ABR ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER
Vol. 2, Issue 11 Circulation: 3150
November 15, 2002
<http://www.biblearchaeology.org/

INVESTIGATING GENESIS
By Stephen Caesar, M.A.

Evolutionary 'Tree of Life' Being Scrapped

One of the best-known evolutionary images is the "tree of life", which
shows the human family tree growing from primitive, ape-like ancestors to
full-fledged humans. At the base of its "trunk" is a small primate whose
evolutionary descendants form large, separate "branches". Each major branch
then breaks into smaller branches, and so on, up to modern man. It is one
of the most effective tools in tricking people into believing in human
evolution, and it is being scrapped.

The journal Science News featured an article on the slow death of this
icon, subtitled "The science of body development may make kindling out of
evolutionary trees". It began by stating: "Over the past 25 years,
paleoanthropologists have nurtured one evolutionary tree after another,
hoping to reap ever sturdier portrayals of humanity's descent" (Bower 2000:
346). It then reported: "Recently, investigators have become fond of
assigning new fossil finds to unique rather than established species, so
evolutionary trees have gotten downright bushy" (ibid.).

This is known as "cladistics", in which scientists create an evolutionary
tree of life based on bone and tooth measurements from hundreds of fossils
and then feeding them into a computer program. The article went on to state
that "a growing number of investigators, including some formerly ardent
evolutionary-tree nurturers now suspect that the branching cladistic
creations suffer from conceptual root rot. The whole enterprise rests on
shaky biological and misleading statistical assumptions, they say"
(ibid.).

One example is Tim White of UCAL Berkeley, co-discoverer of "Lucy".
Originally, he "spawned his share of evolutionary trees. Over the past
decade, though, advances in developmental biology have led him to abstain
from that practice" (ibid.). His change came from the discovery that,
although the shape and arrangement of any organism's bones are determined
by genes as it develops from fetus to adult, the bones can respond flexibly
to influences in their natural surroundings. As a result, assessments of
what constitutes a species, based on bones alone, are inaccurate. Dr. White
concluded: "You can't [break up] skeletal anatomy, put all of the traits
into a [statistical computer] program, and generate something that makes
biological sense. A lot of people who have published cladistic trees are
going to be in trouble" (ibid.).

Bernard Wood of George Washington University and Mark Collard of
University College, London, agree. They note that skull and tooth
measurements from humans, chimps, gorillas, and orangutans have given rise
to several trees of life that have been contradicted by genetic trees of
life. Moreover, the bone and tooth measurements used to create these
unreliable modern trees are often the same measurements used to create
trees of life for alleged evolutionary ancestors, because evolutionists
assume that what applies in the present applied equally in the past
(ibid.). Science News commented: "Ongoing research in developmental biology
raises ominous warning signs about such assumptions. It indicates that many
features of bones and teeth arise as by-products of other traits during an
individual's skeletal development. Wood, who until recently was an avid and
influential evolutionary tree builder, now doubts the accuracy of
cladistics as currently practiced" (ibid., p. 347).

Like-minded anthropologists include C. Owen Lovejoy of Kent State, who
stated: "Anthropologists arbitrarily choose anatomical traits for cladistic
analysis. We need to find out how these traits develop and which ones truly
have an evolutionary signal" (ibid.). Another is Timothy Bromage of City
University of New York, who said: "We can't solve debates over Neandertals
or any other human ancestors using anatomical characteristics that are
subjectively defined and don't have a clear relationship to evolutionary
history" (ibid.).

Yet another icon of evolution crumbles.

Reference: Bower, B. 2000. "Out on a Limb". Science News 158, no. 22.

Stephen Caesar holds his master's degree in anthropology and archaeology
from Harvard University. He is the author of the e-book The Bible
Encounters Modern Science, available at <http://www.1stbooks.com/>


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