In searching to better understand the intelligent design/evolution
debate I’ve come across many different arguments – all making good points as
well as making questionable ones. I was having a hard time deciding exactly
what to focus on.While immersing myself in this debate I've also been
researching for another project dealing with Neanderthals – precursors to
humans (or so the evolution theorists say). In researching these hominids and
other proto-humans I thought what of chimpanzees? do they, too, have
proto-chimpanzees – (chimpanids I’ll call them)?
According to evolutionary biologists, at one moment in time there
existed a common ancestor of the chimpanzee and the modern human. After a long
period of time a split formed – proto-human going its way and proto-chimpanzee
going its way (5 to 8 million years ago). So far scientists have discovered
skeletal remains of hominids leading up to the modern human but what of
chimpanids leading up to the modern chimp?
Here I had finally found a question I had never considered!
I began searching then for any information on the evolutionary
development of the modern chimpanzee – surely they have a similar amount of
fossils to that of the hominid fossils, or at least a couple suggesting a
gradual change from common ancestor to modern chimp.
In searching I found an article about such fossils. The find
happened in 2005 (6 years ago); and the discovery? Teeth. 500,000 year-old
teeth are the first known chimpanzee fossils.
It is impossible to tell if these teeth belong to modern
chimpanzees or some proto-chimpanzee – a species long extinct. If it is the
case that those teeth belong to a modern chimpanzee, then these chimps have
been around quite a long time. The modern human has been around for only
200,000 years while an ancestor of the modern human, Homo erectus,
had lasted about 1 million years.
With this find another question emerged: did the human-chimp
separation happen do to physical separation as previously believed?
Prior to this discovery the main theory suggested that “chimps
never crossed east of the Rift Valley, but instead stayed in the jungles of
western and central Africa.” However the chimp remains found were east of
this divide. This discovery not only calls into question the cause of
separation between humans and chimps evolutionarily but it also undermines the
theory of how humans evolved bipedalism – the previous claim being that because
proto-humans lived in a savannah bipedalism was a necessary adaption; Yet here
scientists have found chimps living in these semi-arid conditions as well.
So what does all this have to do with the intelligent design/
evolutionary debate? I suppose it is another unanswered question in the
evolutionary theory. Intelligent design can explain this problem by simply
stating there was no divide to begin with. There were separate species already
made – unrelated to one another except for the “fact” that they came from a
designer. There was no proto-chimp or proto-human – just different species of
non-human. Then, an intelligent designer created the first humans. There was no
gradual change of one species of hominids into Homo sapiens. All of this of
course is speculation as there is no evidence of this intelligent designer like there is the fossil record for evolution (although one could argue the fossil record has little evidence of gradual
change).
Another issue I’m having that is not addressed in the article is
the identification of the fossils found. The paleontologists found three
500,000 year old teeth – three! Apparently this is enough to say what species
they belong to. That alone is amazing to me but I must say questionable too.
The anthropologist behind the find, Sally McBrearty, says that the lack of
chimpanzee fossils is a “frustrating puzzle” but easily explainable – fossils
are rare and the supposed habitat of these chimpanids is not conducive to
fossilizing bones. A nice tidy answer to the big problem in the evidential
value of the fossil record but that is for another blog entry.
Nonetheless, it is a fascinating discovery that seemed to have
gotten swept under the rug (well I hadn’t heard of this discovery before).
McBrearty says in the article that she will return to the area of the discovery
to look for more chimpanzee fossils. No one was expecting to find chimpanzee
fossils in the hominid habitat but now there is new perspective. Hopefully with
these fresh eyes more will turn up – perhaps a couple of phalanges or some rib
bones.
--Elise Edoka
It's funny how scientist can find so few fossils and base an entire theory on those few findings! Nevertheless, it's an interesting finding that causes us to question the knowledge that was previously accepted by many. I'm all for it!
ReplyDelete-Rachael Morris