The Toumai fossil found in Chad, north-central Africa, was not the oldest trace of a pre-human ancestor.
Toumai fossil found in Chad was not some kind of missing link
Quick-read this article:
The overhyped “Toumai” fossil found in Chad,
north-central Africa, and announced in July 2002, was said to be
“the oldest trace of a pre-human ancestor.” But even
some prominent evolutionists claim it was just an ape that had
nothing to do with human evolution.
The sensational announcement in July 2002 that scientists in Chad in north-central Africa had unearthed “the oldest trace of a pre-human ancestor” turned out to be a wet firecracker for evolution.
The thick-browed, flat-faced skull was named
“Toumai,” which means “hope of life” in
Africa's Goran language.
The skull of this Sahelanthropus tchadensis species was claimed to be the oldest hominid fossil, yet Bernard Wood from George Washington University said the front of it looks like something in the human fossil record only a third of Toumai's supposed age.
So its face looks more modern than more modern hominids. That must mean we can't trust the look of “more recent” hominid fossils, because they have features that look older than this older fossil.
But isn't that the opposite of what evolutionists preach all the time? They line up a bunch of skull fragments in an order that supposedly looks more humanlike the closer you come to today, and tell us this shows we share our ancestry with apes.
Creationists not fooled
No creationist believed for a second that this overhyped fossil was “the oldest trace of a pre-human ancestor” ever found. Even some evolutionists say this creature had nothing to do with human evolution: it was merely an ape.
Evolutionist Bernard Wood said he thought this Chad creature was just an animal that lived at the time humans were evolving.
In October 2002, the journal Nature published a letter from prominent anthropologist Milford Wolpoff from the University of Michigan. Wolpoff argued that the “Toumai” fossil was nothing more than an ape. In fact, he suggested that it may be an ancestor of a female gorilla.
“It's an ape, not a human,” said Wolpoff. “Toumai did not walk on two legs. And that is what is unique about humans that we didn't find in this specimen.”
Wolpoff's team studied all the features that were claimed to show the fossil was a human ancestor, and found “nothing distinctly human about any of them.” (See CNN's report dated October 9, 2002.)
Chimps have no fossil record
It's interesting that every ape fossil is placed on the path to human evolution. But that has left a shortage of ape fossils, because no one wants to admit they found only a chimp fossil (their funding may dry up if their fossils don't have something to do with human evolution). The journal Nature admitted: “Chimps, for example, have no fossil record.” (Nature, July 11, 2002. The article is no longer on Nature's website, but is reproduced on Free Republic's website.).
To creationists, the Chad find shows again that evolutionists have to be much more careful about being swayed by fragmentary evidence that they try to fit it into the evolutionary treasure box.
Milford Wolpoff said of the Toumai fossil: “It is not a human or a direct ancestor of humans.”
Hmm. They never are. They are either humans or apes — not creatures linking the two separately created groups.
Photo of Toumai fossil by Ludovic Péron is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License. In short: you are free to share and make derivative works of the photo under the condition that you appropriately attribute it, and that you distribute it only under a license identical to this one. Official license.
Related topic:
- Isn't evolution proved by human babies' being born with a tail?
- Humans didn't evolve from apes!
- Evolution of laughter? Ha ha ha
- Neanderthals were humans — not ape-men or missing links!
- Is “Lucy” the missing link?
- Earliest “human” fossil in China turns out to be ape
- Can atheists ever find God?
- How can you believe the Bible if you can't prove it's true?
- Why hasn't the “missing link” been found?
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