Contradictory messages

Recently ICR posted the image above to their facebook.  As I wrote in Millions of these part two and Ray's take on humankind, I think that some creationists like to pull a bait and switch.  The gentleman on the far right is clearly Homo sapien and he tells the other three that "We're not related".  However the gentleman second from the right is generally Homo erectus or a Neanderthal and both are considered part of humankind by most creationists.  

There seems to be two contradictory messages here.  Homo sapiens are related to Homo erectus, except when they are not.  

Baboon

ICR

I saw this promo for an ICR conference at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa.  If you don't recognize the primate on the other side, it is a baboon, probably Savannah. I have noted elsewhere that images like this seem a little disingenuous.  Ray's has a better image.

Ray Comfort

Is it easier to see the similarities between Homo erectus than say Australopithecus afarensis.  

Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve

Today I have been in a little bit of a Narnia mood.  It occurred to me that Ray considers both of these to be sons of Adam.

Facebook

Also, I have been wondering why not define "kind" as things that have a common ancestor since those within kinds cannot all interbreed?

Ray's take on humankind

OK if you have been reading my blog, you know how this goes.  Ray shared the following two pictures on his facebook.

Neanderthal

Homo erectus

The first is an image of neanderthal woman despite Ray and other creationists captioning it as "nebraska man".  The second image is a Homo sapien with a Homo erectus.  Ray considers both to be a part of what he calls "humankind". [1][2][3]

The caption for the picture of the neanderthal:

Prof Stanford: "There’s evidence of evolution in the Galapagos." Ray: "Could you give me one instance?" Prof Stanford: "Yes, we have an example from a group of birds called Darwin’s finches." Ray: "What have the finches become?" Prof Stanford: "They've become anatomically new and genetically new, recognizably different species." Ray: "So they’re still finches?" Prof Stanford: "Well, of course they’re still finches, yes."

I wrote about something similar to this here and here. I could be wrong, but I think that Ray is playing the same bait and switch.  Ray asks for an ape man, a transitional form.  With his brow ridges, no chin, smaller skull, robust skull, smaller cheekbones, and protruding jaw, Homo erectus looks like it would fit that bill.
Even though, most creationists consider Homo erectus to be part of humankind, I don't think that most creationists consider the implications of what that means.  When you put a picture of Homo erectus next to a picture of Homo sapien, one does not look human.  This is a little less so with the neanderthal.

I cannot prove it, but I think the implication behind these two images is that only the Homo sapien is human.  Ray seems to be implying something that he doesn't actually believe.

Millions of these part two

I have left in color the four that we are going to be discussing.

I wrote a couple of days ago about some of the things that were wrong with this meme.  With over 400 shares and counting, let's visit another thing.  The man who posted the meme follows Answers in Genesis (AiG) on Facebook.  I don't know if he knows, but various people at AiG have claimed at times that the four individuals left in color were fully human.

Homo erectus is the gentleman to the left of the naked bearded man.   Homo erectus is almost universally recognized by AiG as being fully human. [1] [2]  Dr. Kurt Wise thinks they built the Tower of Babel.

Preserved in post-Flood sediments older than any Neanderthals and Hobbits are Homo erectus fossils.3 Aside from the skull, Homo erectus skeletons are virtually indistinguishable from modern humans, so the evidence indicates they are human. And, since humans did not disperse across the world until after Babel, the distribution of Homo erectus across the Old World (Java, China, Africa) suggests they not only date from after the Flood, they also date from after Babel. Homo erectus is thus not only the oldest human fossil we have following Babel but the only human fossil for some time after Babel. From this we infer that the Homo erectus form is probably what humans looked like at the time of Babel. [3] 

Dr. Dewitt's grouping

Homo habilis, the third from the right, generally is not considered to be human by AiG.  However there are some exceptions to that rule.  The habilis skull, KNM-ER 1470 is almost said to be human by Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell. [4]  In "Baraminological Analysis Places Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis, and Australopithecus sediba in the Human Holobaramin", Dr. Todd Charles Wood identified habilis as human.

[T]he dispersal of the human population from Babel would presumably have been led by H. habilis and H. rudolfensis, specimens of which appear stratigraphically lower than any other human species. [5]

Wood also placed an Australopith, Australopithecus sediba, in the human taxa.[5]  When the question of what is human is so up in the air, it is very disingenuous to mock the fossil record.  Four out of the six have been called human by Answers in Genesis.

Millions of these

The picture was captioned, "Darwin's Folly"

Flickr

I saw the picture above on Facebook and thought that this would be the appropriate forum to write something. The chart points to a quadrupedal ape on the left and a Homo sapien on the right and alleges that there are "millions of these". Then it asks, "so where are the millions of these?"

This Facebook meme seems to be an edited picture of the one on the right. The farthest to the left is not named,  but it is probably not a chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes[1] and paniscus[2]).  Second on the chart is the Spanish "hominidos" which in English is the Family "Hominidae".  Within the Hominidae family are the genera: Pan (Chimps), Pongo (Orangutan), Gorilla, and Homo.[3]  Also included are extinct genera: Orrorin, Ardipithecus,  Australopithecus and Paranthropus.[4]  The second does not represent a genus or species, but an entire family.

Nature

With the discussion of the second, let us return to the first.   The skull marking the second is very similar to a chimpanzee, however the image has the second as a clear biped.  Still, the canines are also more prominent in Ardipithecus.  The feet also have a prominent thumb like toe that is also similar to the genus Ardipithecus.  So this is probably meant to emulate the Ardipiths.

What about the first one?  There are a couple of reasons that it is probably not meant to be a chimp.  One, human beings are not supposed to have evolved from chimps.  Chimps and Humans are hypothesized to share a common ancestor about 8 to 5 million years ago.  Fossil chimps were not even discovered until 2005.  They were dated at around half a million years old and were impossible "to say whether they belonged to the same species as modern chimps" "or to some unnamed, now extinct ancestor".[5]    Still, it is very unlikely that the image is trying to demonstrate that Ardipithecus,  Australopithecus, Paranthropus, and Homo all evolved from Pan or that Pan is older than Australopithecus.  Further, Dawkins noted in An Ancestor's Tale, "We must not assume, as many laymen do, that our ancestors were chimpanzees."[6]

The third from the left is the genus Australopithecus.   Despite Lucy (afarensis) being the most well known, there are at least six species of Australopith: anamensis, afarensis, bahrelghazali, africanus, garhi,[7] and sediba.  The previously mentioned Ardipithecus genus contains two species: kadabba and ramidus.[8]  Why is this important?  Do you remember the question?  "So where are the millions of these?"  There are only two known species of the genus Pan, yet there are about 300,000 troglodytes [9] and 20,000 paniscus [10].  Despite the fact that there are not "millions" of Pan left alive, the Facebook meme seems to suggest that six species of Australopiths alone could not produce a population of millions or be representative of a genus comparable in population to Pan.

The next skull on the chart is for the genus Paranthropus which contains three species: boisei, aethiopicus, and robustus [11].  The Paranthropus genus, however, is not represented by a figure.  Moving on, the next three are a select three species from the genus Homo.  The first is Homo habilis [12].  Habilis and Homo rudolfensis are thought to be among the earliest representatives of the genus.  Next is Homo erectus. [13]  More than 50 individuals were found at just one site and they have been found throughout Africa and Asia.[14] The final figure is Homo sapien.

Summing up, the animal to the left is probably not a chimpanzee.  Even if it is, I hope the point is clear, even with only showing three species from Homo, there are abundant fossils for that genus.  Also the other two genera cited also have abundant fossils.  Any of these genera dwarf the chimpanzee fossil record by a mile.  Also the Australopithecus, Paranthropus, and Homo genera are represented by more species than the genus Pan.

PS - The meme on Facebook (with over 300 shares) is captioned "Darwin's Folly".  When Darwin wrote Origin of the Species (1859) and Descent of Man (1871), only Homo sapiens were known to science.  Darwin hypothesized the existence of the other species.  This seems more like a successful prediction of Darwin's theory rather than a folly.

Juan Enriquez: Will our kids be a different species?