Re: Oldest Stone Tools and Intelligence

Jim Bell (70672.1241@CompuServe.COM)
30 Apr 97 15:42:27 EDT

Glenn, I think you're being unfair to Lubenow in several respects:

<<But even Lubenow skips past the details. Considering the many morphological
distinctions between them and us his failure to mention the morphological
details is astounding.>>

He DOES discuss the distinctions, in even more detail than you did in your
post. See pp. 132-133.

<<If Homo erectus falsifies evolution then why are they so different from
us.>>

Because, according to Lubenow:

"Homo erectus demonstrates a morphological consistency throughout its
two-million-year history. The fossil record does not show erectus evolving
from something else or evolving into something else...[A]natomically modern
Homo sapiens, Neanderthal, archaic Homo sapiens, and Homo erectus all lived as
contemporaries at one time or another. None of them evolved from a more robust
to a more gracile condition....[A]ll of the fossils ascribed to the Homo
habilis category are contemporary with Homo erectus. Thus, Homo habilis not
only DID not evolve into Homo erectus, it COULD not have evolved into Homo
erectus."

The latest evidence supports Lubenow:

"New dates for the Homo erectus Ngandong, Sambungmacan, and Jigar suggest it
may have survived until 27 to 53,000 years ago. The dates come from ESR and
U-series dates of tooth enamel from these sites which have previously proved
notoriously difficult to date. This late date would put them in the same
geographical region at the same time, or later than, anatomically modern
Australian finds. Complaints that they might not be erectus have been
dismissed by Philip Rightmire (an expert on the species) who says "They are
unequivocally H. erectus". These dates will remain controversial for a long
time and will have to be confirmed by other techniques (although Rink and
Schwarcz are confident in the techniques that they have used successfully at a
large number of other sites around the globe). However, these dates will prove
highly problematic for Multiregionalists who believe that the Javanese erectus
were the ancestors of modern Aborigines." (See Swisher III, C. C., Rink, W.
J., Anton, S. C., Schwarcz, H. P., Curtis, G. H., Suprijo, A. & Widiasmoro
(1996) Latest Homo erectus of Java: Potential contemporaneity with Homo
sapiens in Southeast Asia. Science. 274 (5294). 1870-4.)

<<Lubenow never discusses the behavior of fossil man>>

See pp. 140 - 143.

While I don't agree with Lubenow on dates (though I remain my usual open
minded self), he has some compelling insights based on the evidence. And this
conclusion is incontrovertible no matter where you place the dates:

"As far as we can tell from the fossil record, when humans first appear in the
fossil record they are already human. It is this abrupt appearance of our
ancestors in morphologically human form that makes the human fossil record
compatible with the concept of Special Creation. This fact is evident even
when the fossils are arranged according to the evolutionist's dates for the
fossils, although we believe the dating to be grossly in error. In other
words, even when we accept the evolutionist's dates for the fossils, the
results to don't support human evolution." [pp. 178-179]

Jim