Page 14 - The Evolution Impasse 2

12 Kenyanthropus plat y ops

KENYANTHROPUS Department com ment ed on
PLAT Y OPS Kenyanthropus plat y ops in an ar ti cle
in Nature mag a zine:
In Kenya, a team led by Meave
Leakey dis cov ered a fos sil ized skull The ev o lu tion a ry his to ry of hu mans is
com plex and un re solved. It now looks
that was re ferred to as "Flat-faced
set to be thrown in to fur ther con fu sion
Man" be cause of the shape of its fa -
by the dis cov ery of an oth er spe cies and
cial bones. The fos sil was giv en the
ge nus, dat ed to 3.5 mil lion years ago. .
sci en tif ic name of Kenyanthropus plat -
. The na ture of Kenyanthropus plat y -
y ops. This 3.5 mil lion-year-old fos sil
ops rais es all kinds of ques tions, about
over turned ev o lu tion ists' im ag i nary
hu man ev o lu tion in gen er al and the
ev o lu tion a ry sce nar i os be cause
be hav iour of this spe cies in par tic u lar.
some ex tinct ape spe cies (such as Why, for ex am ple, does it have the un -
"Lucy") that lived after u su al com bi na tion of small cheek teeth
Kenyanthropus plat y ops were more and a big flat face with an an te ri or ly
prim i tive than it ac cord ing to ev o lu - po si tioned arch of the cheek bone? All
4
tion ist cri te ria. (See Lucy Deceit, oth er known hom i nin spe cies with big
The.) fa ces and sim i lar ly po si tioned cheek -
In fact, when one looks at all of bones have big teeth. I sus pect the chief
role of K. plat y ops in the next few years
the fos sils dis cov ered to date, it be -
will be to act as a sort of par ty spoil er,
comes clear that there is no ev o lu -
high light ing the con fu sion that con -
tion a ry pro gres sion, be gin ning from
fronts re search in to ev o lu tion a ry re la -
a com mon an ces tor and slow ly turn -
tion ships among hom i nins. 5
ing in to apes and present day man.
The BBC re port ed the sto ry un -
Daniel E. Lieberman of Harvard
der such head lines as "Flat-Faced
University's Anthropology
Man a Puzzle," "A Confusing
Picture" and "A Scientific
Contradiction" and went on to say
that:
The dis cov ery by Meave Leakey, of the
National Museums of Kenya, and col -
leagues threat ens to blur still fur ther
the al ready murky pic ture of man's ev -
The 3.5-mil lion-year-old Kenyanthropus
o lu tion. 6
plat y ops fos sil skull over turned ev o lu -
tion ists' im ag i nary ev o lu tion a ry tree. Fred Spoor, the fa mous ev o lu -

The Evolution Impasse II