{"id":3723,"date":"2015-06-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-06-01T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apologeticspress.org\/sediba-yet-another-paleo-blunder-5166\/"},"modified":"2022-05-16T11:41:33","modified_gmt":"2022-05-16T16:41:33","slug":"sediba-yet-another-paleo-blunder-5166","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apologeticspress.org\/sediba-yet-another-paleo-blunder-5166\/","title":{"rendered":"Sediba: Yet Another Paleo-Blunder"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since their discovery in 2008, we have been responding to the waves of media hype over the Australopithecus sediba<\/em> fossils\u2014claimed to be pieces of two individuals thought to be representative of the missing link between the Australopithecines and the Homo<\/em> genus (cf. Butt<\/a>, 2010; Miller<\/a>, 2012a; Miller<\/a>, 2012b). The media proclaimed the fossils to be evolutionary \u201cgame changers\u201d (Potter, 2011), the \u201cfirst of our kind\u201d (Wong, 2012), and \u201cstrong confirmation of evolutionary theory\u201d (Potter). As we predicted, enough time has now gone by for further study to be done on the fossils, and the hoopla over the find seems to have all but disappeared.<\/p>\n

In fact, once again, a complete 180 degree turnaround is underway. An article appearing in New Scientist<\/em> in 2014 started with the sentence, \u201cOne of our closest long-lost relatives may never have existed. The fossils of Australopithecus sediba<\/em>, which promised to rewrite the story of human evolution, may actually be the remains of two species jumbled together\u201d (Barras, 2014). Ella Been of Tel Aviv University in Israel studies the spines of ancient hominins and ran across a paper in Science<\/em> magazine that assessed the spine of sediba<\/em>. After conducting her own study, Yoel Rak (also of Tel Aviv) and she \u201cconclude that there are not two but four individuals\u201d represented by the sediba <\/em>fossils\u2014separate individuals whose bones were mixed up during the (catastrophic) event that began the fossilization process (Barras). They presented their study at a meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society in Calgary, Canada in April, 2014. This revelation, once again, highlights how easy it is for evolutionists to be wrong in their conclusions about fossils, especially considering that their conclusions are based on \u201cmeager evidence\u201d (Wong, p. 31), like a \u201ctoe bone here or a jaw there\u201d (DiChristina, 2012, p. 4).<\/p>\n

Recall from our last article addressing sediba<\/em> that Lee Berger, the evolutionary paleoanthropologist of the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa who discovered the sediba <\/em>fossils, chided the standard practice in the paleontological community of trying to draw too much information from single, isolated bones. The sediba<\/em> skeletons were thought to be more complete than typical fossil finds (even though the sediba<\/em> skeletons were nowhere near being even 50% complete). Berger argued that if any of the bones he found had been found isolated, as is the typical scenario in fossil finds, completely different conclusions would have been drawn about the skeletal anatomy. He said, \u201cSediba<\/em> shows that one can no longer assign isolated bones to a genus\u201d (as quoted in Wong, p. 34). Ironically, now even his discovery, which was thought to be more complete, has also apparently been shown to be inadequate in determining the anatomy of an ancient skeleton. His assessment appears to have fallen victim to the same erroneous practice in paleontology that he chided. To make matters worse, according to the New Scientist<\/em> article, \u201cBerger\u2019s latest work hints that the young male\u2019s vertebrae may show signs of disease. If so, they are not representative of the species\u201d (p. 11). That would mean that the sediba<\/em> fossils cannot even be used as evidence of a transitional species, since the normal anatomy of the species would remain unknown.<\/p>\n

The fossil record should be filled with billions of transitional fossils if Darwinian evolution actually occurred, but as we have highlighted time and again\u2014and even many of the evolutionists themselves frequently admit\u2014the evidence for the evolution of humans from an ape-like ancestor is lacking. The fossil record continues to support what creationists predict to be the case if the biblical model is true. God created the original \u201ckinds\u201d (Genesis 1:21,24-25) of creatures, and only diversification within those kinds<\/strong> has occurred over time. Believing that we evolved from a single-celled organism billions of years ago amounts to a wild, irrational leap.<\/p>\n

\n\tREFERENCES<\/h2>\n

Barras, Colin (2014), \u201cMissing Link Fossils May Be a Jumble of Species,\u201d New Scientist<\/em>, 222[2964]:11, April 12.<\/p>\n

Butt, Kyle (2010), \u201cAustralopithecus Sediba<\/em>: Another Relative We Never Had,\u201d Apologetics Press, http:\/\/apologeticspress.org\/APContent.aspx?category=9&article=2872<\/a>.<\/p>\n

DiChristina, Mariette (2012), \u201cThe Story Begins,\u201d Scientific American<\/em>, 306[4]:4, April.<\/p>\n

Miller, Jeff (2012a), \u201cAustralopithecus Sediba<\/em>: Evolutionary Game Changer?\u201d Reason & Revelation<\/em>, 32[3]:33-35, March, http:\/\/apologeticspress.org\/APPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=1024&article=1741#<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Miller, Jeff (2012b), \u201cSediba<\/em> Hype Continues,\u201d Reason & Revelation<\/em>, 32[9]:92-93, September, http:\/\/apologeticspress.org\/apPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=1093&article=2039<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Potter, Ned (2011), \u201cEvolutionary \u2018Game Changer\u2019: Fossil May Be Human Ancestor,\u201d ABC News<\/em>, September 8, http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Technology\/fossils-south-africa-called-evolutionary-game-changer\/story?id=14474976#.Tmou Xw8wezs.email<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wong, Kate (2012), \u201cFirst of Our Kind,\u201d Scientific American<\/em>, 306[4]:30-39, April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since their discovery in 2008, we have been responding to the waves of media hype over the Australopithecus sediba fossils\u2014claimed to be pieces of two individuals thought to be representative of the missing link between the Australopithecines and the Homo genus (cf. Butt, 2010; Miller, 2012a; Miller, 2012b). The media proclaimed the fossils to be… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23327,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,276,9,61,287,72],"tags":[],"kids-category":[],"people":[286],"bible-book":[],"language":[168],"age-group":[173],"publication":[248],"class_list":["post-3723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alleged-human-evolution","category-bulletin-articles","category-creation-vs-evolution","category-fossil-record","category-in-the-news","category-paleontology","people-jeff-miller-phd","language-english","age-group-adults","publication-reason-revelation"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/apologeticspress.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Sediba-JM-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apologeticspress.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apologeticspress.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apologeticspress.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apologeticspress.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apologeticspress.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3723"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/apologeticspress.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21131,"href":"https:\/\/apologeticspress.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3723\/revisions\/21131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apologeticspress.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apologeticspress.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apologeticspress.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apologeticspress.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3723"},{"taxonomy":"kids-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apologeticspress.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kids-category?post=3723"},{"taxonomy":"people","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apologeticspress.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/people?post=3723"},{"taxonomy":"bible-book","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apologeticspress.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bible-book?post=3723"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apologeticspress.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=3723"},{"taxonomy":"age-group","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apologeticspress.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/age-group?post=3723"},{"taxonomy":"publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apologeticspress.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publication?post=3723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}