Page 103 - Beauties for Life in the Qur'an

THE EVOLUTION MISCONCEPTION 101

ing beings are actually nothing but an old ape species that has
become extinct. Extensive research done on various
Australopithecus specimens by two world famous anatomists
from England and the USA, namely, Lord Solly Zuckerman and
Prof. Charles Oxnard, has shown that these belonged to an ordi-
nary ape species that became extinct and bore no resemblance
to humans. 46
Evolutionists classify the next stage of human evolution as
"homo," that is "man." According to the evolutionist claim, the
living beings in the Homo series are more developed than
Australopithecus. Evolutionists devise a fanciful evolution
scheme by arranging different fossils of these creatures in a par-
ticular order. This scheme is imaginary because it has never
been proved that there is an evolutionary relation between
these different classes. Ernst Mayr, one of the most important
proponents of the theory of evolution in the twentieth century,
contends in his book One Long Argument that "particularly histor-
ical [puzzles] such as the origin of life or of Homo sapiens, are ex-
tremely difficult and may even resist a final, satisfying explanation." 47
By outlining the link chain as "Australopithecus > Homo habilis
> Homo erectus > Homo sapiens," evolutionists imply that each of
these species is one another's ancestor. However, recent find-
ings of paleoanthropologists have revealed that
Australopithecus, Homo habilis and Homo erectus lived at dif-
ferent parts of the world at the same time. 48
Moreover, a certain segment of humans classified as Homo
erectus have lived up until very modern times. Homo sapiens ne-
andarthalensis and Homo sapiens sapiens (modern man) co-existed
in the same region. 49
This situation apparently indicates the invalidity of the claim
that they are ancestors of one another. A paleontologist from
Harvard University, Stephen Jay Gould, explains this deadlock
of the theory of evolution although he is an evolutionist himself: