Ardi: Hardly Evidence for Human Evolution

Ardi: Hardly Evidence for Human Evolution

A Christian Perspective of the Latest Hominid Fossil Find

I remember watching Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In as a kid. One of my favorite characters was the German soldier, Wolfgang, played by Arte Johnson. Shell-shocked, the confused Wolfgang was still trying to fight World War II. His mission: spy on the Laugh-In show. From time to time, Wolfgang would stick his head out from behind the bushes and comment pensively, “Very interesting.”

Recently a team of paleoanthropologists and geologists reported on the remarkably complete remains of Ardipithecus ramidus, one of the earliest known hominids. The researchers nicknamed this creature Ardi, and find it to be “very interesting.” It holds interest from an apologetics standpoint, too. The discovery of Ardi overturns ideas associated with the theory of human evolution, and that uncertainty raises doubts about the validity of the theory as a whole.

(Go here to listen to the episode of Science News Flash in which I offer my assessment on what Ardi means to the human evolutionary model.)

One of the ideas called into question by this discovery is the scenario for the origin of bipedalism. Before these researchers reported on Ardi, I suspected that this evolutionary explanation was in trouble. At the risk of living in the past I invite you to go here and here to read earlier articles I wrote on the scientific problems with the evolutionary model for the origin of bipedalism in humans.

From my vantage point, discoveries like Ardi make it difficult to regard human evolution as a fact.