancestors’ challenged by evolutionists

He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.
Psalm 2:4
 
"A team of researchers recently looked at artistic renderings of humans’ alleged ape-like ancestors. They openly discussed a wide range of issues of concern in how these are depicted.
The team noted that there have been very few ‘hominin’ fossils ever found. In fact, they highlighted that the total number of finds is less than the number of anthropologists active today. 
So, comparing reconstructions of the small number of individual hominin finds is relatively easy.
Lead researcher Ryan Campbell wrote, “I expected to find consistency in those reconstructions displayed in natural history museums, but the differences, even there, were so severe that I almost thought all previous practitioners had never encountered a single hominid reconstruction before commencing their own.
Examples of issues in such reconstructions included skin color, placement of the eyeballs in the sockets, eyebrow position, nose/nostril shape, mouth width, hair length and distribution, and ear size. All these can greatly change the appearance of the face, making it look more ape- or human-like, depending on the artist’s preconceived ideas.
 
The researchers were concerned that there was very little empirical evidence backing up how such reconstructions were done. The team decided to reconstruct two of the most famous supposed ape ancestors. One was ‘Lucy’ (Australopithecus afarensis), from an alleged 3.2 million years ago (mya). The other was the ‘Taung child’ (Australopithecus africanus), which died at around 3 years of age, supposedly 2.8 mya. To highlight some of the differences, and the subjective nature of it all, two versions of the Taung child were created. One was more apelike, the other more humanlike. 
Lucy was not so easy to reconstruct as most of her cranial bones are missing. They used her jaw, and scaled down a skull from a much larger male (which did not perfectly fit) to make their reconstruction, and applied human skin thickness. 
 
The team then applied skin tone to each—Lucy’s similar to that of a pygmy chimp and the Taung child to that of modern South African humans. The highly subjective nature of the reconstructions were presented in the research paper. 
 
In addressing their original question about museums they suggested that while their artistic renditions are technically impressive, “There are potential educational harms in presenting unscientific reconstructions of hominins under the shroud of presumed validity.” All australopithecines like these are an extinct group of apish primates not on the human ancestral line. 
This has been conceded by even some evolutionist experts, who point out that their unique anatomy was not ‘in between’ humans and great apes."
CMI