Page 115 - Confessions of the Evolutionists

Harun Yahya (Adnan Oktar) 113

contrary, almost every conceivable combination and permutation of liv-
ing and extinct hominoids has been proposed by one cladist or another. 283

David Pilbeam is professor of social sci-
ences at Harvard University and curator of
paleontology at the Peabody Museum:
My reservations concern not so much this
book [Richard Leakey's Origins], but the
whole subject and methodology of paleoan-
thropology... Perhaps generations of stu-
dents of human evolution, including my-
self, have been flailing about in the dark; ...
our data base is too sparse, too slippery, for
it to be able to mold our theories. 284 Da vid Pil be am
Theory shapes the way we think about, even
perceive, data... We are unaware of many of our assumptions. 285
In the course of rethinking my ideas about human evolution, I have
changed somewhat as a scientist. I am aware of the prevalence of implic-
it assumptions and try harder to dig them out of my own thinking... 286
At least in paleoanthropology, data are still so sparse that theory heavily
influences interpretations. Theories have, in the past, clearly reflected our
current ideologies instead of the actual data. 287
Roger Lewin is a well-known evolutionist writer:
In the physical realm, any theory of human evolution must explain how
it was that an ape-like ancestor, equipped with powerful jaws and long,
dagger-like canine teeth and able to run at speed on four limbs, became
transformed into a slow, bipedal animal whose natural means of defense
were at best puny. Add to this the powers of intellect, speech and morali-
ty, upon which we "stand raised as upon a mountain top," as Huxley put
it; and one has the complete challenge to evolutionary theory. 288
Robert B. Eckhardt is professor of anthropology at Penn State
University:
Amid the bewildering array of early fossil hominids, is there one whose
morphology marks it as man's hominid ancestor? If the factor of genetic
variability is considered, the answer appears to be no. 289