358 Evolution? The Fossils Say YES!
“Nebraska Man” was not accepted by any other paleontologist except Osborn and was
quickly corrected when better specimens appeared that showed it was the misleadingly
worn tooth of a fossil peccary or javelina known as Prosthennops. (I’m currently working on
a book on the fossil peccaries of North America, so I’ve gotten to know these fossils well). It
is not a “pig” as creationists claim. Typical of their ignorance of most biological topics, cre-
ationists don’t know enough zoology to know that pigs and peccaries are separate families
that evolved on different continents; they are only distantly related. In addition, Osborn’s
mistake was not as ludicrous as the creationists try to make it appear. The tooth itself is very
badly worn and apparently rotated in the socket, giving it a peculiar appearance. In addi-
tion, peccaries and pigs both have omnivorous diets and their teeth have squared crowns
with low rounded cusps, very similar to another group of omnivores, the primates. I’ve sur-
prised creationists on more than one occasion by putting the teeth of apes and peccaries side
by side, and they can’t tell the difference.
A quick look at some of the creationist pamphlets and books shows just how mislead-
ing and dishonest their presentations are. Typical of the genre is the little pamphlet Big
Daddy, published by creationist Jack Chick. It is an insidious cartoon for easily swayed
young minds, with a professor proclaiming the facts about human evolution, then being
“corrected” by a polite young Christian who shatters the professor’s ideas about science.
The garish yellow centerfold features a “march of hominins” that we discussed in chapter 5,
perpetuating the misconception that human evolution is a single linear sequence, not a
branching bush of many species. And each example in the cartoon picks just one hominin
fossil and attempts to discredit it. One by one, they distort the hominin fossil record or just
plain make it up.
For example, they say of “Peking Man” that “all evidence has disappeared.” Not true!
The original specimens of “Peking Man” (the Homo erectus specimens from Zhoukoudian
cave near Beijing, not a distinct species) were lost when the Chinese and Americans were
fleeing with the fossils during the Japanese invasion in 1939. But many good casts were
made of the original material, and many more new and better specimens have been found
in subsequent excavations. Creationists point to Piltdown man, because this forgery was
accepted for a while. Of course, it was scientists (not creationists) who eventually discov-
ered the forgery. “Nebraska Man,” as we outlined already, was the mistake of one scientist
and was corrected within a year—and it is not the tooth of a pig! Creationists claim that
Neanderthal man is just based on an arthritic skeleton. Not true! One famous specimen of
Neanderthal was indeed arthritic, and its malformities influenced some early reconstruc-
tions, but there are now dozens of normal, undiseased specimens, and they clearly show
that Neanderthals represent a distinct species that is not modern Homo sapiens. They were
much more robust and heavy limbed than we are, with a brain larger than ours but with a
distinctive flatter skull with large brow ridges, protruding face, no chin, and a bulge in the
back of the skull (see fig. 15.6). The mysterious “New Guinea Man” is something that only
appears in creationist publications. No legitimate anthropologist has ever made the claim
that they are anything but modern Homo sapiens. Finally, Cro-Magnon was always consid-
ered to be modern Homo sapiens, so the creationist attempt to suggest otherwise is deceptive
and misleading.
More importantly, these eight examples are used to discredit the entire human fossil
record, yet every other human species that they cannot discredit (of which there are now
dozens) is conveniently not mentioned—an obvious attempt at trickery and distortion.