Australopithecus Deyiremeda: Strong Argument for Evolutionism?

Australopithecus deyiremeda is a proposed species of early hominin among those who lived about 3.3–3.5 million years ago in northern Ethiopia, around the same time and place as several discovered specimens of Australopithecus afarensis, including the well-known "Lucy", a juvenile specimen. (Wikipedia). Some 3 jawbones discovered on March 4, 2011 were proposed as specimens of this proposed species. While the discovery may have prompted overjoy in the evolutionist camp, it doesn't aid to quell doubts regarding the problem of transitional fossils (missing links), considered one big problem of the theory of evolution. Of course, while now and then specimen of so-called inter-species are claimed to have been unearthed, the question of why so less of these still lingers. Often, the missing links are either just a few pieces of fragmentary bones that are put together or only jawbones or such. One answer suggested is that the fossil record itself is meagre. But, obviously one can't sell his everything for not-very-conclusive proofs of treasure in the ground; it will require too much faith to hang the theory of evolution on just a few pieces of bones vaguely assumed as some links between notable species. Also, given the fact that the discoveries can be explained in any other way than referring to the evolutionary theories, these fossil facts do not in any way lend bulwark to evolutionism.Of course, there are arguments that there are other "proofs" besides. The creationists have always maintained that evolutionism violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics; to which the evolutionists have responded saying that living organisms belong to an open system and not a closed system; therefore, the 2nd Law doesn't apply to them: they receive energy from the sun. But, how does that answer the question of how life evolved out of mere atoms in the first place; for certainty, the atoms weren't above the 2nd Law. Yet, even if it was insisted that energy in the form of say lightning or sunlight aided the random collocation of atoms to form amino acids, proteins, and living bodies, the very idea of randomness makes disorder or chaos inherent to the process, thus self-defeating the theory of evolution that projects an anti-chaotic world, evolving upward. The resorting to feelings of "scientific sincerity" will not be bad only if "scientific sincerity" were for a moment freed from the shackles of "anti-supernaturalism". The excuse that "science is still young" or "fossil records are scant" is just an excuse that is willingly believed in hope of more proofs later on. But, is it scientific to build scientific theories on mere hopes rather than on mathematically accurate calculations and predictions? Of course, one doesn't need to be evolutionist to be scientific; that is clear.

Chesterton on Darwin's Missing Link

Excerpt from The Everlasting Man


Sometimes the professor with his bone becomes almost as dangerous as a dog with his bone. And the dog at least does not deduce a theory from it, proving that mankind is going to the dogs-or that it came from them. For instance, I have pointed out the difficulty of keeping a monkey and watching it evolve into a man. Experimental evidence of such an evolution being impossible, the professor is not content to say (as most of us would be ready to say) that such an evolution is likely enough anyhow. He produces his little bone, or little collection of bones, and deduces the most marvelous things from it. He found in Java a piece of a skull, seeming by its contour to be smaller than the human. Somewhere near it he found an upright thigh-bone and in the same scattered fashion some teeth that were not human. If they all form part of one creature, which is doubtful, our conception of the creature would be almost equally doubtful. But the effect on popular science was to produce a complete and even complex figure, finished down to the last details of hair and habits. He was given a name as if he were an ordinary historical character. People talked of Pithecanthropus as of Pitt or Fox or Napoleon. Popular histories published portraits of 'him like the portraits of Charles the First and George the Fourth. A detailed drawing was reproduced, carefully shaded, to show that the very hairs of his head were all numbered. No uninformed person looking at its carefully lined face and wistful eyes would imagine for a moment that this was the portrait of a thigh bone; or of a few teeth and a fragment of a cranium. In the same way people talked about him as if he were an individual whose influence and character were familiar to us all. I have just read a story in a magazine about Java and how modern white inhabitants of that island are prevailed on to misbehave themselves by the personal influence of poor old Pithecanthropus. That the modern inhabitants of Java misbehave themselves I can very readily believe; but I do not imagine that they need any encouragement from the discovery of a few highly doubtful bones. Anyhow, those bones are far too few and fragmentary and dubious to fill up the whole of the vast void that does in reason and in reality lie between man and his bestial ancestors, if they were his ancestors. On the assumption of that evolutionary connection (a connection which I am not in the least concerned to deny), the really arresting and remarkable fact is the comparative absence of any such remains recording that connection at that point. The sincerity of Darwin really admitted this; and that is how we came to use such a term as the Missing Link. But the dogmatism of Darwinian has been too strong for agnosticism of Darwin; and men have fallen into turning this entirely negative term into a positive image. They talk of searching for the habits and habitat of the Missing Link; as if one were to talk of being on friendly terms with the gap in a narrative or the hole in an argument, of taking a walk with a nonsequitur or dining with an undistributed middle. In this sketch, therefore, of man in his relation to certain religious and historical problems, I shall waste no further space on these speculations on the nature of man before he became man. His body may have been evolved from the brutes; but we know nothing of any such transition that throws the smallest light upon his soul as it has shown itself in history.

Unfortunately the same school of writers pursue the same style of reasoning when they come to the first real evidence about the first real men. Strictly speaking of course we know nothing about prehistoric man, for the simple reason that he was prehistoric. The history of the prehistoric man is a very obvious contradiction in terms. It is the sort of unreason in which only rationalists are allowed to indulge. If a parson had casually observed that the Flood was antediluvian, it is possible that be might be a little chaffed about his logic. If a bishop were to say that Adam was Pre-Adamite, we might think it a little odd. But we are not supposed to notice such verbal trifles when skeptical historians talk of the part of history that is prehistoric. The truth is that they are using the terms historic and prehistoric without any clear test or definition in their minds. What they mean is that there are traces of human lives before the beginning of human stories; and in that sense we do at least know that humanity was before history.

Problems of Evolutionism

The Problem of Truth As An Absolute Category (Ravi Zacharias)

Ravi: Do you believe that Time, Matter, and Chance created your brain?....
Scientist: Yes.
Ravi: If Time, Matter, and Chance created the human brain, then Truth as an absolute category cannot exist. For, in order for something to be true, it must be true on Sunday, on Monday... But, with the constant flux and fluctuation of Time, Matter, and Chance, all changing, Truth as an absolute category cannot exist.
Scientist: I believe that's right.
Ravi: But, if Truth as an absolute category doesn't exist, then how do you know that it is true that Time, Matter, and Chance created your brain?
____

If Randomness (Chance) and not Intelligence (God) produced the universe, then Truth could not absolute, since "knowledge" whatever it is would be the product of a random collocation of atoms constantly in flux; and, flux being the underlying principle of evolutionism, absolutes become meaningless. But, if Truth doesn't exist, then one doesn't even have the right to say that something is absolutely truth, e.g. evolutionism. Therefore, evolutionism is self-defeating.

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The Problem of Scientific Authenticity

Oxford Dictionary defines Science as "the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment". In order for a theory to be scientific in nature, it must be based on observation and experiment. For example, Newton OBSERVED the apple falling from the tree, then formed the THEORY of gravity, which was proven as (at least instrumentally) true by EXPERIMENT (yet, the theory is not an absolute because it's contrary, Einstein's theory of gravity is quite different, yet experimentally "proven"). Evolutionism is neither based on observation (e.g. of fish evolving into frogs in species evolution) nor experiment.

Someone once noted that there are four great problems of evolutionism:
1. The Second Law of Thermodynamics or the Law of Entropy. This Law states that the usable energy of the universe is decreasing; therefore, degradation and not evolution is the principle underlying the processes of the universe. Development only occurs where intelligence is present. Life and intelligence (including DNA) go together.
2. Missing Links. There isn't any evidence that a species evolved into another. No fossil of an ape-man or a fish-reptile have been found. There are not sufficient reasons to theorize that Neanderthal man, Java man, and Peking man were intermediaries between apes and humans. The Piltdown Man was a hoax (Check these articles Piltdown (wikipedia); Neanderthal (ICR)
3. No Known Mechanism. There is no known mechanism of evolution. It is not known because it cannot be observed, and unless one observes something happening (e.g. evolution actually taking place). See the following video:
4. Growing evidences for a young earth. Evolutionism claims eons of time taken for evolution to take place (e.g. hundreds of monkeys randomly hitting on a computer keyboard produced Shakespeare's The Tempest in eons of time). But, there are growing evidences for a young earth. (See Evidence for a Young Earth; Evidence for a Young Earth from the Ocean and Atmosphere by L. Vardiman, PhD)

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The Problem of Ethics

If evolutionism is true, then Justice, Courage, and Temperance are invalidated and moral questions become nonsensical. The moral sense is absurd. The serious consequences of such absurdity has been well portrayed by Steve Turner.

Turner's Creed as Quoted by Ravi Zacharias
We believe in Marx, Freud and Darwin
We believe everything is OK
as long as you don't hurt anyone
to the best of your definition of hurt,
and to the best of your knowledge.

We believe in sex before, during, and
after marriage.
We believe in the therapy of sin.
We believe that adultery is fun.
We believe that sodomy’s OK.
We believe that taboos are taboo.

We believe that everything's getting better
despite evidence to the contrary.
The evidence must be investigated
And you can prove anything with evidence.

We believe there's something in horoscopes
UFO's and bent spoons.
Jesus was a good man just like Buddha,
Mohammed, and ourselves.
He was a good moral teacher though we think
His good morals were bad.

We believe that all religions are basically the same-
at least the one that we read was.
They all believe in love and goodness.
They only differ on matters of creation,
sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation.

We believe that after death comes the Nothing
Because when you ask the dead what happens
they say nothing.
If death is not the end, if the dead have lied, then its
compulsory heaven for all
excepting perhaps
Hitler, Stalin, and Genghis Kahn

We believe in Masters and Johnson
What's selected is average.
What's average is normal.
What's normal is good.

We believe in total disarmament.
We believe there are direct links between warfare and
bloodshed.
Americans should beat their guns into tractors .
And the Russians would be sure to follow.

We believe that man is essentially good.
It's only his behavior that lets him down.
This is the fault of society.
Society is the fault of conditions.
Conditions are the fault of society.

We believe that each man must find the truth that
is right for him.
Reality will adapt accordingly.
The universe will readjust.
History will alter.
We believe that there is no absolute truth
excepting the truth
that there is no absolute truth.

We believe in the rejection of creeds,
And the flowering of individual thought.

If chance be
the Father of all flesh,
disaster is his rainbow in the sky
and when you hear:

State of Emergency!

Sniper Kills Ten!

Troops on Rampage!

Whites go Looting!

Bomb Blasts School!

It is but the sound of man worshipping his maker.

Evolutionism & Living Reality

From Marbaniang, Domenic. Philosophy of Science, 2007, 2011 (Amazon; Lulu, ITunes)


Evolutionism concerns the problem of the origin and nature of living reality. Evolutionism, in science, refers to the theory that ‘the many complex organisms now existent descended or evolved from relatively fewer and simpler organisms.’[1] The hypothetical nature of evolutionism, despite accruement of evidences in support yet inability to verify in prediction or through experimentation, has led some to label it as being not a scientific theory but a philosophical one.[2]

Supposed evidence for organic evolution comes from comparative anatomy, study of vestigial remains, embryology, blood and fluid tests of animals, examination of fossils, study of geographical distribution, domestication and experimentation, and classification.[3]

The theory of evolution doesn’t simply end at ‘the fewer and simpler organisms’. The ultimate problem is how life itself originated. The religious or purely philosophical answers do not concern scientific metaphysics. However, though evolutionism has been labeled sometimes as religious and sometimes as philosophical, its claim to an empirical scientific methodology, generally allots it a place in physical anthropology. According to Duane T. Gish, the General Theory of Evolution is the ‘theory that all living things have arisen by naturalistic, mechanistic processes from a single primeval cell, which in turn had arisen by similar processes from a dead, inanimate world.’[4]

Critics of evolution theory have pointed out that it fails to meet the criteria of a scientific theory. To Gish, for instance its failure consists in not being observed, not being subject to experimentation, and assuming the form of non-falsifiability.[5] Further, a verifiable prediction on the basis of evolution theory has never been successfully made and verified because an adequate theory to explain the mechanism has never been given. In fact, in order for such a theory to even exist, evolution must be first observed, which has never been the case. Therefore, evolutionism cannot be regarded as science, at least in the sense in which all other scientific theories are concerned. However, as relevant to the subject and science and also philosophy, the fundamental assumptions of evolutionism need to be examined.

Evolutionism assumes that life is material. In other words, life is all about a right arrangement of atoms and molecules. On the basis of this assumption, it is supposed that a mixture of certain gases, energy, and water could have given rise to certain organic substances, like amino acids (the building blocks of proteins, including the all-important enzymes that control the chemical processes of life), and purines and pyrimidines (the building blocks of RNA and DNA).[6]Consequently, the sea would have become a ‘soup’ of prebiological organic compounds which would become conducive to the generation of some kind of a replicator that played a crucial role in the development of cells and the origin of life. What all these substances and replicators are is unknown to science. How all this happened is unknown to science.

However, evolutionists seem to be sure that though they are not sure how this all happened, they are at least sure that it has so happened, although they have never observed it happening. Such kind of an approach seems to be too superstitious to some. But all of this proceeds out of a materialistic outlook that not only looks at the world as a machine but also looks at the organism also as a machine. Life, then, is not some spiritual element within the organism. It is simply the animation or growth caused in a material body due to some programmed materials that chanced to happen at random. The strength of belief in evolutionism despite such uncertainty in providing adequate scientific explanations cannot qualify evolutionism as a philosophy, which seeks not mere speculation but argument and reasoning to establish the absoluteness of truth. Consequently, theories that are based on evolutionism also may be as unreliable as evolutionism since it itself stands on uncertainty.

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[1] Milton D. Hunnex, Chronological and Thematic Charts of Philosophies and Philosophers (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1986), p. 17
[2] Harry Rimmer, The Theory of Evolution and the Facts of Science (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1935), p. 18
[3] Titus, Smith, and Nolan, Living Issues in Philosophy, p. 33
[4] Duane Tolbert Gish, “Creation, Evolution and Public Education,” Philosophy and Contemporary Issues, 4th edn. (eds. John R. Burr & Milton Goldinger;New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1984), p. 458
[5] Ibid, p. 459
[6] “Evolution,” Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia (Microsoft Corporation, 2001)