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40
them to be rejected. The paint–
ings seemed far too well done to
jibe with the then-current ideas of the
mentality of Cro-Magnoo Man.
And once again there was the ques–
tion of time. The dates assigned range
up to
35,000
years ago. Yet the pig–
ments in the paints
tvere
amav11giy
fresh!
The contents of the pictures often
disturbed prehistorians. The meo who
appear in Paleolithic pictures were
often smooth-shaven. Even the hair is
roughly trimmed. Women have carefully
arranged headdresses. But how was
this possible? Metals were supposedly
UNKNOWN
at this time. This is one of
many disturbing difficulties.
Carleton S. Coon, anthropologist of
note, has asked sorne other disturbing
questions about the evolution of man.
He, of course,
doe.r beJieve
that man
evolved. But he has mentioned some
problems about the supposed evolution
of man that other prehistorians seem to
have disregarded.
"If
all races had a recent common
origin," Coon asks, "why were the
Tasmanians and many of the Australian
aborigines still living during the nine–
teenth century in a manner comparable
to tbat of Europeans of over
100,000
years ago?" (Carleton S. Coon,
The
Origin of Retres,
New York: Alfred A.
Knopf,
1962,
page
4.)
This problem goes deeper stilL
Can we consider something "primi–
tive" as coming
EARLIER
in time?
Today, we find in odd corners of the
earth peoplcs in all levels of culture–
from complete nudity to Kuppenheimer
suits, from the use of stone chopper
tools to electric can openers, from
simple leaf windbreaks to multi-story
skyscrapers.
"Technologically," says Coon, speak–
ing of various tribes and peoples exist–
ing today, "they represent
every Jevel
of competence discovered by archaeolo–
gists" (
ibid.,
page
91).
A cultural sequence, then, is
NOT
proof of evolution! Then consider the
following:
The Enigma of Language
"If
the ancestors of the living races,"
Coon writes, "were a single people a
few thousands of years ago and they all
The
PLAIN TRUTH
spoke a single language, how does it
happen that the world contains thou–
sands of languages, hundreds of which
are unrelated to each other ?"
(ibid.,
page 5.)
Sorne South African languages use
sounds such as dicks. Others, in South–
east Asia, are tonal, some are nontonal.
The difference between such languages
is profound.
On the other hand, Eskimo and
Aleut are closely related languages. But
they have been separated for two
thousand years! It's interesting also to
find that early Welsh settlers in the
southeastern United States found certain
!odian languages similar to their own.
Coon . estimates that it would take
about
20,000
years for
two sister
languages to lose all semblance of
relationship.
On this basis, Coon says,
"If,
there–
fore, al! languages are derived from a
single mother tongue, the original sepa–
ration must go back
man)'
times
tbat
figure.
"The only alternative ís tbat more
than one line of ancestral man dis–
covered speech independently"
(ibid.,
page
5).
Anthropologists then are in a
dilemma.
Even by evolutionary estimates of
time, there is
NOT
NEARL
y
enough time
for the wocld's languages to have
developed.
Another evolutionary alternative is
that man discovered speech indepen–
dently
MANY
TIMES.
This strains the
credulity of most scientists beyond the
breaking point.
Yet another suggested alternative is
that
TRUE
MEN
go back
MJLL!ONS
of
years into the dim past of antiquity.
This would upset current evolutionary
dating. Besides, there is
no fossi/ proof
of this - even counting by evolu–
tionary standards.
Prehistorians, then, cannot solve the
inexplicable dilemma of how languages
could have evolved in such a very short
period of time. There is an explanation
for it. But most scholars have rejected
it.
The Guessing Game
Remembe¡;, no paleontologist was
alive during the supposed evolution of
June-July,
1970
man. No human knows what was going
on at the time. He may surmise certain
conditions from what he studies -
whether temperature was hot, or what
kind of vegetation was dominant.
But he was not there to see events
happen in motion-picture style.
He haJ
1w
spec.ial inbom insight into past
events
any
mol'e than yott or l.'
He must
grope to understand what happened in
the past. He has
NO WAY
of
knowing
he is right.
Such is the limitation of scientific
knowledge. Scientists such as
W.
E. Le
Gros Clark understand "that it is never
possible ultimately to prove a scientific
hypothesis - the most that one can
hope to do
ÍS
DISPROVE
it."
Clark goes on to say, "Past events
which can never
be
subjected to direct
observation have to be inferred from
the data provided by material which is
presently éxistiog (even wheo it con–
sists of relics of the past)" (W. E. Le
Gros Clark, article "The Crucial Evi–
dence for Human Evolution" in
Physi–
cal
Anthropology,
edited by Peter B.
Hammond, New York: MacMillan,
1964,
page
25).
Prehistorians themselves admit how
excruciatingly difficult it is to under–
stand the past. What is needed is sorne
kind of outline from which to reason.
Anthropologists today use evolution
as a sort of road map into the past. In
other words, prehistorians use the
theory of evolution
as
a blueprint to
attempt to preve the truth of the theory
of evoJutioo ' This is reasoning in a
cirde.
And how do they do it? Simple.
They
"pick
out" fossils that seem to
lend support to their
UNPROVED
theory.
The other fossils that cannot fit the
theory are discarded.
Briefly, here's how the method is car–
ried out in practice. Let a popular text
answer. Speaking of a possible primate
ancestor to man, here
is
how an
anthropologist reasons:
"Of the four kinds of apes - the
gibbon, oraogutan, gorilla and chim–
panzee- the gibbon
is
considered
the
least like a human being and the chim–
panzee or gorilla the
MOST.
Therefore>
if
we hit on a chimpanzee-like or
gorilla-üke fossi.l from the Miocene, we