You have probably seen the famous depiction of a monkey progressively turning into an upright human figure.

What You Will Learn

You have probably seen the famous depiction of a monkey progressively turning into an upright human figure. But what evidence is there for this popular picture? The fossil record that is used to support human evolution has become more and more questionable as more and more fossils are found. The cautious way in which human ancestry is treated in the textbooks is evidence of the lack of consensus in the area of human evolution. What used to be direct evolutionary trees have become overlapping bars on a timeline. Most scientists believe that primates and humans all share a recent common ancestor at about 80 million years ago. This date is not based on fossils but on the similarity in DNA sequences and the assumptions surrounding the use of such "molecular clocks." Many of the fossils of human ancestors consist of little more than fragments of bone, some of which have been exposed as frauds.

Most creationists consider Neanderthals, Cro-Magnon, and some other fossil groups as representatives of extinct people groups, not evolutionary dead ends. Interpretation of fossils from an evolutionary perspective is not compatible with the teachings of the Bible. The fact that chimpanzees and humans have similar DNA does not make them evolutionary relatives. Humans did not evolve in a series of random accidents from an apelike ancestor—they were created in the image of God. The Bible makes a clear distinction between man and the animals. Man is given the ability to fellowship with God and given dominion over the animals. Evolutionary ideas about the rise of man from apes has fueled racist attitudes and set the stage for such atrocities as the Holocaust. Humans were specially created by God and are not simply highly evolved primates.

Note: Page numbers preceded by "T" indicate items from the teacher notes found in the margins of the Teacher's Edition.

What We Really Know about the Origin of Humans

The origin of humans is most certainly one of the most contentious points of evolutionary theory. Many people who believe in the God of the Bible accept that evolution created the animals but they still believe that humans (or at least their souls) were created by God. Such compromise positions have ultimately undermined the authority of God's Word; Scripture is accepted for its moral value but not for its absolute truth in every area. It would seem that almost every culture on the planet has some story to explain how humans came to be. Many of these involve supernatural acts by gods. Naturalistic science, by its own definition, does not accept these supernatural events and regards them as myth. Religion and mythology are often viewed as some evolved coping mechanism to explain things that our brains have not been able to understand or directly experience. The scientific community must reject a supernatural origin based on its naturalistic/materialistic definition of science.

One of the reasons that human evolution is such a hot issue in Western culture stems from the direct conflict it has with biblical Christianity. In the creation account of Genesis 1 and 2, man is created in a position above the animals—in the very "image of God." In evolutionary philosophy, man is a mere accident in the experiment run by time, chance, and natural laws. Man occupies no more important a position in the universe than does an asteroid floating through space. This notion runs contrary to the emotions of most people, but that may simply be arrogance due to our highly evolved brains.

Many may believe that there is a wide array of fossil evidence that clearly shows how apes have become humans. The iconic depiction of a hunched monkey gradually developing into an uprightwalking human has been viewed by most people. The problem is that much of the visuals are made up. The absence of a consistent story of evolution is obvious in the way that human ancestry is presented in the textbooks. Instead of showing a phylogenetic tree, two of the textbooks (Holt and Prentice Hall) simply show timelines representing the fossils. The Glencoe text shows a "possible" phylogenetic tree with many dashed lines (which are assumed to be questionable, even though they are not indicated as such), and one line appearing out of thin air. The cautious treatment of this topic shows the lack of consensus within the scientific community regarding the alleged ancestry of humans.

The proposed evolutionary ancestors to humans have changed many times over the decades as new fossil evidence has been gathered. While it is not expected that theories should remain constant, the picture seems to become less and less common with the addition of new information. Many nearly identical terms are used to describe alleged human and ape ancestors. Care must be taken to distinguish between hominoids, humanoids, hominins, hominans, and hominids. The most commonly discussed term is "hominid":

Hominid: extinct and living members of the family Hominidae, including modern humans and their ancestors.

The term hominid has a somewhat contradictory definition within and between the textbooks reviewed. Different classification schemes place the orangutans, gorillas, and chimps (these three are commonly called the "great apes") in the family Pongidae, while other schemes place these three in the family Hominidae with humans. Depending on which scheme is used for classification, the meaning of the word changes. Whether the term includes the great apes is somewhat irrelevant in that all groups still share a supposed common ancestor. In the broader scope, all four of these groups would be referred to as hominoids. The textbooks seem to indicate that only bipedal (walking upright on two legs) primates are classified as hominids, and the figures discussing hominids include "ancestors" that are assumed to be bipedal (Homo, Australopithecus, Ardipithecus, etc.). A review of current literature seems to indicate a trend toward including all four groups in the family Hominidae, which would mean the definition would need to be modified. The term has no value in the creationist model because there are no human ancestors—apes are apes, humans are humans. This does not mean that all creationists agree on the classification of all of the fossil primates. Classification is a subjective issue, especially when dealing in the historical realm of fossils and fragments of fossils. It is important to recognize the limits of accuracy when dealing with such a topic.

Many evolutionists try to dispel the popular idea that humans evolved from monkeys. While that statement is a simplification of human evolution, evolutionists claim that there is a common ancestor for monkeys, apes, and humans. If this common ancestor didn't look something like a monkey, what did it look like? It would be more accurate to say that humans, monkeys, and apes have a common ancestor, but the distinction is relatively minor when considering that the ancestor of all apes and monkeys must have looked something like an ape or monkey.

The moral implications of the evolutionary philosophy that man is simply an advanced ape are increasingly manifested in our culture. If man is an ape, then the apelike or "primal" urges that we have for violence and sexuality can be excused as coming from our evolutionary history. Exercising those urges is contrary to the Christian doctrine of self-control. Many evolutionists try to separate biological evolution from evolutionary-based social philosophies on the grounds that those philosophies are not scientific. While this is true, evolutionists still try to deal with questions of behavior and their origins.

Bioethics is the area that deals with the moral and ethical implications of scientific knowledge and the technology it produces. If society espouses evolutionary/materialistic beliefs, those beliefs have consequences. There is no absolute basis for morality in a materialistic belief system; right and wrong are determined by the individual and society. As society changes, the laws that govern a society also change. Accepting the view that humans are simply highly evolved apes and that man determines truth is directly contrary to the absolute authority of the Creator God of the Bible.
Starting from the evolutionary bias that apes and humans are similar, some evolutionists have proposed that chimps should actually be reclassified in the genus Homo alongside humans. Taking this a step further, several groups are pushing for "human rights" for the apes. If they are truly that similar to us, why not grant them these rights? One reason is that the Bible makes a clear distinction between human life and the life of animals. We are to be stewards of the earth and have dominion over the animals, but we are created in the image of God, which makes us distinct from the apes.

An examination of the fossils that are proposed as human ancestors, or at least along the branch that led to humans, shows many specimens that overlap in evolutionary time, as well as gaps of millions of years. There is no consensus on the path to humans, and any representation of the lineage is highly subjective. In the biblical creationist model, these specimens either represent some type of extinct ape, or groups of humans.

One of the unfortunate elements of the acceptance of the evolutionary origins of man was a marked increase in racial prejudice. Although racism certainly existed before the 1850s, evolution gave white Europeans a "scientific" justification to dominate the "less evolved" Africans and Australian Aborigines. Australian Aborigines were actually killed and taken to London as museum specimens of the "missing link" between apemen and modern humans. A pygmy by the name of Ota Benga was placed on exhibit in the monkey house at the Bronx Zoo. What could justify such treatment of humans? Evolution was used to justify the display because the Africans, Aborigines, and Mongols (Asians) were arbitrarily considered inferior races to the Caucasians of Europe. In contrast, the Bible explains that all men are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26–27) and are of one blood (Acts 17:26)—there are no inferior races. In fact, there is only one race, the human race.

Humans are humans and have been so since the beginning; no prehistoric hominids ever evolved into humans. Though the fossil record is incomplete, it can only be interpreted accurately if the presuppositions are true—that truth comes from God, who is the only eyewitness to all of the events of history.