Interpreting Fossils

Evolution Says .....

It is very easy for palaeontologists to accurately work out what an animal looked like from its fossilized bones.

The Facts Are .....

(1) Examination of Snake Creek in 1927 showed that the tooth of an extinct genus of pig (Catagonus wagneri) had wrongly been interpreted as being the tooth of a 'human' ancestor. In 1972 a herd of these very animals (Catagonus ameghino) were discovered alive in Paraguay's Chaco. This new species is very similar to the extinct species. Science, Vol. 66, 1927 p:579; Science, Vol. 189, 1975 p:379

(2) "No one knows for sure what they (ie. prehistoric animals) looked like, so the artist has the freedom to 'create' with colours and forms." Renowned medical illustrator Ronald J. Erwin stating in an interview with Robert Doolan, that an artist is free to make a painting of a prehistoric animal look which ever way they like. Quoted in "Filling in the Blanks" in Creation Ex Nihilo, Vol. 17, No. 2, 1995 p:16-17

(3) "I was told to make the illustrations either more or less human or modern - whatever the subject was. ..... With this Australopithecus (viz. Lucy) I was told to re-create something that was a big "maybe", and then make it look believable. ..... I was told to make her more ape-like, or more "transitional" in appearance ..... I had been given a cast of a skull, and I was shown some drawings other artists had done of 'Lucy', and was asked to improve on these - to make her look more transitional." Renowned medical illustrator Ronald J. Erwin stating in an interview with Robert Doolan, that evolutionists try to make images of prehistoric animal look like they fit into the evolutionary model. Quoted in "Filling in the Blanks" in Creation Ex Nihilo, Vol. 17, No. 2, 1995 p:17

(4) "The systematic status and biological affinity of a fossil organism is far more difficult to establish than in the case of a living form, and can never be established with any degree of certainty. To begin with, 99% of the biology of any organism resides in its soft anatomy, which is inaccessible in a fossil." Written by M. Denton in the article "The Fossil Record", in the publication "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis", Alder Publishers Inc: Bethesda (Maryland), 1985 p:177

(5) "The problem with a lot of anthropologists is that they want so much to find a hominid (ape-man) that any scrap of bone becomes a hominid bone." Quoted as being stated by evolutionary anthropologist Dr Tim White (University of California), in Ian Anderson's article "Hominid Collarbone Exposed as Dolphin's Rib", in New Scientist, Vol. 98, No. 1355, April 1983 p:199

(6) "As I have already implied, students of fossil primates have not been distinguished for caution when working within the logical constraints of their subject. The record is so astonishing that it is legitimate to ask whether much science is yet to be found in this field at all." Written by evolutionist (Lord) Sir Solly Zuckerman in his book "Beyond the Ivory Tower", Weidenfeld and Nicholson: London, 1970 p:64

(7) "Palaeontologists (and evolutionary biologists in general) are famous for their facility in devising plausible stories: but they often forget that plausible stories need not be true." Written by Steven Jay Gould in Paleobiology, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1977 p:34:1

(8) "If you brought in a smart scientist from another discipline and showed him the meagre evidence we've got he'd surely say, 'forget it: there isn't enough to go on'." Written by palaeoanthropologist, David Pilbeam in Richard Leakey's "The Making of Mankind", Michael Joseph Press Ltd: London, 1981 p:43

(9) "Everybody knows fossils are fickle; bones will sing any song you want to hear." J. Shreeve, "Argument Over a Woman", Discover, Vol.11, No. 8, 1990 p:58