UNIQUELY HUMAN?

Man’s sudden appearance has scientists like Harvard scholar Lewontin pouring cold water on claims that a missing link between humans and apes has been discovered: Although he is an evolutionist, Lewontin acknowledges, “Despite the excited and optimistic claims that have been made by some paleontologists, no fossil hominid species can be established as our direct ancestor.”⁹

The sudden appearance of man in the history of our planet has some scientists using the world “miracle.” During an interview with the French science monthly La Recherché, Marcel Schutzenberger was asked, “The appearance of human beings—is that a miracle?”

The outspoken French mathematician replied,

Naturally. And here it does seem that there are voices among contemporary biologists—I mean voices other than mine—who might cast doubt on the Darwinian paradigm that has dominated discussion for the past twenty years.

Gradualists and saltationists [people who believe in rapid species change] alike are completely incapable of giving a convincing explanation of the quasi-simultaneous emergence of a number of biological systems that distinguish human beings from the higher primates.

Schutzenberger was referring to several physiological differences between humans and primates for which no transitional fossils have been discovered.

He then concludes the interview with his view that there is no materialistic explanation for the sudden development of man: “The reality is that we are confronted with total conceptual bankruptcy.”¹⁰

Even evolutionists like Mayr, who believe we descended from hominids writes: “Man is indeed as unique, as different from all other animals, as had been traditionally claimed by theologians and philosophers.”¹¹

Along the same lines, Ian Tattersall remarks on the uniqueness of humanity: “Homo sapiens are as distinctive an entity as exists on the face of the Earth, and should be dignified as such instead of being adulterated with every reasonably large-brained hominid fossil that happened to come along.¹²

Of all hominids, only Neanderthal had a large brain. Yet, Neanderthal was a distinct species according to DNA studies.¹³ And, according to Olson they “seem not to have developed the fluent language that lets us wonder, adapt, and create.”¹⁴

What has caused mankind to transcend the animal world and probe space, develop computers, discover DNA, and create art and music? What makes us unique? The answer came down to three pounds of lumpy gray matter floating around in our heads.

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