Talk:Why Are There Still Monkeys?

From SkepticWiki

Even more devestating to the "there are no transitionals" argument than Lucy is Turkana Boy. I'm not sure if he warrents his own page just yet so I'm adding commentary here.

While there are a number of Creationist claims about hominid fossils and whether they are "fully ape" or "fully human", from what I've seen most seem to claim that Turkana Boy is "fully human" based on the fact that his skeleton looks "human" and his cranial capacity is within human norms. The two biggest problems with this are that his cranial capacity is within human norms for a 3 year old (despite being 5'5" and about 12 years old) and his jaw is 2 or 3 times larger than even the most rock jawed boxer ever.

Going back further, some Creationists claim that the reason there have never been any Chimp fossils found is because they have been misidentified as hominid. Two problems there. First, all non-sapiens Homo fossils disovered with the foramen magnum intact have it at the bottom of the skull (bipedal) and second, Chimps live in forrests where fossilization is much less likely than in the savannah.

Going back even further, the Piltdown hoax* took people in because, well first because they ignored Darwin who predicted preciently that hominids would be found in Africa, not England, but also because the "big brain first" and "bipedalism first" controversy hadn't been decided yet. Raymond Dart's discovery of Taung Child effectively ended that argument. Bipedalism was first as evidenced by the placement of Taung's foramen magnum.

• I have an entire OP of a formal debate on why Creationists should not mention the Piltdown hoax and will link to it if any of you think it will help.