Thus they taught

EMBRYOLOGY IN THE QUR'AN

2008-11-23T16:56:00.003Z

A SCIENTIST'S INTERPRETATION OF
REFERENCES TO EMBRYOLOGY IN THE QUR'AN

From: The Journal of the Islamic Medical Association, Vol.18, Jan-June 1986, pp.15-16

Keith L. Moore, Ph.D., F.I.A.C.
The Department of Anatomy, University of Toronto, Canada

Statements referring to human reproduction and development are scattered throughout the Qur'an. It is only recently that the scientific meaning of some of these verses has been appreciated fully. The long delay in interpreting these verses correctly resulted mainly from inaccurate translations and commentaries and from a lack of awareness of scientific knowledge.

Interest in explanations of the verses of the Qur'an is not new. People used to ask the prophet Muhammad all sorts of questions about the meaning of verses referring to human reproduction. The Apostle's answers form the basis of the Hadith literature.

The translations (*) of the verses from the Qur'an which are interpreted in this paper were provided by Sheik Abdul Majid Zendani, a Professor of Islamic Studies in King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

"He makes you in the wombs of your mothers in stages, one after another, in three veils of darkness."

This statement is from Sura 39:6. We do not know when it was realized that human beings underwent development in the uterus (womb), but the first known illustration of a fetus in the uterus was drawn by Leonardo da Vinci in the 15th century. In the 2nd century A.D., Galen described the placenta and fetal membranes in his book "On The Formation of the Foetus." Consequently, doctors in the 7th century A.D. likely knew that the human embryo developed in the uterus. It is unlikely that they knew that it developed in stages, even though Aristotle had described the stages of development of the chick embryo in the 4th century B.C. The realization that the human embryo develops in stages was not discussed and illustrated until the 15th century.

After the microscope was discovered in the 17th century by Leeuwenhoek descriptions were made of the early stages of the chick embryo. The staging of human embryos was not described until the 20th century. Streeter (1941) developed the first system of staging which has now been replaced by a more accurate system proposed by O'Rahilly (1972).

"The three veils of darkness" may refer to: (1) the anterior abdominal wall; (2) the uterine wall; and (3) the amniochorionic membrane (Fig. 1). Although there are other interpretations of this statement, the one presented here seems the most logical from an embryological point of view.

Figure 1 from this Article is Not Available Online.
See Similar Pictures of Fetus: 2 Months | 3 Months. (Editor)

Figure 1. Drawing of a sagittal section of a female's abdomen and pelvis showing a fetus in utero. The "veils of darkness" are: (1) the anterior abdominal wall; (2) the uterine wall, and (3) the amniochorionic membrane.

"Then We placed him as a drop in a place of rest."

This statement is from Sura 23:13. The drop or nutfah has been interpreted as the sperm or spermatozoon, but a more meaningful interpretation would be the zygote which divides to form a blastocyst which is implanted in the uterus ("a place of rest"). This interpretation is supported by another verse in the Qur'an which states that "a human being is created from a mixed drop." The zygote forms by the union of a mixture of the sperm and the ovum ("The mixed drop").

"Then We made the drop into a leech-like structure."

This statement is from Sura 23:14. The word "alaqah" refers to a leech or bloodsucker. This is an appropriate description of the human embryo from days 7-24 when it clings to the endometrium of the uterus, in the same way that a leech clings to the skin. Just as the leech derives blood from the host, the human embryo derives blood from the decidua or pregnant endometrium. It is remarkable how much the embryo of 23-24 days resembles a leech (Fig. 2). As there were no microscopes or lenses available in the 7th century, doctors would not have known that the human embryo had this leech-like appearance. In the early part of the fourth week, the embryo is just visible to the unaided eye because it is smaller than a kernel of wheat.

	Figure 2. Top, a drawing of a leech or bloodsucker. Below, a drawing of a 24 day-old human embryo. Note the leech-like appearance of the human embryo at this stage.
	Figure 3. Left, a plasticine model of the human embryo which has the appearance of chewed flesh. Right, a drawing of a 28 day-old human embryo showing several bead-like somites which resemble the teeth marks in the model shown to the left.

"Then of that leech-like structure, We made a chewed lump."

This statement is also from Sura 23:14. The Arabic word "mudghah" means "chewed substance or chewed lump." Toward the end of the fourth week, the human embryo looks somewhat like a chewed lump of flesh (Fig. 3). The chewed appearance results from the somites which resemble teeth marks. The somites represent the beginnings or primordia of the vertebrae.

"Then We made out of the chewed lump, bones, and clothed the bones in flesh."

This continuation of Sura 23:14 indicates that out of the chewed lump stage, bones and muscles form. This is in accordance with embryological development. First the bones form as cartilage models and then the muscles (flesh) develop around them from the somatic mesoderm.

"Then We developed out of it another creature."

This next part of Sura 23:14 implies that the bones and muscles result in the formation of another creature. This may refer to the human-like embryo that forms by the end of the eighth week. At this stage it has distinctive human characteristics and possesses the primordia of all the internal and external organs and parts. After the eighth week, the human embryo is called a fetus. This may be the new creature to which the verse refers.

"And He gave you hearing and sight and feeling and understanding."

This part of Sura 32:9 indicates that the special senses of hearing, seeing, and feeling develop in this order, which is true. The primordia of the internal ears appear before the beginning of the eyes, and the brain (the site of understanding) differentiates last.

"Then out of a piece of chewed flesh, partly formed and partly unformed."

This part of Sura 22:5 seems to indicate that the embryo is composed of both differentiated and undifferentiated tissues. For example, when the cartilage bones are differentiated, the embryonic connective tissue or mesenchyme around them is undifferentiated. It later differentiates into the muscles and ligaments attached to the bones.

"And We cause whom We will to rest in the wombs for an appointed term."

This next part of Sura 22:5 seems to imply that God determines which embryos will remain in the uterus until full term. It is well known that many embryos abort during the first month of development, and that only about 30% of zygotes that form, develop into fetuses that survive until birth. This verse has also been interpreted to mean that God determines whether the embryo will develop into a boy or girl.

The interpretation of the verses in the Qur'an referring to human development would not have been possible in the 7th century A.D., or even a hundred years ago. We can interpret them now because the science of modern Embryology affords us new understanding. Undoubtedly there are other verses in the Qur'an related to human development that will be understood in the future as our knowledge increases.

(*) Even though the translations of the verses of the Qur'an in the above paper were provided by Sheik Abdul Majid Zendani, the links to the translations in this page are from Yusuf Ali Qur'an Translation.

Source: IslamiCity

Why Have Muslim Scholars Been Undervalued Throughout Western History?

2007-03-06T14:05:00.000Z

Why Have Muslim Scholars Been Undervalued Throughout Western History?

Ahmad Bakir Tarabishy

One of history's greatest crimes is the almost complete omission of the debt the West owes to Islam and the Muslims.

The history books that fill our bookshelves are indispensable recollections of past civilizations’ glories and failures, achievements and abominations. Unfortunately, history can never be completely objective, since it is written by men, and men have a tendency to restrict their thoughts to a single point of view. While history has created in our minds many heroes from murderers, and criminals from saints, one of its greatest crimes is the almost complete omission of the debt the West owes to Islam and the Muslims. W. Montgomery Watt describes the problem:

Because Europe was reacting against Islam it belittled the influence of Saracens and exaggerated its dependence on its Greek and Roman heritage. So today an important task for us is to correct this false emphasis and to acknowledge fully our debt to the Arab and Islamic world.
(Ghazanfar, Islamic World and the Western Renaissance)

Students in Western Universities might have heard that Muslims were once leaders in science, but their accomplishments are often belittled, and their scientists are reduced to but borrowers who translated Greek and Persian works then assumedly hid them on a bookshelf so the West can later expand and build on them once it awakes from its sleep during the dark age. Donald Cardwell, in the Fontana History of Technology, claims that technologies imported into Europe during the Dark Ages "originated in China and India and were merely passed on by the Arabs." While cultural bigotry plays a major role in this distortion of the facts, the achievements of the Muslims have been left out of Western historical records as a result of the hatred of Islam embedded in the Judeo-Christian world, which shall be traced to many factors.

Before thoughtlessly calling out "conspiracy" as many Muslims today so often do, one must show that the Muslims actually did have an integral role in scientific development. Due to the wealth of achievements, however, this is not very hard to find.

The book of Allah and the example of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings upon him) set the basis for an intellectual tradition in the Islamic world which relied on reason and honesty. The purpose of knowing the natural world in Islam is to reveal the signs that Allah set in his creation. "We shall show them Our portents on the horizon and within themselves until it will be manifest unto them that it is the Truth" (The Holy Quran, 41:53). While Greek philosophy was based on the relativity of truth and change, in Islam, as Seyyed Hossein Nasr comments:

The arts and sciences came to possess instead a stability and a ‘crystallization’ based on the immutability of the principles from which they had issued forth; it is this stability that is too often mistaken in the West today for stagnation and sterility.
(http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/nasr.html)

The Muslims made numerous advances in many fields, one the most important being physics. They received the physics texts of the Greeks, then translated, corrected, and expanded on them greatly. The basis of the study of optics can be attributed directly to the Muslims. Al-Hassen bin Al-Haythem is considered the founder of this field. He and Al-Beirouni also logically came to the conclusion, in disagreement with Aristotle, that the speed of light is constant and that light is composed of extremely small particles moving at extremely high speeds, which is the basis of the quantum nature of light, an endlessly celebrated tribute to 20th century science
(Mahmoud 112-113; Davies 29).

Muslim scholars also laid the foundations of mathematics. Muslims were the first to recognize the importance of and use the zero effectively, borrowed from the Indians, bringing to Europe what is now called "Arabic numerals". Otherwise, the scientists and mathematicians of Europe would probably still be counting on their fingers or fumbling with clumsy roman numerals when analyzing data. Muhammad bin Mousa Al-Khawarizmi is considered the founder of modern algebra, and the mathematicians that followed made ever more impressive contributions. Ghiath Edden Al-Kashi, approximated pi to 16 places past the decimal point. The system know as Pascal’s triangle, which assists in factoring equations in the form of (a + b)n, was developed by Al-Karkhi, and not Louis Pascal. Later Muslim mathematicians were able to factor equations as complex as fourth degree equations; fifth degree equations are impossible to factor. (Mahmoud 137-147) The contribution of Muslim mathematicians to algebra is integral to the development of all sciences as mathematics is frequently referred to as the language of science. Newton would have had quite a difficult time quantitatively describing his laws of motion without using the algebra first implemented by the Muslims.

The Muslims made monumental strides in the practice and study of medicine. Ibn Sina’s text the Canon of Medicine, was used as a text in Europe for centuries later, and its popularity dwarfed the books of Galen and Hippocrates. Physicians like Abul Qasim al-Zahrawi, Ibn Sina, and Ali Abbas, wrote texts on surgery that would form the foundations of Western Surgery (Shustery 152-153). A story by the Muslim physician Usamah bin al-Manqaz serves as a good example of the superiority of Muslims doctors over their European contemporaries:

Among the marvels of the medical affairs on incident is this that Sahib Munitrah wrote to his uncle that there was need of a doctor to treat his companions. My uncle sent a Christian doctor, Thabit, to them, but he came back within ten days. We asked him, "Have you been able to treat the patients in such a short period?" He said, "They had brought to me a soldier who had a boil on one of his feet. When a bandage dipped in the juice of Linjah (a plant) was applied, the abscess got burst. There was another patient, a woman whose dry and chapped skin had developed itch and was giving her trouble. I kept her on a restricted diet as a preventive and tried to make her dry skin moist. But suddenly an English doctor appeared on the scene and told the people there about me, "What does he know of medical science and treatment of patients?" Then he asked the soldier with the abscess on his foot whether he would like to live with one leg or die with both. The soldier said he would prefer to live with one leg only. So the soldier and a sharp axe were brought and I was witness to this scene. The English doctor straightened his leg on a wooden board and asked the soldier (executioner, Tr.) to chop off his leg with a single stroke of his axe. He made a stroke with the axe, and I was a witness to that, and found that it failed to sever the leg. So he made a second attempt. The bone marrow was thrown out and the patient died immediately.

The author then reveals how the English doctor poured water on the woman with dry skin, and she too died a sudden, painful death.
(http://www.erols.com/gmqm/sibai10.htm)

While historians have written many books on the high level of sophistication and learning of the Muslims compared to the Europeans during the dark ages, few have thought to make the connection between Muslim science and the scientific explosion that was to occur later in Europe. The dependence of the latter on the former, however, is immense. It would not be controversial to say that the scientific revolution that took place in 17th Europe could not have occurred without the help of the Muslims.

The maelstrom brought upon Europe by the intellectual tradition taken from the Muslim world had far-reaching consequences on European life. Slowly as education spread throughout Europe, with Universities arising in the major cities, the authority of science grew exponentially. Even the powerful Church of Rome would soon go down as it foolishly tried to challenge rationality and scientific proofs with superstitions and the fading doctrine of papal authority. The West would take this tradition and run amok with it, venturing in directions never before taken by humanity. Soon Europe, which was during Islam’s golden age dismissed by Ibn Khaldun as "those parts", had superseded the Muslim World in every way imaginable: scientifically, militarily, economically, and administratively.
(Eaton 32-33)

However, a perplexing relationship existed between the Muslim world and Europe. It was not one of mutual reverence and respect, nor was it one of a father-culture, daughter-culture nature. There was an overpowering sentiment of hate embedded in European culture that outweighed any benefit or advancement the Muslims would give to them.

For hundreds of years the Muslims would take a permanent place in the forefront of the European mind. Wave after wave of Muslim armies crashed into Europe, coming with superior military training, unseen technology, and a culture alien to all what the European knew. Gai Eaton explains:

The "menace of Islam" had remained the one constant factor amidst change and transformation and it had been branded on the European consciousness. The mark of that branding is still visible… "The fact remains", says the Tunisian writer Hichem Djaït, "that medieval prejudices insinuated themselves into the collective unconsciousness of the West at so profound a level that one may ask, in terror, whether they can ever be extirpated from it."
(30-31)

This fear would turn into hate and aggression as Europe regained its strength. The Muslims also would serve as a means for Europe to do so. These "pagans" as Europeans saw them, would be the perfect enemy for Europeans to rally together. They did so, quite pathetically, in the crusades. The crusades, in terms of human losses, were one of the most lopsided military campaigns in history, with the exception of the savage massacres of Muslim civilians by the Christian armies. However, the crusades, initially being a crushing defeat for the Christians, would introduce them to the enormity of the gap between them and the Muslims.

At the same time, Europeans scholars were learning at the hands of the Muslims in Spain. The translated Greek works would intoduce the Europeans to an indigenous intellectual tradition they never knew existed. This helped spark a new self-confidence among the scholars of Europe. Unfortunately, the scholars of Europe were torn between their intellectual loyalty and the strong hatred of their teachers present in their culture. Karen Armstrong explains:

The Arabs in particular were a light to the Christian West and yet this debt has rarely been fully acknowledged. As soon as the great translation work had been completed, scholars in Europe began to shrug off this complicating and schizophrenic relationship with Islam and became very vague indeed about who the Arabs really were… There is an unhealthy repression and doublethink about people who are at one and the same time guides, heroes, and deadly enemies. This is very clear in the scholarship about Islam.
(64-65, 225-226)

This hatred, however, was, for the most part of Islamic history, one-sided. The Muslims had little reason to hate, or even to be concerned about Europe. To them it was a land of barbarism and backwardness, of a foreign landscape and weather. The battle of Poiters, for example, is considered by the Europeans as one of the major turning points in history, where the French armies repelled a Muslim raid into southern France. However, rarely is the battle mentioned by Muslim historians, and when mentioned it has been described as but a trivial raid.
(Armstrong, p42)

Another factor that plays alongside the long-standing hatred of Islam in Europe is the phenomenon known as orientalism. This concept was first articulated by Edward Said in his landmark book Orientalism, which is now considered required reading for anyone studying Middle Eastern culture or history. Orientalism is the result of the elaboration of the imaginary distinction between East and West: geographically, culturally, morally, and intellectually. The result of orientalism are claims that go along the lines of " ‘We’ are like this, but ‘they’, for unexplainable reasons, are fundamentally different, and in due course, inferior." This in turn serves as justification for "Us" to rule "Them", to exploit "Them", to guide "Them" to our enlightened ways. Academic orientalism gave rise to arrogant, seemingly humanistic ideals which drove imperialism, whose effects are felt very painfully in the Muslim, as well as most of the third, world. As Said explains it:

It [orientalism] is… a distribution of geopolitical awareness into aesthetic, scholarly, economic, sociological, historical, and philological texts; it is an elaboration not only of a basic geographical distinction (the world is made up of two unequal halves, Orient and Occident) but also of a whole series of "interests" which, by such means as scholarly discovery, philological reconstruction, psychological analysis, landscape and sociological description, it not only creates but also maintains; it is rather than expresses, a certain will or intention to understand, in some cases to control, manipulate, even to incorporate, what is a manifestly different (or alternative and novel) world; it is, above all, a discourse that is by no means in direct, corresponding relationship with political power in the raw, but rather is produced and exists in an uneven exchange with various kinds of power, shaped to a degree by the exchange with power political (as with a colonial or imperial establishment), power intellectual (as with reigning sciences like comparative linguistics or anatomy, or any of the modern policy sciences), power cultural ( as with orthodoxies and canons of taste, texts, values), power moral (as with ideas about what "we" do and what "they" cannot do or understand as "we" do). Indeed, my real argument is that Orientalism is—and does not simply represent—a considerable dimension of modern political-intellectual culture, and as such has less to do with the Orient than it does with "our" [Western] world.
(12)
[Italics in original text]

One may ask after looking at the reasons why Muslim scholars are vastly undervalued in Western books is "Why should we care now?" The scholars are dead. The ink in the history books has dried. What good will it bring Muslims, besides a headache, to raise this issue now? It is done to restore confidence to the Muslim Ummah, to remind believers what is needed to be great again. The Muslims ruled from France to India, not only because of being blessed with the true message, but also of being superior to the conquered people in all other "worldly" ways. The Muslims would have never conquered the Persians without superior military planning and tactics. The people of the Roman Empire in greater Syria and North Africa would have never converted to Islam if the Muslims were not materially superior to the Romans. The Khatib who gives the Friday sermon, who believes that Muslims will become great again once they start using their miswaks more often, is missing the whole story. Islam does not spread through prayer and piety—people go to the Jannah through prayer and piety. Islam provides a system that allows individuals to reach their fullest potentials in this life, and to encourage worship that allows individuals to reach their fullest potentials in the next.

Studying the lives of the Muslim scholars also provides modern-day Muslims with a portrayal of the prototypical modern scientist. He is one who devotes his efforts to discovering Allah’s signs in this world and who tries to direct his or her discoveries those that produce social benefit.

For the Westerner, it is important to change these historical inaccuracies to help improve the relations between the West and the Muslim world by finally acknowledging the enormous debt owed to the Muslims. However, as the celeritous progress of Western science pushes on, it is more likely that the increasing arrogance and faith in Western science with its purely Western (Greek) origins will keep this overdue apology from occurring. While a historian may mention "Avicenna" or "Averroes" fleetingly in one of his or her books, the problem is that what is left out is far greater than what is told. The eminent historian George Sarton criticized those who "will glibly say ‘The Arabs simply translated Greek writings, they were industrious imitators…’ This is not absolutely untrue, but is such a small part of the truth, that when it is allowed to stand alone, it is worse than a lie."

References:

The Holy Qu'ran.

Armstrong, Karen. "Holy War: The Crusades and their Impact on Today’s World". Doubleday: New York, 1991.

Davies, Paul. "Superforce: The Search for a Grand Unified Theory of Nature". Penguin: London, 1995.

Eaton, Gai. "Islam and the Destiny of Man". The Islamic Texts Society: Cambridge, 1994.

Mahmoud, Yusuf. "Al-Injazat Al-Ilmiyya fil Hadara Al-Islamiyya". Dar Al-Bashir: Amman, 1996.

Reichmann, Felix. "The Sources of Western Literacy: The Middle Eastern Civilizations". Greenwood Press: Westport, Connecticut, 1980.

Said, Edward. "Orientalism". Routledge & Kegan Paul: London, 1978.

Shustery, A. M. A. "Outlines of Islamic Culture". Sh. Muhammad Ashraf: Lahore, 1976.

This page was done for my "Scientific Legacy in Islam" (Turath al-'Ilmi al-Arabi al-Islami) course that I took for the summer at the University of Jordan.

All good is from Allah, all misinformation is from me.

Source

Muslim Scientific Inventions

2007-02-02T22:10:00.000Z

Muslim Scientific Inventions
The Muslim Scholar

Muslims distinguished themselves not only as theoretical scientists and scientific thinkers, but contributed through innumerable inventions to the growth of the modern sciences. Though the mediaeval Muslims had very meagre resources at their command as compared to those of the present age, they achieved a great deal. They replaced the old speculative method of the Greeks with an experimental method, which in later periods formed the basis of all scientific investigations.

The Inventions

The Telescope
Abul Hasan is distinguished as the inventor of the Telescope, which he described to be a “Tube, to the extremities of which were attached diopters".

The Pendulum
The Pendulum was invented by Ibn Yunus, a genius in science who lived in the reign of Aziz Billah and Hakim bi-Amr-illah, the Fatimid monarchs of Egypt. The invention of the Pendulum led to the measurement of time by its oscillations. His outstanding work Sijul Akbar al-Hakimi, named after his celebrated patron Hakim bi-Amr-illah, was acknowledged to be the masterpiece on the subject replacing the work of Ptolemy. It was translated into Persian by Omar Khayyam in 1079.

The Watch
The first watch was made by Kutbi, a renowned watch-maker of his time. During the Abbasid reign the use of a watch became quite common and the famous Harun-ar-Rashid once despatched a watch as a gift to his celebrated contemporary, the French Emperor Charlemagne. At that time a watch was considered a novel thing in Europe and was regarded as an object of wonder.
Mustansariya, the well-known university of Baghdad had a unique clock with a dial blue like the sky and a sun which continually moved over its surface denoting the time. Maulana Shibli, the famous Urdu litterateur, has described a watch of Damascus in the following words:
"The watch was kept in the door of a wall. It contained copper plates and twelve doors. There was an Eagle (Bat) standing in the Ist and the last plate. At the end of each hour, these two eagles lay down on the copper plates and hence a sound was produced to show the time. At twelve all the doors were closed. This system was being repeated continuously".

The construction of water clocks was also common in Islamic Countries. "The Arabs were skilful in the construction of clepsydras and water clocks with automata," says a European writer.

The Mariners Compass
The invention of Mariners Compass, which revolutionised sea borne commerce and oceanic shipping and enabled the Arabs to roam over the stormy seas in quest of new lands and additional markets for their commodities, is essentially a contribution of the Muslims to the world of science.
Knowledge about the properties of the needle, can no doubt be traced to Chinese sources, but putting it into working shape, in the form of a mariners' compass, was the achievement of Muslim scientists. The compass was probably invented for the purpose of finding out the Qibla for Prayers.

Gunpowder
Mir Fatehullah Khan is known to history as the inventor of gun and gunpowder. The presumption that gunpowder was first made by the Chinese does not stand the test of historical research. Writing in his book Arab Civilization, the author says that "gunpowder was a great invention of the Arabs who were already using guns". Guns were used by Arabs in 1340 A.D. in the defence of Al-Bahsur, when Franzdol besieged it. The statement of Dr. Leabon about the invention of gunpowder by the Arabs is further corroborated by Mr. Scott in his well-known work, History of the Moorish Empire in Spain.

"It has been acknowledged by Joseph Hell in his book, Arab Civilization, that the distinction of inventing photography goes to Ibn al-Hashem, who is not only credited with its invention but also its development. Muhammad Musa, a great scholar of geography, has the unique distinction of being the inventor of an instrument by which the earth could be measured. He also invented the "Astrolabe". These novel instruments invented by him have been preserved in the Museum of Madrid (Spain)."

Shipping instrument
A unique instrument was invented by Abu Solet Umayyah in 1134 A.D. through which a sunken ship would be raised - which greatly helped in the salvage expeditions of mediaeval times.

Manufacturing Soap, Paper and Cloth
The credit for manufacturing soap goes to Arab chemists, who introduced it to the world.
The first paper in Islamic countries was manufactured in 794 A.D. in Baghdad by Yusuf Bin Omar. The paper manufactured in Arab countries was of superior quality than that made in Europe.
A paper mill was established in Baghdad, and soon paper replaced parchment (skin of animals) and papyrus ('paper' made from plants). the development of paper made knowledge and learning easier, for more people were able to have access to it.

In the manufacture of cloth, Muslims particularly in Spain exhibited marvellous skill and taste. Their woven cloth captured almost all the big markets of the world and was considered to be the finest as well as extremely durable.

The Windmill
Al-Masudi who died in Cairo in 957 A.D. may be called the "Pliny of the Arabs" In his celebrated work The Meadows of Gold, he has described an earthquake, and the first windmill which was also invented by a Muslim.

Astronomy and Navigation
Giralda or "The Tower of Seville", was the first observatory in Europe. It was built in 1190 A.D., in the Spanish town of Seville under the supervision of the celebrated Mathematician, Jabir Ibn Afiah. It was meant for the observation of heavenly bodies. It was later turned into a belfry by Christian conquerors, who, after the expulsion of the Moors, did not know how to use it.

The many references to astronomy in the Qur'an and hadith, and the injunctions to learn, inspired the early Muslim scholars to study the heavens. They integrated the earlier works of the Indians, Persians and Greeks into a new synthesis.
Ptolemy (a 2nd Century Greek writer)'s 'Almagest' (the title as we know it today is actually Arabic) was translated, studied and criticized. Muslims were inspired to investigate and study the Earth, the features of the land, methods of mapping and so on. Many new stars were discovered, as we see in their Arabic names - Algol, Deneb, Betelgeuse, Rigel, Aldebaran.
Astronomical tables were compiled, among them the Toledan tables, which were used by Copernicus, Tycho Brahe and Kepler.
These works were used to determine the direction of Makkah from various locations, to improve navigation and surveying, and establishing correct time keeping and calanders.
Using longitude and latitude, calculating the circumference of the Earth within a few hundred miles, the Muslim geographers so greatly improved on Ptolemy's famous 'Almagest', that it is not certain how much of the work actually belongs to the famous Greek, and how much was added to successive copies.

Also compiled were almanacs - another Arabic term. Other terms from Arabic are zenith, nadir, Aledo, azimuth.

Muslim astronomers were the first to establish observatories, like the one built at Mugharah by Hulagu, the son of Genghis Khan, in Persia, and they invented instruments such as the quadrant and astrolabe, which led to advances not only in astronomy but in oceanic navigation, contributing to the European age of exploration.

Other instruments used by muslim astronomers and navigators were the quadrant and the planisphere, a large, complicated device for plotting stars. Observatories were set up in desert locations where the best observations could be made. Accurate measurement of time used very similar mathematical skills to those needed for navigation. Al-Biruni, for example, wrote a mathematical treatise on shadows that helped calibrate sundials accurately.

Astrolobe
The Astrolobe is perhaps the most famous of 'Islamic inventions'. Primitive astrolobes were developed by the Greeks, but the refinements made by the Muslim Mathematicians, and craftsmen made them more accurate and versatile.
When the device entered Europe through Spain and Italy, it was the latest in high technology. In the storyteller of 'The Canterbury Tales', Geoffery Chaucer, wrote instructions on its use. The well-known romance of Heloise and Abelard resulted in a son they named - Astrolobe!
ther instruments used by Muslim astronomers and navigators were

Mathematics
Bold experiments and unique innovations in the field of mathematics were carried out by Muslim mathematicians who developed this science to an exceptionally high degree. Algebra may be said to have been invented by the Greeks, but according to Oelsner, "it was confined to furnishing amusement for the plays of the goblet" Muslims developed it and applied it to higher purposes.
Thus, The first great Muslim mathematician, Al-Khawarizmi, invented the subject of algebra (al-Jabr), which was further developed by others, most notably Umar Khayyam. Al-Khawarizmi's work, in Latin translation, brought the Arabic numerals along with the mathematics to Europe, through Spain. The word "algorithm" is derived from his name.

The Muslims invented the symbol for zero (The word "cipher" comes from Arabic sifr), and they organized the numbers into the decimal system - base 10. Additionally, they invented the symbol to express an unknown quantity, i.e. variables like x.

They invented spherical trigonometry, discovered the tangent and were first, "to introduce the sine of arc in Trigonometrical Calculations" Zero is an invaluable addition made to mathematical science by the Muslims. They have also shown remarkable progress in mathematical geography.

Medical Sciences
The Muslims have made a lasting contribution to the development of Medical Science. Razi (Rhazes), Ibn Sina (Avicenna), and Abu Ali al-Hasan (Alhazen) were the greatest medical scholars of mediaeval times.
Al-Razi, known in the West as Rhazes, the famous physician and scientist, (d. 932), was the inventor of "Seton" in Surgery and the author of 'Al-Judari wal Hasbak', an authentic book dealing with measles and small pox.
Seen as one of the greatest physicians in the world in the Middle Ages, Razi stressed empirical observation and clinical medicine and was unrivalled as a diagnostician. He also wrote a treatise on hygiene in hospitals.
Kahaf Abul-Qasim Al-Sahabi was a very famous surgeon in the eleventh century, known in Europe for his work, 'Kitab al-Tasrif' (Concessio).
Avicenna wrote 'Al-Qanun Jil Tib known as Cannon', which was the most widely studied medical work of mediaevel times and was reprinted more than twenty times during the last 30 years of the 15th century in many different languages. The book remained a standard textbook even in Europe, for over 700 years.
Alhazen was the world's greatest authority on "optics".
The contagious character of the plague and its remedies were discovered by Ibn Katina, a Moorish Physician.
Other significant contributions were made in pharmacology, such as Ibn Sina's 'Kitab al-Shifa' (Book of Healing), and in public health. Every major city in the Islamic world had a number of excellent hospitals, some of them teaching hospitals, and many of them were specialized for particular diseases, including mental and emotional. The Ottomans were particularly noted for their building of hospitals and for the high level of hygiene practiced in them.

Glass
Ibn Firnas is credited with making glass from stones. He had constructed his home as a sort df planetarium where one could see stars, clouds and even lightning.

Attempts at flight
According to Hitti, "Ibn Firnas was the first man in Arab history to make a scientific attempt at flight. His flying equipment consisted of a suit of feathers with wings, which, we are told carried him a long distance, in the air. When he alighted, however, he hurt himself because his suit was not provided with a tail."

Mutmainaa

Science conflicting with Religion? Not for Muslims!

2007-01-30T13:17:00.000Z

Science conflicting with Religion? Not for Muslims!

Summarised extracts from a full article, see resources below, where end notes, references and bibliography are given.

by: Foundation for Science Technology and Civilisation. Info@fstc.co.uk

"Read: In the name of your Lord Who creates - creates man from a clot. Read: And your Lord is the Most Bounteous, Who teaches by the use of the pen, teaches man that which he knew not." Quran 96:105

Today, the separation is not just between Christianity and science, but between religion in general and science. The reason is that the science, which nations and people from the world over seek to acquire, is Western science.

Thats science, had risen in conflict with religion. The Muslim science, however, had risen in concert and harmony with religion. This fact, imposed by the dominant science, today's reality, and the absence of historical knowledge, easily drives people into believing that as a rule, science and religion live into conflict. Yet, as in the words of Ali Kettani `claiming that all religious experiences are the same and projecting the Western experience to the Muslim world results from a serious ignorance of historical realities.'(endnote 3)

The apparent conflict of science and religion, and their separation in `watertight compartments,' as put by Sadar.,(endnote 4) is a uniquely Western creation, the result of hostilities between those who claimed to be custodians of Christianity and those who challenged their power. And he adds that `to take an inductive leap from what was a particularly European experience and generalise it to an all embracing conflict between science and religion is not just Eurocentric but also poor scholarship.'(endnote 5)

Islam, unlike medieval Catholicism, it is observed, `did nothing to stifle the spirit of scientific enquiry.'(endnote 6) And one outcome was that, from `Basra to Cordoba, great universities arose centuries before the earliest studium generale in Christendom;' the library of Cordoba contained 600,000 books, and `the craftmanship of the Arab world was on a par with its scholarship.'(endnote 7)

It seems, though, that such preceding statements have little relation with reality. First and foremost, the picture offered of Islam, even that given by Muslims, runs against the preceding points. Muslims are depicted very unfavourably on television, magazines, films and daily media. There is a constant bombardment of opinion of well chosen articles, concocted facts, off-putting photographs of Muslims. It is not surprising that in any mind, just the idea that these people and that religion having any link, however faint, with civilisation and science is an impossible fact.

Historians, and other opinion makers also stress the dark moments of Islamic history with such skills and high competence that it is as if the Muslims, worse than the Mongols, left only death and destruction in their trail, besides enslaving every being falling under their grips.(endnote 8) The Muslim nation itself, lacking in order, power, and organisation, is partly responsible for that poor image, too.

by: FSTC Limited, Sun 01 September, 2002

MuslimHeritage.com

The superiority of amassing knowledge over wealth

2006-11-30T00:50:00.000Z

The superiority of amassing knowledge over wealth is that the Pharaoh’s vast wealth caused him to say, “Truly I’m deserving of your worship.” Whereas the Prophet’s (peace and blessings be upon him) vast knowledge caused him to say, “Truly we have not worshipped You as You deserve to be worshipped. [Ali radi Allah anhu]

The Universe: Quran

2006-08-23T15:28:00.001+01:00

The Universe in Light of the Quraan

The spinning of the earth

"He (God) coils the night onto the day and coils the day onto the night."
[Qur'an-Zumar 39:5]

The use of the word "coils" was once thought to be a purely poetic one, but today's astronomical arabic word knowledge confirms that the word "coils" is scientifically very accurate in describing the spinning movement of the earth.

"And made the moon a light in their midst and made the sun as
a (Glorious) lamp." [Qur'an-Mursalat 77:16]

At the time of revelation of the Qur'an, it was a commonly held belief that the earth stood still and that the sun orbited around us. After all it seemed logical. Man's ego was bigger than the universe or so he thought. It was easier to believe that he lived in the centre of the Universe.

It was not until 1543, that the Astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus publishes De Revolutionibus, in which he states that the earth and the other planets revolve around the sun. Just pause and look at the time interval when that piece of information was in the Holy Qur'an.

Hostility to science generally and astronomy particularly was the misfortune of the Catholic Church in the early 16th and 17th century. In 1633 Galileo was forced to kneel in front of the Inquisition and recant his belief in the Copernican planetary system. He was condemned to life imprisonment, ostensibly for having disobeyed "...not to defend or teach the Copernican doctrine...".

"Consider those (stars) that rise only to set. And move (in their orbits) with steady motion. And float (through space) with floating serene. And yet overtake (one another) with swift overtaking. And thus fulfill the (Creator's) behest!" [Qur'an-Nazi'at 79:1-5]

It is only on the scale of the galaxy that this verse comes to light! A galaxy is composed of millions and millions of stars. A galaxy like ours, the Milky Way is a spiral galaxy and rotates.

THE MILKY WAY GALAXY

The Milky Way Galaxy has three major components:
A thin disk consisting of young and intermediate age stars - this disk also contains gas and is actively forming new stars. Dust in the disk makes it appear orange in the picture. Dust absorbs blue light more than red light and thus makes stars appear reddish. Our Galaxy has spiral arms in its disk - these spiral arms are regions of active star formation.

A bar of older stars (white in the picture).

An extended dark halo whose composition is unknown. Since the matter in the halo does not consist of luminous stars, it does not show up in the image. The existence of the dark halo is inferred from its gravitational pull on the visible matter.

The stars do move in an orbit and with steady motion too as they float through space. They do overtake one another because in any spiral structure that is rotating, the outer arms will move at a faster rate than the inner sections and will thereby overtake the stars on the interior in their motion. The spiral nature of our galaxy was only discovered in this century since its spiral nature is not easily evident to us as we reside inside.

There is order, cosmos…not chaos in this tremendous universe. The moon and earth float in orbits and they are predictable in their behaviour. It has been shown that if one planet was removed from our system, our solar system is no longer stable. Comets are predictable and they return as expected bound by the laws of Physics, God's laws. Man can never truly invent, he can only discover. The Universe is predictable in its behavior because Allah has subjugated its constituents and they obey him scrupulously, unlike man who has been granted will.

The eleven planets

Consisting of the Sun, a family of nine known planets, sixty seven (67) satellites (moons) of the planets, millions of asteroids, and billions of comets, our Solar System is an oasis of light, heat, and life.

The inner solar system contains the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.
The planets of the outer solar system are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.
When Joseph said unto his father:

"O my father! Lo! I saw in a dream eleven planets and the sun and the moon, I saw them prostrating themselves unto me."
[Qur'an-Yusuf 12:4]

What about the Tenth Planet and Eleventh Planet?

Astronomers may have found hints of a massive, distant, still unseen object at the edge of the solar system - perhaps a 10th planet, perhaps a failed companion star - that appears to be shoving comets toward the inner solar system.

Two teams of scientists - one in England, one at University of Louisiana at Lafayette - independently report this conclusion based on the highly elliptical orbits of so-called "long-period comets" that originate from an icy cloud of debris far, far beyond Pluto.

As the planet - estimated to have a mass between one and 10 Jupiter's - orbits, its gravitational wake disturbs the icy debris of the outer solar system, causing some of it to plunge toward the sun as comets.

No one has yet directly observed a 10th planet, and there could still be another cause for the cluster of comets.

What's surprising is just how far out there this supposed planet is. Both Murray and the University of Louisiana physicists put the planet in an orbit about 3 trillion miles - or half a light-year - from the sun. The nearest star is four light -years away.

To put this distance in perspective, consider a miniaturized version of the solar system in which Earth is one inch from the sun. On this scale, Pluto, the ninth planet would be a bit more than a yard from the sun. The new planet, by contrast, would be a half - mile distant.

At that great distance, the 10th planet would be too dim to see by current telescopes, although there is some hope that if it exists, the next generation of space-based infrared telescopes might be able to pick it up soon. As for the 11th planet, next generations will probably have the chance to discover it as well, as the Qur'an predicts it. And Allah knows best.

Astronomy

Discoveries of Muslim scholars

Expanding universe

2006-08-23T15:23:00.000+01:00

Why is the Universe Expanding

"And the firmament (sky) We constructed with power and skill
and verily We are expanding it."
[Qur'an-Zariyat 51:47]

From the expansion of the Universe...

The ideas have emerged from over two thousand years of observation have had to be radically revised. In less than a hundred years, we have found a new way to think of ourselves. From sitting at the center of the Universe, we now find ourselves orbiting around an average-sized sun, which is just one of millions of stars in our own Milky Way galaxy. And our galaxy itself is just one of billions of galaxies, in a Universe that is limitless and expanding. This was discovered in 1926 by Edwin Hubble.But this is far from the end of a long history of inquiry. Huge questions remain to be answered, before we can hope to have a complete picture of the Universe we live in. The expansion of the Universe is one of the most imposing discoveries of modern science. Today it is a firmly established concept and the only debate centres around the way this is taking place.

The expansion was first suggested by the General Theory of Relativity and is backed up by physics in the examination of the galactic spectrum. The regular movement towards the red section of the spectrum may be explained by the distancing of one galaxy from another. Thus the size of the Universe is probably constantly increasing and this increase will become bigger the further away the galaxies are from us. The speeds at which these celestial bodies are moving may, in the course of this perpetual expansion, go from fractions of the speed of light to speeds faster than this. Besides indicating that the Universe is expanding much faster than in the past, the chance discovery of the most distant supernova has revived a discarded theory of Albert Einstein suggesting the pervasive existence of mysterious "dark energy". Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope found the exploding star about 10 billion light-years from Earth. The discovery bolsters the startling notion that the Universe has recently begun speeding up its expansion, which scientists first speculated three years ago based on the unusually dim light from other distant supernovas. "It shows that the expanding of the Universe is really speeding up and not slowing down as conventional astronomers had thought for 70 years," said University of Chicago astronomer Michael Turner. The new stellar explosion has helped astronomers understand how the Universe expands, "much the same way a parent follows a child's growth spurts by marking a doorway," said Hubble scientist Adam Riess, lead researcher in the new study.The Universe slowed down its expansion for a time and then began a period of accelerated growth, Riess said.

" Do the unbelievers not realize that the heavens and the earth used to be one solid mass that we exploded into existence? And from water we made all living things. Would they believe? "
[Qur'an-Anbiyaa 21:30]

...to the Big Bang

Now if all these galaxies are moving away from each other, where did they come from?

In 1927, the Belgian priest Georges Lemaître was the first to propose that the Universe began with the explosion of a primeval atom. His proposal came after observing the red shift in distant nebulas by astronomers to a model of the Universe based on relativity. Years later, Edwin Hubble found experimental evidence to help justify Lemaître's theory. He found that distant galaxies in every direction are going away from us with speeds proportional to their distance.

The theory of Big Bang states that the Universe came into being as an extremely small volume full of energy which gave the Universe a very high temperature. As the Universe expanded so the fundamental atomic particles were formed as a mixture dominated by hydrogen with some helium and almost nothing else.

According to the big bang, the Universe was created sometime between 10 billion and 20 billion years ago from a cosmic explosion that hurled matter and in all directions.

Astronomy

Muslim Navigators

2006-08-23T15:17:00.000+01:00

Muslim Navigators

" And His are the ships sailing smoothly through the seas, lofty as mountains." [Qur'an-Rahman 55:24]

Muslim civilization always has been moving. Both the Arabs and the conquerors from Central Asia were originally nomadic and inherited a tradition of travel. Students and scholars went on long journeys to sit at the feet of famous teachers, for the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him); himself encouraged travel even "as far as China" for learning. The wealth of cities depended upon trade. And the Faith of Islam asked of the faithful the most powerful of all reasons for travel, the Pilgrimage. So Muslims traveled the length and width of the vast Islamic Empires and beyond, especially for trade purposes. Muslims traveled by land and by sea and through their trips they began an "Age of Travel and Exploration" far beyond their homelands.

Equipement of sea travel

" We have honoured the sons of Adam, provided them with transport on land and sea..."[Qur'an-Al 'Isrâ 17:70]

Muslim sailors used equipment to help them on their journeys. The astrolabe was used to read the position of the stars and planets. In this way, they could read their position on the sea in terms of latitude. These astrolabes were a great scientific achievement of the Muslims. In the fourteenth century the Muslims also used the compass which was first invented by the Chinese. This also helped them travel even without the sun or stars to guide them. And of course the Muslims made maps of the safest journeys. These maps were often kept secret from others by the ship captains who were competing for trade routes.

The dhow is a sailing vessel that is still used in the Indian Ocean today. It utilized the winds of the monsoons to go north in the summer and south in the winter. Dhows went up and down the coast of East Africa, and from the Red Sea to the "Spice Islands" of Indonesia, and to Southeast Asia. The dhow shown here is a small one and is still used along the coast. The Muslims built large "oceangoing dhows" that could carry a crew of twenty or more and a lot of cargo and supplies. The oceangoing dhow called the "baghlah" is no longer built. It was the traditional deep-sea dhow; it had a high cabin in the back, with five windows and a poop deck like European galleons (former large trading ship).

Muslim explorers and mapmakers influenced Christopher Columbus

The Muslims were masters of the sea. They had maps, equipment and experience that were far beyond what was available in Europe.One of the most famous gegrapher is Al-Idrisi who made a globe or sphere of silver weighing 400 kilograms for the Christian King Roger II of Sicily. Some scholars regard him as the greatest geographer and mapmaker of the Middle Ages. He put together a geographical encyclopedia with many maps.

Furthermore, the Muslims controlled most of the trade routes from the Eastern Mediterranean to China, India and the Spice Islands of Southeast Asia. Because of these factors, European traders had to look for new ways of competing in trade. Moreover, Muslim geographers had proposed that the earth was round, and even estimated fairly accurately its size, and measured its longitude and latitude hundreds of years before. It is also even claimed that they had discovered America before Columbus. Christopher Columbus would have known about this from living among sailors in Spanish and Italian ports. Perhaps he even heard stories of earlier adventures across the Sea of Darkness.In one of his letters, Columbus named Averroes who helped him guess the existence of the new world.

In 1492, Christopher Columbus set sail on three small ships from Spain with a Muslim navigator (a person who has skills in getting from place to place), an Arab translator, maps, and equipment. His goal was to sail across the Atlantic and reach China and India. Of course he was mistaken about the size of the earth and the existence of the Americas to block his way. But his trip was the beginning of new ways for Europeans to look at the world.

" When distress seizes you at sea, those that ye call upon, besides Himself, leave you in lurch! But when He brings you back safe to land, ye turn away (from Him). Most ungrateful man!" [Qur'an-Al 'Isrâ 17:67]

Muslim Navigators

Ibn Battuta (1305 - 1369?) was perhaps the greatest traveler of the Middle Ages, having traveled about 75,000 miles in 29 years! He is especially important to history because of his written reports of his travels. From these records we can learn about the cultures that he visited. The book about his travels is the only historical source of information about many of the places he visited which included the East African coast, the Empire of Mali in West Africa, Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, India, China, Spain, and many, many more! As a Muslim, he took advantage of the generosity shown to pilgrims and travelers in the Empire. He was often given gifts (of horses, gold, and even slaves) and stayed for free in dormitories, private homes, and even in the palaces of Muslim rulers. For seven years he worked for the Sultan in Delhi, India. On his travels he met several Sultans who welcomed him into their company. His descriptions are filled with adventures and stories.

Leo Africanus (Hasan a-Wazan) was a traveler and mapmaker who lived from 1485-1554. He was captured by Christian pirates and presented to the Pope as a slave. He later was commissioned to write about and make maps of his travels in West Africa. His description of Timbuktu (now in the country of Mali) tells of the city famous for trade of African products and for scholarship with a thriving trade in books. (source:"Leo Africanus: Description of Timbuktu" Washington State University.)

Prominent Arab figures who excelled in philosophy, arts and sciences played a substantial role in enriching civilization and Ibn al-Haitham is one of those outstanding characters who thought he can control the geography of Egypt by controling the Nile river floods. He worked as a clerk for some caliphs. Working in a governmental job did not suit his bent, so he devoted his time and efforts to his own scientific studies. He was renowned for his knowledge of the sciences and philosophy, even when he was still young.

Oceanography

THE WORLD OCEAN

2006-08-23T15:11:00.000+01:00

THE WORLD OCEAN

"How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean." Arthur C. Clarke

For centuries, people have been challenged by the mysteries that lie beneath the blue depths of our ocean planet. Very little was known about the ocean until late in the nineteenth century. Myths and misconceptions abounded. We thought that the seafloor was flat and that it was the same age as the continents. How different a picture we now have of the ocean as the sea has begun to yield its secrets!

Today's scientists have overcome many of the challenges of the deep by using more sophisticated tools. They can send manned submersibles and sampling devices to plumb the ocean depths, taking photographs and samples of animal life and sediment to bring back to the surface for further study. Even space technology enters the picture.

" Why am I doing this? Only the tiny sea of my cells replies, reminding me that I am the sea and the sea is in me." Jacques-Yves Cousteau

The world ocean contains about 97 percent of all the water on the earth. Most of the remaining water is frozen in glaciers and icecaps. The rest is in lakes and rivers, underground, and in the air. Each of the oceans, Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic, makes a contribution to the entire global system and cover 71 percent of the earth's surface. The Pacific Ocean is the largest ocean by far covering about 70 million square miles (181 million square kilometers), nearly a third of the earth's surface. Also, the world ocean has an average depth of 12,200 feet (3,730 meters), but parts of the ocean plunge much deeper. The deepest areas occur in trenches, long narrow valleys on the sea floor. The deepest known spot is in the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean, near the island of Guam. It lies 36,198 feet (11,033 meters) below sea level. If the world's highest mountain, 29,035-foot (8,850-meter) Mount Everest, were placed in that spot, more than 1 mile (1.6 kms) of water would cover the mountaintop.

The wealth of ocean

" Nor are the two bodies of flowing water alike,the one palatable, sweet, and pleasant to drink, and the other, salt and bitter.Yet from each (kind of water) do ye eat flesh fresh and tender, and ye extract ornaments to wear ;and thou seest the ships therein that plough the waves, that ye may seek (thus) of the bounty of God that ye may be grateful."

Indeed God provides through the ocean many major resources. They include food, medicines, energy ,and minerals.

Food from the ocean consists mainly of fish and shellfish. The worldwide commercial fish and shellfish catch from the ocean totals about 200 billion pounds (90 billion kilograms) annually. Most of the catch comes from coastal waters. People eat about 60 percent of the fish and shellfish directly. Processors use the rest of the catch to make such products as fish oil and fish meal, which is added to livestock feed and pet food.

Medicines have been produced from many forms of marine life. For example, plantlike organisms called red algae provide an anticoagulant, a drug that keeps blood from clotting. A species of marine snail produces a substance that relaxes muscles. Sea life has also been valuable in medical research. The blood of horseshoe crabs contains a substance used to test for various infections. The substance can also be used to determine the purity of many drugs. Researchers study giant nerve cells from lobsters, squids, and marine worms to learn more about nerve functions in people.

Energy from the ocean has several forms. Petroleum and natural gas are the ocean's most valuable energy resources. Offshore wells tap deposits of oil and gas beneath the sea floor. In the late 1990's, offshore wells produced about 30 percent of the world's oil and gas. Scientists estimate that from 63 billion barrels to as much as 530 billion barrels of oil lie undiscovered beneath the ocean. Equally huge amounts of untapped gas accompany the oil. As gas and oil reserves on land are used up or become too difficult and expensive to obtain, finding and recovering undersea deposits will become increasingly important.
The ocean tides also provide energy. Tidal power facilities use the energy in the rise and fall of the tides to produce electricity. The first tidal power plant opened in 1966 on the Rance River near St.-Malo, France.

Minerals recovered from the ocean include sand and gravel mined from the sea floor and used to make construction materials. Some sands also have value because they are rich in phosphorite and other chemicals. Seawater itself contains such important minerals as bromide, manganese, and salt. The minerals can be removed by letting the seawater evaporate in large shallow basins under sunlight. The evaporation leaves the minerals behind. Other methods to remove minerals from seawater include chemical and electrochemical processes.
The mineral wealth of the ocean extends to the deep-sea floor. Deposits near undersea hot springs contain copper, iron, and zinc. Manganese deposits lie on the ocean bottom in lumps called nodules. The nodules also contain cobalt, copper, and nickel. Scientists are trying to develop ways to gather the nodules and bring them to the surface. Possible gathering techniques include using buckets that run on conveyor belts between a ship and the sea floor and operating a device that works like a giant vacuum cleaner.

Oceanography

Importance of Enlightened Thinking not Blind Faith

2006-07-30T00:30:00.000+01:00

Importance of Enlightened Thinking not Blind Faith

"Since arriving at an age of discretion, the beauty and the simple purity of Islam have always appealed to me. I could never, though born and brought up as a Christian, believe in the dogmatic aspect of the Church, and have always placed reason and commonsense above blind faith." Sir Abdullah Archibald Hamilton Bart

Sir Abdullah Archibald Hamilton Bart, formerly Sir Charles Edward Archibald Watkins Hamilton, embraced Islam on 20th December 1923. A well-known English statesman, fifth baronet of the first (1770) and third baronet of the second creation (1819) Sir Abdullah was born on 10th December 1876. He was a Lieutinent in the Royal Defence Corp. and was also the President of the Selsy Conservative Association.

Introduction

Mankind progresses through thought. The most important factor affecting our actions in life is the thoughts we believe in and carry. Without thought man drifts aimlessly from situation to situation, waiting for things to happen, rather than initiating action and progressing.

Man needs to take a comprehensive view of what we are, and how we should fit into the scheme of life in its entirety. Man not only is interested in finding a solution to these basic questions, but needs to take a view in order to have a reference point for all problems he faces. In short man needs an ideology or complete way of life to believe in and to regulate his affairs.

There are answers available to these most fundamental of questions of who we are, why we are here and how do we relate to life not only now but life before us and life in the future. The challenge facing us is to exercise our minds to their full capability in finding the correct solution, a solution that can be tested against reality, and ration, and will be comprehensive for all circumstances.

Only in the adoption of a comprehensive thought and ideology will mankind both individually and collectively have peace of mind and a solid foundation upon which he is freed up to truly progress. Society needs a way of life to which all problems can be referred and solutions readily given. It is not acceptable to let life pass, without contemplating and deciding the basis upon which life itself is built and organised.

The Thinking Person

As our thoughts greatly dominate or decide our actions we should be aware of how the process of thought works. Through our five senses of Sight, Touch, Hearing, Smell and Taste man is able to receive information. The mind once it has received the reality or information can then distinguish it, provided it has previous information about it to link with what it has received. So four elements are required for thought:

1. The reality (word, information, etc)

2. The sensing or feeling transmitted to the mind

3. A distinguishing mind

4. Previous information about the reality to link with the other three.

So a person may come across a plant which he recognises as a plant from his previous information about what plants look like. Through sight, touch and smell he will perceive the reality of the plant, but without previous information about the type of plant he cannot decide if it is poisonous or edible. We should always keep these elements in mind when thinking, as without correct previous information we cannot make correct informed decisions. Just receiving information is not enough, people receiving information become educated not thinkers, the process of linking to previous information and distinguishing it is the process of thought. The search for comprehensive and truthful previous information to relate to todays reality is critical to man's success.

The Importance of Enlightened Thought

Just as the need for thought is important, the way one undertakes thought has an affect upon the quality of our problem solving and behaviour. Mankind has certain instincts and organic needs, and is constantly striving to satisfy these needs. Man will die if the organic need for food and water is not satisfied, and non satisfaction of the instincts of survival or procreation leads to misery.

Animals too have instincts and organic needs, but what differentiates man from the animal is the ability to think, man progresses and satisfies his needs after thought. Society implements rules, so we see that the survival instinct should not be satisfied by stealing from others, or that the sexual desire cannot be satisfied in any way we wish.

The way man approaches thought differs, thought can be relatively superficial, deep, or enlightened. The superficial thinker tends to judge based upon a brief look and makes decisions without understanding. Deep thought, on the other hand, examines the reality in great detail; once it is understood it is then judged. Through enlightened thought man not only understands the reality, but also all that relates to it, and only then does he judge it. So the person that buys the first colourful table that appeals to his sense of fashion is thinking superficially, whereas the man that studies the type of wood, veneer and construction of the table thinks deeply. It is only the man that takes into account these factors and his use of the table, the size of room it will fit, and his budget that uses enlightened thought.

Man will satisfy his needs and instincts through use of any of the three types of thought, but it is use of enlightened thought that takes into account the reality, previous information and all that relate to them that holds the future success for us. The view that any man holds all answers and can decide all for himself is shallow in that it does not recognise man's limitations, or does not take into account all in man's environment or links with the past and future. Similarly to look deeply and categorise man merely as flesh and bone and observe how the environment or nature has changed does not address the beginning of man, and his relationship to the rest of life. Only enlightened thought can provide a comprehensive answer and we should spare nothing in looking for the answers we need.

The Bridge from Thought to Action

When we become convinced of the correctness of a thought, that thought or idea becomes a concept which we carry, and as such it affects our behaviour. If we carry a concept of dislike about a person, that will affect our behaviour towards that person. If we feel responsible towards our husband/wife or family that will motivate us to support them. Concepts are important in that they can be changed to change degenerative behaviour.

Man should constantly challenge the concepts that he carries. Any error in accepting the truth of an idea which is wrong has a serious implication not only for the individual, but also for society, especially if the false ideas are carried widely.

Man cannot progress at all unless he carries a comprehensive concept which explains fully our situation. Such a concept must explain the relationship between man, life and the universe, and all that was before this and all that is after it. Without previous knowledge covering this most important question and enlightened thought we are in no position to deal with the questions and challenges we constantly face in life. The man that does not know who he is, where he is from and where he is going is in a sorry state.

Mankinds Greatest Question

Where did I come from, and where am I going? is the question on every child's lips at some stage. What is the relationship between man, life and the universe? What is the link between life and what was before life, and what is after life? These are all the most natural of questions which man wants an answer to, and indeed needs an answer to, to form a basis for all actions. Without an answer, we are simply running with a limited view of life, i.e. what is here and now with no regard to the past and future. Such a view of life is comparable to applying for a job without asking the interviewer what the history of the company is, who they will be working for, why the previous person left, what the job is, how the job is likely to develop, what the prospects for promotion are and so on. To simply ask for the job without any reference to the past and the future and how they are related is superficial and naive.

Should a person be drugged and wake up in a darkened room, he will naturally ask:

who put me here ?

why am I here ?

and what will happen next ? (or what is outside the room ?).

Questions of what happens after death evoke in many an uneasy feeling, a feeling that many shy away from if they do not have a convincing answer. If we look upon existence before our birth as unknown, one might say is doesn't concern us, but we all return to a situation of seeming uncertainty after death.

The truth of the matter is that we want and need answers, and we want answers with absolute clarity and certainty.

Solving the Great Question

A comprehensive answer to the question of man, life and the universe and their interrelationships through enlightened thought will provide the solution to all problems. This greater problem will act as a base or point of reference to any matter or problem relating to man and life . This is so because all problems are either partial problems related to the main problem or an outcome of the main problem. Armed with an answer to this most basic question mankind individually and collectively is in a position to progress, freed up from the constant worry of finding a correct reference point for any problem.

We are looking for the basis or creed of the ideology (way of life) for our lives. The basis or comprehensive answer must agree with reality and be categorically proven as correct, otherwise any answer stemming from the basis could be false.

Before solving the question we should set some ground rules.

1. Firstly; any answer should be comprehensive. We must have the answer to the whole question of man, life and the universe. Without this any related questions or problems stemming from life, may be left unanswered.

2. Any answer must agree with the reality and be a verifiable fact, to meet this criteria the answer must agree with man's nature and satisfy our mind or intellect.

3. To answer a question rationally requires that we limit ourselves to what we can perceive and sense. We cannot rationally assess something which is hypothetical or beyond our capacity to perceive it. With these criteria in mind, we can proceed to challenge ourselves in this most important of questions. A challenge which can solve this issue with 100% certainty, or else we remain in the dark, and with the constant inefficiency and worry that doubt brings.

Excerpt from the book "Faith & Progress" by Jamal Harward

A Historical Lie: The Stone Age

2006-07-25T22:08:00.000+01:00

VISIT: http://www.thestoneage.org

ABOUT THE SITE

Did you know that 700,000 years ago, people were sailing the oceans in very well-constructed ships?

Or have you ever heard that the people described as “primitive cavemen” possessed an artistic ability and understanding just as refined as those of modern artists?

Did you know that the Neanderthals, who lived 80,000 years ago and whom evolutionists portrayed as “ape-men,” made musical instruments, took pleasure from clothing and accessories, and walked over painfully hot sands with molded sandals?

In all probability you may never have heard any of these facts. On the contrary, you may have been handed the mistaken impression that these people were half-ape and half-human, unable to stand fully upright, lacking the ability to speak words and producing only strange grunting noises. That is because this entire falsehood has been imposed on people like yourself for the last 150 years.

The motive behind it is to keep alive materialist philosophy, which denies the existence of a Creator. According to this view, which distorts any fact that stands in its way, the universe and matter are eternal. In other words they had no beginning, and thus have no Creator. Then how did life come to be? The supposedly scientific explanation is the theory of evolution.

Because since materialists claim that the universe has no Creator, they must provide their own explanation for how the life and myriad species on Earth came into being. The theory of evolution is the scenario they employed for that purpose. According to this theory, all the order and life in the universe came about spontaneously and by chance. Certain inanimate substances in the primeval world combined by accident to give rise to the first living cell. As a result of millions of years of similar coincidences, organisms came into existence. And finally came human beings, as the final stage of this evolutionary chain.

The early history of mankind—which is alleged to have come into being as the result of millions of accidental mutations, each more impossible than the last—has been distorted to fit in with this scenario. According to the evolutionists’ account, which is totally lacking in any proof, the history of mankind is as follows: In the same way that life forms progressed from a primitive organism up to man, the most highly developed of all, so mankind’s history must have advanced from the most primitive community to the most advanced urban society. But this assumption is completely devoid of any supporting evidence. It also represents the history of mankind prepared in line with the claims of materialist philosophy and the theory of evolution.

Evolutionist scientists—in order to account for the supposed evolutionary process that they claim extends from a single cell to multi-celled organisms, and then from apes to man, —have rewritten the history of mankind. To that end they have invented imaginary eras such as “The Cave-Man Age” and “The Stone Age” to describe the lifestyle of “primitive Man.” Evolutionists, supporting the falsehood that human beings and apes are descended from a common ancestor, have embarked on a new search in order to prove their claims. They now interpret every stone, or arrowhead or bowl unearthed during archaeological excavations in that light. Yet the pictures and dioramas of half-ape, half-man creatures sitting in a dark cave, dressed in furs, and lacking the facility of speech are all fictitious. Primitive man never existed, and there never was a Stone Age. They are nothing more than deceptive scenarios produced by evolutionists with the help of one section of the media.

These concepts are all deceptions because recent advances in science—particularly in the fields of biology, paleontology, microbiology and genetics—have totally demolished the claims of evolution. That the idea that living species evolved and transformed into “later” versions of each other has been deemed invalid.

In the same way, human beings did not evolve from ape-like creatures. Human beings have been human since the day they came into existence, and have possessed a sophisticated culture from that day to this. Therefore, “the evolution of history” never happened, either.

This book reveals scientific proofs that the “evolution of human history” concept is a falsehood, and we shall show how the fact of creation is now supported by the latest scientific findings. Mankind came into the world not through evolution, but by the flawless creation of God, the Almighty and Omniscient.

In this site, you can read the scientific and historical proofs of this.

VISIT: http://www.thestoneage.org

3 - The Myth of Human Evolution

2006-07-25T21:55:00.000+01:00

- THE EVOLUTION DECEIT -

Charles Darwin expressed his thoughts on the "evolution of man" firstly in his book named The Origin of Species published in 1859. In this book where he argued that living organisms evolved from each other, he did not actually advance a solid thesis on how man came into existence; but he covertly mentioned that there was an evolutionary relationship between men and the apes. In his book named The Descent of Man dated 1872, he clearly stated all his thoughts about the subject. According to Darwin, apes and men had common ancestors. With the effects of environmental conditions, these two species had gradually differentiated from each other and today's men and apes have evolved.

Darwin held no evidence at hand except for his creative imagination. Not being able to go further than a fantasy, his theory started receiving criticisms from the first day of its declaration on, for not resting on any known scientific basis. However, those who embraced the theory as a liberator in consort with their ideological concerns immediately started making extensive investigations hoping to find any evidence to evolution.

Firstly the geological layers and fossil records were scrutinized. The purpose was to generate an evolutionary connection from the fossils of the past living things. Under these conditions arose paleontology and paleoanthropology as new sciences for examining and interpreting these fossil records. Gathering human fossils of various bygone races and numerous ape fossils of different species, the paleoanthropologists made an imaginary diagram of "the evolution of man" by arranging these fossils as they liked. This imaginary evolution diagram which was entirely based on expectations, assumptions and actually "wishful thinking", was prepared at the beginning of the 1850's and reached until today undergoing lots of modifications.

On the first step of this imaginary evolution diagram is a hypothetical "common ancestor" which has not yet been discovered. According to this story, the primitive man diverted from this common ancestor 7 million years ago through evolution and gradually developed into a bipedal man by time who well adopted to walking skills in about 3-4 million years. These creatures named "Australopithecus" (South African monkey) evolved into "Homo habilis" who were able to use tools; and Homo habilis were replaced by "Homo erectus" which were upright walking men from the beginning of the year of 1.8 million. Homo erectus were respectively followed by "Homo sapiens archaic" which is not much different from today's man, "Homo sapiens neanderthalis", "Cro-magnon man" and the modern human being named "Homo sapiens sapiens".

Here is the core of this story. The basic goal of the theory of evolution is actually to impose this theory on people as if it were true by using all kinds of methods. During this course, psychological methods are also employed in addition to the "scientific" ones. Giving attractive names to the skull fossils found, arranging these one after the other in an array and delineating them in diagrams, are the most apparent methods used for psychological persuasion purposes. The "scientific" atmosphere created with the effect of these Latin names is enough to convince the "ordinary man" that these imaginary species created on paper really existed.

However, the truth is quite different. The skulls presented as the various phases of human evolution do not belong to "transitional forms" in between a man and an ape, but either to some ape species who have already become extinct or to different man races. A research conducted on the subject is apt to reveal the reality explicitly and demonstrate to the public how shallow and rootless this fallacy carried out under the enchantment of Latin skull names is.

We are going to investigate the issue together in the following pages:

Fossil Records and the Biased Interpretations of the Evolutionists

Fossil records constitute the primary source for the evolutionists who look for evidence for the theory of evolution. The fossil records contain the remains of past men. When examined objectively and attentively, it is seen that the fossil records are not in favor of the evolutionary theory, but against it in contrary to the assertions of the evolutionists. However, since these fossils are incorrectly portrayed by the evolutionists and reflected to public opinion with prejudices, many people believe that the fossil records actually verify the theory of evolution.

The evolutionists benefit mostly from the fact that findings of fossil records are open to all kinds of discussion. The uncovered fossils are usually not sufficient to make a sound analysis. Actually, they are comprised of incomplete and fragmented bone pieces. This is the reason why it is so easy to distort the available data and use them in the desired way.

The theory of evolution is turned into a life style, a mode of thinking and even an ideology rather than a theory by its defenders, and within its scope, no need is felt to avoid from distorting the data or even committing more serious forgeries. An extremist advocate of the evolutionary ideology, for instance, does not hesitate to make any kind of distortion to be able to interpret each finding of the fossil records in favor of the theory of evolution.

David Pilbeam, who is an anthropologist in Harvard University explains the influence of the ideological expectations on interpreting fossil records as follows:

"Theory shapes the way we think about, even perceive, data… We are unaware of many of our assumptions." The fact that fossil records are open to all kinds of interpretations, raises doubt on the reliability of even the whole science of paleoanthropology which is mostly under the disposition of the evolutionists. Pilbeam described how subjective the evolutionists were while interpreting the fossils and how they held certain prejudices and expectations:

In the course of rethinking my ideas about human evolution, I have changed somewhat as a scientist. I am aware of the prevalence of implicit assumptions and try harder to dig them out of my own thinking. Theories have, in the past, clearly reflected our current ideologies instead of the actual data… I am more somber than I once was about what the unwritten past can tell us." Sir Solly Zuckerman, the famous paleontologist of Birmingham University in England states how ideological expectations shape the way of thinking:

"…We then move right off the register of objective truth into those fields of presumed biological science, like extrasensory perception or the interpretation of man's fossil history, where to the faithful anything is possible - and where the ardent believer is sometimes able to believe several contradictory things at the same time." Trickery in Reconstruction

Since fossil records are usually unorganized and incomplete, the estimations based on them would be totally speculative. As a matter of fact, the reconstructions (drawings or models) made by the evolutionists based on the fossil remains, are treated in a speculative way in consort with the evolutionary thesis. Since people are highly influenced from visual data, the aim is to make them believe that these reconstructed creatures have really existed in the past.

Just for this reason, the reconstructions of fossils and skulls are always designed to meet the needs of the evolutionary theory. Evolutionist researchers often set out from a single tooth, a mandibular fragment or even a tiny bone of the arm, and draw human-like imaginary creatures, then present these to the public opinion sensationally as a link of the evolution of man. These drawings and reconstructions have indeed played an important role in the visualization of the "primitive man" image in the minds of people.

Reconstructions based on the bone remains can only reveal the general characteristics of the object at hand. Yet, the real designating details are soft tissues that vanish quickly in time. Therefore, with the speculative interpretation of the soft tissues, the reconstructed drawing or model becomes totally dependent upon the imagination of the person constructing it. Earnst A. Hooten from Harvard University, explains the situation as below:

To attempt to restore the soft parts is an even more hazardous under-taking. The lips, the eyes, the ears, and the nasal tip, leave no clues on the underlying bony parts. You can with equal facility model on a Neanderthaloid skull the features of a chimpanzee or the lineaments of philosopher. These alleged restorations of ancient types of a man have very little if any scientific value and are likely only to mislead the public… So put not your trust in reconstructions.

As a matter of fact, evolutionists invent such "pompous stories" that they even ascribe different faces to the same skull. For example, three different reconstructed drawings made for the fossil named Australopithecus robustus (Zinjanthropus), is a famous example of such a forgery.

Forgeries Done On Behalf of the Theory

Some of the evolutionists who could not find any substantial evidence in the fossil records, finally decided to create their own evidence themselves. These studies were even included in encyclopedias under titles like evolution conspiracies, and this is the best proof revealing that the theory of evolution is an ideology or a life philosophy that is sought to be kept upright with great effort. The most well-known of these conspiracies are stated below:

Piltdown Man

A well known doctor and also an amateur paleontologist Charles Dawson came out with the assertion that he found a jaw bone and a cranial fragment in a pit in Piltdown, England in 1912. Despite the jaw bone was ape-like, the teeth and the skull were looking like a man's. These specimens were designated after as "Piltdown man", determined to be dating back to 500 thousand years and displayed as an absolute proof for the evolution of man in several museums. For more than 40 years, many scientific articles were written on it, many interpretations and drawings were made and it was presented as an important evidence for the evolution of man.

The discovery of Piltdown man aroused enthusiasm in paleoanthropology circles, and gave way to new arguments. The famous English anthropologist G.E.Smith expressed his own thoughts over the discussion of "Did brain or body of the man evolve first?".

The outstanding interest of the Piltdown skull is in the confirmation it affords of the views that in the evolution of Man the brain led the way. It is the veriest truism that Man has emerged from the simian state in virtue of the enrichment of the structure of his mind… The brain attained what may be termed the human rank at a time when the jaws and face, and no doubt the body also, still retained much of the uncouthness of Man's simian ancestors. In other words, man at first… was merely an Ape with overgrown brain. The importance of the Piltdown skull lies in the fact that it affords tangible confirmation of these inferences. Famous American paleoanthropologist H.F.Osborn said "We have to be reminded over and over again that Nature is full of paradoxes and that the order of the universe is not the human order." when he was visiting the British Museum in 1921.

Bringing a Hoax into Daylight

In 1949, Kenneth Oakley from British Museum's paleontology department attempted to try the method of "fluorine test", a new test used for determining the date of some old fossils. A trial was made on the Piltdown man's fossil. The result was very astounding. During the test, it was realized that the jaw bone of Piltdown man did not contain any fluor. This indicated that the chin bone was under the ground no more than a few years. The skull which contained only a small amount of fluorine showed that it was only a few thousand years old.

"The latest chronological researches made with the fluorine method revealed that the skull was only a few thousand years old. It was manifested that the teeth in the jaw bone belonging to an orangutan were worn out artificially, and the primitive tools found next to the fossils were simple imitations sharpened by steel devices." Along with these fossils were found some extinct elephant fossils and some tool remains made out of the bones of the same elephant species. These elephant fossils were used in the dating of the skull. In the tests, it was understood that these elephant fossils were indeed old. However, the jaw bone and the skull were quite new to be at the same age with the elephant fossils. What did all these indicate? Cottrel explains that the Piltdown ivory fossil had probably been found in Africa and then placed into the Piltdown cave. To claim that the false skull was as old as the elephant fossil. As the researchers studied on the other animal fossils found in the same region, they found out that these were also superficially brought there. The piltdown (bone tool) was seen to be a mere elephant fossil shaped with a steel knife. And the flint tools were artificially rust colored neolitichic fossils which.

PILTDOWN MAN FORGERY: This fake fossil that occupied the scientific circles for a long time, displayed how far the wish to prove the theory of evolution could go. It was only revealed in 1952 that this fossil found in 1912 and named as Piltdown man was actually produced by assembling an ape's jaw to a human skull. Above left: The architect of this forgery Charles Dawson is seen near the Piltdown ditch in England. Above right, the skull and jaw bones that are found. Below left is the reconstruction and below right is its animation.

In the detailed analysis completed by Kenneth Oakley, William Le Gros Clark and J.S.Weiner; this forgery was definitely made public in 1953. The skull belonged to a 500 year old man, and the chin bone belonged to an ape recently died. The teeth were thereafter specially arranged in an array and added to the jaw and the joints were filled in order to resemble it to that of a man's. Then all these pieces were stained with potasiumdichromat for a dated appearance. These stains were disappearing when dipped in acid. Le Gros Clark who was in the team that disclosed the forgery, could not hide his astonishment against this situation:

The evidences of artificial abrasion immediately sprang to the eye. Indeed so obvious did they seem it may well be asked - how was it that they had escaped notice before? As the success of this forgery had even erred the best known experts, famous paleoantropologist Sir Solly Zuckerman said: "As I have already implied, students of fossil primates have not been distinguished for caution when working within the logical constraints of their subject. The record is so astonishing that it is legitimate to ask whether much science is yet to be found in this field at all. The story of the Piltdown Man hoax provides a pretty good answer."

Nebraska Man

In 1922, Henry Fairfield Osborn the manager of American Museum of Natural History, declared that he found a fossil molar tooth in West Nebraska near Snake Brook belonging to Pliocene Period. This tooth was allegedly carrying the common characteristics of both a man and an ape. Very deep scientific arguments started and some people interpreted this tooth as Pithecanthropus erectus, and some others claimed it was closer to human beings. This fossil that became a matter of argument, was called the "Nebraska man". Its "scientific Latin name" was also given right away: "Hesperopithecus haroldcook II".

Many authorities gave support to Osborn. Based on this one tooth, the reconstruction pictures of Nebraska man's head and body were drawn. Moreover, Nebraska man was even the pictured along with his wife and children, as a whole family in a natural setting.

All of these scenarios were developed just from one tooth. Evolutionist circles endorsed this "ghost man" to such an extent that when a researcher named William Bryan opposed to these biased decisions given by relying on a single tooth, he was harshly criticized.

Yet, in 1927 the other parts of the skeleton were also found. This tooth belonged neither to a man nor an ape. It was realized that this tooth belonged to an extinct and wild American pig species named Prosthennops. William Gregory entitled his article published in the Science magazine where he announced this error as: "Hesperopithecus Apparently Not An Ape Nor A Men".

Then all the drawings of Hesperopithecus haroldcook II and his family were removed immediately from the evolutionary literature with haste.

Ramapithecus

Ramapithecus is known to be the biggest and longest lasting fallacies of the theory of evolution. This name was given to the fossil records found in India in 1932 which were allegedly to be the first stage of the split between the man and the ape which occurred 14 million years ago. It was used as a solid evidence by the evolutionists for 50-years long, from the day it was found in 1932, to the day it was revealed to be a total error in 1982.

American evolutionist Dr. Elwyn Simons wrote in Scientific American of May 1977 about Ramapithecus: "This extinct primate is the earliest hominid, or distinctively manlike, member of man's family tree. The finding of many new specimens of it has clarified its place in human evolution…" Simons then added confidently, "Ramapithecus has most often been identified as a member of man's own hominid line."

The importance of Ramapithecus in human evolution was expressed in Simon's article in Time dated November 1977. He stated: "Ramapithecus structured to be an ancestor of man. If he isn't, we don't have any clue."

Also in our country, the book named Modern Biology published by Ministry of Education in 1979 written by Sevinç Karol and his associates, vigorously accepted the idea of Ramapithecus: It was stated without doubt that "the oldest known ancestor of human was Ramapithecus (tailless ape) which was identified from the jaw and teeth fossils found in Africa and India."

However, if these people had read the article of Robert Eckhardt published in Scientific American in 1972, they would surely not speak with such a self-confidence. Eckhardt made 24 different measurements on the teeth of Ramapithecus and Dryopithecus (an extinct gorilla species). He then compared these measurements with those he had made on the chimpanzees. According to these comparisons, the difference between the measurements of the teeth of the living chimpanzees was bigger than the difference between Ramapithecus and Dryopithecus. Eckhardt summarizes the outcome of his studies as follows:

Amid the bewildering array of early fossil hominoids, is there one whose morphology marks it man's ancestor? If the factor of genetic variability is considered, the answer appears to be no. The famous paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey had some suspicions about Ramapithecus just like Eckhardt. According to Leakey, it was too early to reach to a definite judgment about Ramapithecus which was comprised of nothing but a few bones. Leakey summarized his ideas as: "The case for Ramapithecus as a hominid is not substantial, and the fragmentary material leaves many questions open."

It was known for a very long time that in contrary to the "U" shaped jaw bone of the apes, the humans had a parabolic chin structure which would allow them to speak. And it was assumed that Ramapithecus had a parabolic chin structure just like the human beings.

However, the erroneous reconstructional drawings coded YPM 13799 made by Elwyn Simons in 1961, based on the mandibular bones of Ramapithecus showed parabolic structure except for the incisory teeth. This reconstruction was accepted by most writers and used in their studies. In 1969, Genet-Varcin pair showed that by using the same pieces, it was possible to make totally different reconstuructions with a "U" shape just like it was in the monkeys. Besides, there were many species within the extant apes which showed Pithecanthropus characteristics. A baboon species, living in the higher regions of Ethiopia (Theropithecus galada) had a short but deep face structure and more little incisory and carpenter teeth than the other apes, just like Ramapithecus and Australopithecine.

On the left is the skull of a contemporary orangutan, and on the right is the jaw bone of the fossil Ramapithecus. As observed, Ramapithecus can not be distinguished from an orangutan both in terms of its mandibular structure and teeth characteristics.

To sum up; the three most well-known forgeries of the evolutionists are the Piltdown man, Nebraska man and Ramapithecus. It was understood that in the case of the Piltdown man, a jaw bone and cranial fragment presented as important evidences to the evolution of man and allegedly were 500 years old, were in fact buried under the ground by the evolutionists on purpose. The cranium actually belonged to a human being and the jaw bone to an ape; these were also suitably treated by the evolutionists to give them a patina of age. In the case of the Nebraska man, they had gone further and made the picture of a creature who allegedly proved the evolution, from setting out from a molar tooth fossil. He was even pictured along with his wife and family. Then, it was understood that this tooth belonged to an extinct pig species. Ramapithecus was also one of the biggest fallacies of the theory of evolution. This incidence was about the subjective exertion of an extinct ape species as an evidence to the evolution of man.

Piltdown man, Nebraska man and fossils such as Ramapithecus are clear evidences indicating that evolutionists do not hesitate to make forgeries or distort the truth plainly in order to prove their own theories. When we look at the other so-called evidences of the legend of "the evolution of man" in the light of these truths, we face a similar situation: There exists a story that is completely unreal and an army of volunteers who would do anything to support this hoax.

In the following pages, we are going to depict the inside story of the evolution of man, by inspecting consecutively the fossils shown as evidence to the theory.

The Imaginary Evolution of Man

The theory of evolution is based on the hypothesis that the contemporary man of today has evolved from its primate (ape) ancestors splitting off from them 4-10 million years ago. Although no consensus has been reached by the evolutionary researchers, the generally accepted list of imaginary ancestors of today's man are as follows:

-Australopithecus or "South African ape"
-Homo habilis or "tool using man"
-Homo erectus or "upright walking man"
-Archaic homo sapiens or "old modern man"
-Homo sapiens sapiens or "modern man"

According to the evolutionists the first ancestors of man called Australopithecus, were creatures which had some humanlike but mostly apelike characteristics. Some species of the Australopithecus have allegedly become extinct and the others have developed into the Homo (human) series. According to the evolutionists, the Australopithecus series had mainly apelike characteristics and the Homo series had common characteristics with the man of our day. Especially Homo erectus and its subsequents were almost identical with the contemporary man.

Today there are 200 species of apes still extant. However, it is assumed that there have been more than 6500 species of primates that have lived in ancient times and are extinct now. According to the estimates of the scientists, only 3% of these primates are known. The animals called Australopithecus by the evolutionists are actually extinct apes which share some common structural characteristics with today's apes.

The most important point that deserves focus in examining the fossils are the criteria employed by the evolutionists while evaluating the fossils. The primary criteria used in categorising and evaluating the human fossils are; bipedalism (that is upright walking), cranial capacity and cranial shape. Various classifications are done according to these criteria.

Yet, some of these criteria, especially the cranial capacity, are quite unreliable. For example, the cranial capacity of a contemporary ape is maximum 750 cc. The cranial capacity of men surge between 900-2200 cc. Among the Australian Aborigin natives, there are quite a number of individuals who have a brain of around 850 cc.. And the cranial capacity may change depending on the age and sex. This is why many specialists reach to the mutual agreement that the cranial capacity is not a reliable means of measurement.

The shape of the cranium is yet another criteria. The craniums of ape fossils and the craniums of today's apes are very similar to each other. The craniums of the apes are narrow and long. There is a protruding part on the top of many of these craniums which helps the jaw muscles to hang on. Also in some ape species, there are ridges on top of the eyebrows called "suborbital taurus". The eyes are very close to each other. Incisory teeth are big and very sharp. The molar teeth change according to the species and the feeding habits of the apes. The jaw is again dependent on the species of the ape, having either a U or a V shape.

However, human craniums are large volumed with wide foreheads. The skull is flat (there are no protrusions). Eyes are wide apart. The shape of the eyebrow ridges above the eyes change according to the human race. In the black and white races, this ridge exists very slightly. Yet, in some other races these ridges are evident. In addition, the mandibles of humans are very much different from that of the apes having a parabolic structure. The incisory teeth are small and molar teeth in normal dimensions.

When the postcranium is examined; the most characteristic criteria are revealed. Arms of the apes are long and their legs are short. Their feet and fingers have grasping abilities. All apes are quadropedal. The entire skeleton is designed for a quadropedal body structure. They can stand on their two feet rarely, only when they want to reach somewhere and get something. They spend most of their time on all fours.

Bipedalism is a characteristic only of human beings and this quality is the most distinctive factor that distinguishes human beings from other animals. A human's hip, pelvis, and back bone and his spinal cord, shortly, all parts of his skeleton are designed for bipedalism.

Therefore, while interpreting the uncovered fossils, the most important and binding criteria should be bipedalism. Bipedalism is the most substantial factor that distinguishes the humans from apes. This is why the focal point of the arguments must consist of whether various living things at issue walk upright or not.

The beings that the theory of evolution presents as transitional links between humans and apes, are either quadropedal apes or human beings who carry some "racial" characteristics within their structure but have no common similarities with the apes

After this short introduction, we may start examining the supposedly fossils of the evolution myth. The first part of the story is the Australopithecus who is declared to be the first transitional link from the apes to the humans

The Real Story of the Australopithecus

All present Australopithecus fossils were found in the south region of Africa. The reason why this species is named Australopithecus, meaning "South African ape" is because these animals have very similar characteristics to the apes living in our day. Male Australopithecus are between 1-1.20 meter tall. The height of female Australopithecus is only the half of the male's just like contemporary apes.

The first fossils which were alleged to belong to this species were found in a coal mine in 1924 in South African Taung region. The first fossil defined as Australopithecus consisted of the face and mandibulars of a young ape and a 410 cc. cranial capacity. The discoverers of the fossil took it to professor Dr. Raymond Dart, a professor of anatomy, from Witwater University.

Relying on the slim structure of the cranium of this fossil and thinking that its teeth looked similar to that of the human beings, Dr. Raymond Dart inferred that it was a hominid fossil. After a short while, an article named "Australopithecus: Ape Man in South Africa" was published in the Nature magazine. Scientists of that period who stated that the fossil actually belonged to a chimpanzee, did not really take Dart very seriously. However, insisting that the fossil was a hominid; Dart persuaded the famous physicist Dr. Robert Broom about the subject and he dedicated the rest of his life to collect support for this new species he found. Interestingly enough, his fossil was named as "Dart baby" in a derisive manner in the science circles. Later on, the evolutionists adopted this fossil and invented a new species called Australopithecines. They allocated the first fossil they found as "Australopithecus africanus".

After the discovery of this fossil which was named as "Taung Child" for being supposed to belong to an infant, primarily the Leakey family and other paleoanthropologists accelerated their researches. During the excavations made with the financial support of National Geographic Magazine, other fossils were also found in South African Kromdraii, Swartkrans and Makapansgat which were assumed to be Australopithecus again. Some of these ape fossils had a coarser structure whereas others were slimmer, smaller and more slender. The fossil which had a coarser structure was heavier and larger than the other one, had a bigger mandible and a bonelike protrusion over its cranium as its most outstanding feature. Although all of these qualities were typical examples of sexual differentiation between male and female apes of today, the scientists interpreted them persistently as different species.

In reality, these fossils had not evolved from each other; but were only individuals from different sexes of the same species. The fact that these fossils were found to be belonging to the same period provided another conclusive evidence to this reality. Yet, all of these substantial facts were overlooked and the slim and slender fossils started to be referred to as "Australopithecus boisei", while those with a coarser structure were referred to as "Australopithecus robustus". These still maintain their positions in the evolutionary literature as the most important pieces of the evolution of man.

A Young Ape: Australopithecus Africanus

Dart had received considerable reactions from contemporary scientists after his presentation of the fossil named Australopithecus africanus. Arthur Keith, prominent anatomist at the time, commented on the fossil found by Dart and stated the following:

(Dart's) claim is preposterous, the skull is that of a young anthropoid ape...and showing so many points of affinity with the two living African anthropoids, the gorilla and chimpanzee, that there cannot be a moment's hesitation in placing the fossil form in this living group. According to the evolutionist paleoanthropologists, the common characteristic of Australopithecus and human beings was their adaptation to bipedalism after leaving the trees. Dart was led to the idea that the "Taung child" fossil he had found could stand on its two legs due to the reason that the part of the skull named "magnum", through which the spinal cord enters the skull, was more backwards than the human being's and more forward than the ape's. Setting out from this point, he argued that this animal could stand on its two feet. This theory which was repudiated by the scientists of that time, made a return in the 1950's. Yet, not a single piece of skeleton existed that could be shown as evidence for the assertion of bipedalism. The specimens in hand consisted of a cranium and some thigh bones, hip bone and foot bone in a very disorderly condition. Despite the scarcity of evidence, the evolutionists persisted on their claim of bipedalism.

Lord Zuckermann (Dr. Solly Zuckermann) was maybe one of the people in the world who examined the Australopithecines family in the most detailed fashion. Although he was an evolutionist, Zuckermann thought that the Australopithecus was nothing but an ape. Using the most developed anatomical research methods with his team of four people, Zuckermann declared in his research which started in 1954 and lasted for a few years, that these creatures could not stand on their two feet and did not have a form between man and ape. Lord Zuckermann and his team's conclusion report included following results: although these creatures were not similar to any of the primates living today, they also had no similarity with mankind. In their finale report, Lord Zuckerman and his team stated these creatures could not also be claimed to have relationship with the human kind although they are not alike any primate living today. Claiming that these creatures were able to stand up and walk still was much more refutable than the theory that they could walk as a varient of the non-human primates. This is the reason why this theory cannot be acceptable.

AUSTRALOPITHECUS:
AFRICAN APE
On the left and below is seen the first fossil "Taung Child" which was included in the Australopithecus africanus species. This fossil actually belongs to an infant ape.

Australopithecus africanus
Australopithecus africanus, Sts 71 skull and Sts 36 jaw bone: This two-fragmented illustration is defined as an adolescent member of A. africanus. Belonging to an extinct ape, this fossil bears great resemblance to the skull of the orangutans of our day.

These arguments stated by Zuckermann during 1950's were also approved by the researchers that emerged afterwards. Dean Falk who was a brain specialist expressed in an article published in 1975 that the Taung cranium belonged to a newborn ape.

Like humans, (apes and monkeys) go through stages as they grow up. In his analysis of Taung, Dart did not fully appreciate that infant apes have not had time to develop features of the skull, such as thickened eyebrow ridges or attachment areas for heavy neck muscles, that set adult apes apart from human. Apparently he did not carefully consider the possibility that Taung's rounded forehead or the inferred position of the spinal cord might be due to the immaturity of the apelike specimen rather than to its resemblance to humans." It is important to point out that the absence of brow ridges which renders the Australopithecus africanus to be defined as a hominid, is a feature also displayed in the young gorillas living today.

Thus it is revealed that, this skull named Australopithecus africanus by the evolutionists does not belong to an ancestor of the human beings; but rather to a skinny, and most probably a young ape.

The fouls of the evolutionists were not limited by Australopithecus africanus. All the other members of the Australopithecus series were also merely apes. In accordance with their expectations, the evolutionists interpreted some characteristics of these apes to be hominid. However, the researches reveal that all of the Australopithecus are similar to the contemporary apes of today in all respects such as the stride style, brain volume, skull morphology and skeleton structure.

Australopithecines: An Ordinary Quadropedal Ape Species

Animals named as "Australopithecines" are introduced by the evolutionists as living beings that are able to stand on their two feet but possess underdeveloped brains and skeletons. Although some of these scientists admitted that Australopithecus are similar to apes in many primitive aspects, they advanced a very important argument relating it to a human: They allegedly claimed that Australopithecus walked like today's human beings.

On the contrary, the latest scientific researches indicated that Australopithecus, which is a species found in 1920's, were definitely not bipedal. The assertions putting forward that these were bipedal can only rest upon wrong and biased interpretations of their anatomy.

Charles Oxnard, an anatomy professor from Chicago University, is one of the most appealed evolutionist sciencemen who is shown as reference on the subject of Australopithecus. Relying on his researches about Australopithecus fossils, Oxnard declared as follows that these fossils did not belong to a transitional being between apes and men, therefore it was not true that these had kinship with human beings;

Australopithecine

Oxnard also stated that this species could only walk on all fours:

But because the muscular features of the pelvis are positioned in a way more like those of the great apes, we must estimate that their muscular arrangements were therefore rather similar to those associated with climbing and perhaps quadrupedalism… which parallels most closely he orang-utan, and contrasts markedly with man who has big articular surfaces in the leg compared with the arm. They may have been bipedal in a way that is no longer seen, but have retained abilities for climbing, and perhaps minor arboreal acrobatics such as might be found in an intermediately sized ape-like creature. Dean Falk, a brain specialist who has conducted researches more recently on four different types of Australopithecus fossils said that these were nothing but apes. Since 1985, many ape-like characteristics of Australopithecuses, much more than previously supposed, have been found. Opinions regarding Taung and other Australopithecuses have reversed. Studies of young researchers like Bill Jungers , Holly Smith, Tim Bromage, Mike Vannier, and Glenn Conroy are now being questioned. The supporters of the judgment "Australopithecus is man-like" are not the majority now… The morphology of Australopithecuses is exteremely similar to the apes'.

The bipedalism feature attributed to Australopithecus was rooted in the erroneous and biased interpretation of their anatomies and lost its credibility by the evidences found in the course of time. Instead, it is said that Australopithecus generally walked on their two feet, but they were also adapted to climbing and using four feet. Yet, it is impossible to walk in this style. In order for a living being to use its energy optimally, it must either walk on its four feet or two feet in an upright posture. It is not possible for a living being in between to carry on its existence and generation. This is why the bipedal model ascribed to the Australopithecus can be said to be totally imaginary.

In his study titled The Antiquity of Human Walking, John R. Napier compares the walking styles of Australopithecus and human beings as follows:

Australopithecus

Robin Crompton who is a computer specialist has demonstrated that this kind of a "compound" walking style is not possible in the studies he made in 1996. Crompton reached to the following conclusion: A living being can either walk fully upright or fully on its four feet. A living style in the midst is not possible because of high energy consumption. Therefore, Australopithecus can not be a half-bipedal animal as opposed to the claims of the evolutionists. Australopithecus is an ordinary ape that can only stand on all fours.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE STRIDES OF MEN AND APES
The developments between the years 1994-1997, blew a big stroke on the assertions claiming Australopithecus to be the ancestor of man. First of these was the studies made by Fred Spoor from Liverpool University. Spoor proved that none of the hominids except Homo erectus could walk upright on two feet. Second came the studies of an engineer named Robin Crompton. Crompton found that deformed stride increased energy consuption two times in the adults. That is to say that a living being should either be bipedal or quadropedal to be able to use his energy optimally. Thus it was revealed that Australopithecus were merely quadropedal apes. As seen in the two figures below, bipedalism and quadropedalism are two very different acts and a stride in between is impossible.

The male gorilla cranium is very similar to Australopithecus robustus.
The projection over the skull is for the gripping of mandibular muscles. Thus chewing act becomes stronger. This feature is seen in all coarse structured Australopithecus.

Australopithecus boisei seen above, is also named as OH 5 fossil "Nutcracker man". This is due to his extraordinarily huge molar teeth (on the right). The absence of fangs caused the jaw structure of the animal to be resembled to humans. In fact, the absence of fangs shows that this animal mainly feeds on plants.

The researches made on Australopithecus by using the recent and most advanced technology, demonstrated that these creatures could not walk on their two feet and verified all the findings above. In 1994, Fred Spoor who is an anatomist in Liverpool University Human Anatomy and Cell Biology Department in England and his team of researchers making bipedalism studies on fossils, have investigated by using the most recent techniques if Australopithecus were bipedal or not. With the new technique they used in their researches, the team examined the involuntary-balancing mechanism in the ear cochlea of the fossils. Their findings can be summarized as follows;

Australopithecus

Paranthropus

In the rest of their report, they go on to state that Australopithecus and hominid fossils of early Homo ages do not show a morphological structure in consort with the structure of the modern man.

As revealed by all these researches, being just an ordinary ape species that lived in the past, all that Australopithecus could do was to stand on their two feet for very short intervals just like today's gorillas and bulky apes. Actually, the evolutionists who were aiming at finding an ape fossil that could walk on its two feet, advanced unreal assertions by making use of lack of information caused due to technological scarcity.

Consequently, these improvements resulted in disagreements between palaeontologists regarding the direct kinship between Australopithecus and human beings. The reason is that, anybody who examines the given data objectively may easily realise that the body structure of Australopithecus is just the same as tailless huge apes still living today. Finding humanlike qualities in these animals can only be possible by a biased point of view and broad imagination.

Similarities of Australopithecus and Orangutans

While including Australopithecus within the status of human beings' common ancestors; the evolutionists show several characteristics of their jaws and teeth as evidence to their claim. Australopithecus are introduced as a hominid with their relevantly smaller front teeth, worn out molar teeth, strong chewing muscles and a face with lesser depth. However, the structure of the teeth, jaw and face do not indicate that the animals called Australopithecus are common ancestors of human beings, but only reflect their environment and feeding habits.

The teeth, mandible and face shape of Australopithecus fossils look like Gelada Baboons (Theropithecus) that feed on small items, rather than human beings. This characteristic of the Gelada Baboon that lives in upper parts of Ethiopia is observed in Ramapithecus which is proven to be an orangutan, as well as in Australopithecus. Evolutionist David Pilbeam describes this similarity which has misled many evolutionist researchers as below:

Theropithecus

Theropithecus complex

Ramapithecus

Australopithecus

As seen, the structure of the teeth, jaw and face of Australopithecus can only show that this animal feeds on small and hard items.

This situation elucidates the same fact: All members of the species denoted as Australopithecus by the evolutionists are actually extinct ape species. The variations and diversity within the ape species is so immense that it is very easy for a person who is taken by a dream of finding the ancestors of human beings to easily gather the human-like features of these and then call them as "pre-human" creatures.

As a result, it can be said that all members of Australopithecus share similarities with the ape species living today. The idea that these may be the ancestors of human beings is totally a biased, partial and further, a rootless assertion.

Australopithecus Afarensis or "Lucy"

Until 1974, the most primitive hominid fossils that the evolutionists had were Australopithecus africanus, Australopithecus boisei and Australopithecus robustus. Yet, the fact that these fossils were too young to be the common ancestor of man and ape, was causing a gap in the theory of evolution. An older fossil had to be found as soon as possible. Finding out this imaginary common ancestor called as the "lost link", was almost a matter of honour for the evolutionists. Beginning from 1950's and up to 1970's, the absence of such a transitional form caused distress.

While making excavations in Ethiopian Hadar Desert in 1974 to find the ancestors of man, the American paleoanthropologist Donald C. Johnson and French geologist Maurice Taieb found a skeleton estimated to be 3 million years old and preserved at a rate of 25%. A year later they found the skeleton fossils of 13 similar animals and included them within the Australopithecus species. As they thought that the first fossil had more apelike qualities than the others, they invented a new species named "Australopithecus afarensis" and included it in this species. The fossil was named after as "Lucy".

However, Lucy which was alleged to be the common ancestor of man was 1.20 meters tall and had a skull volume of 410 cc. which rendered its brain to be much smaller than even the ape standards of our day. Despite all these facts, this long armed and short legged ape which weighed 45 kg. in males and 29 kg. in females was still claimed to be the ancestor of man.

Although the evolutionists knew that Lucy was merely an extinct ape species, they totally ignored its apelike qualities in order to maintain its status as the ancestor of man. This approach is still very common. In National Geographic's March 1996 issue, the result of the recent researches about Australopithecus afarensis are described as below:

"On the other hand, Randall Susman, Jack Stern and William Jungers of the State University of New York at Stony Brook see a curvature in Lucy's finger and toe bones resembling that found in tree-dwelling apes. Her longer arms certainly would have helped her climb between branches. The Stony Brook specialists also see evidence in Lucy's ankle and pelvis that suggests she would have walked with slightly bent legs. They reckon she spent considerable time in trees and may well have slept among the branches." The most important reason why Lucy was alleged to be the ancestor of man lied in the belief that the animal walked upright. The fossil's anatomical structure was thought to reveal its bipedalism. Lucy's anatomy and its interpretations gave way to various discussions and the evolutionists were not able to reach to a consensus on the subject. The founder of the fossil, Donald C. Johnson, had stated in an article he wrote in 1994, that even the evolutionists could not reach to a common consent on Lucy's locomotion until then, and that all the assumptions on the subject could go no further than a hypothesis and speculation;

"The combination of a relatively short, but robust, humarus and a long forearm is unlikely to resolve the debate about locomotion in Australopithecus afarensis - which has been concerned as much with incompatible evolutionary models for the interpretation of functional morphology as with divergent interpretations of the fossils themselves." Being admitted in the 1970's, the idea that Lucy walked completely upright started to be questioned even among the evolutionists along with the new researches completed. As more data was compiled and new researchers treating the subject objectively brought new findings into daylight, these doubts started to be outspoken more frequently.

Apes and some other animals have a limited ability to stand upright. Lucy's anatomic structure shows that it can stand on its two feet only as much as an ape.

Apes and some other animals have a limited ability to stand upright. Lucy's anatomic structure shows that it can stand on its two feet only as much as an ape.

Each supplementary research disclosed Lucy's ape-like characteristics further. Some researchers compared the apes still living in our day with the fossils of Australopithecus afarensis species. One of these scientists was Adrienne L. Zhilman from the University of Santa Cruz. According to Zhilman, Australopithecus afarensis could be a variation of Pygmy Chimpanzees. Zhilman had made a comparison between Pygmy chimpanzees and Lucy, and declared how startling the similarities between the two were. Their body dimensions, body structures and cranial capacities were almost the same. Again according to Zhilman, the way that Pygmy Chimpanzees used their arms and feet was very much similar to Lucy.

Apes and some other animals have a limited ability to stand upright. Lucy's anatomic structure shows that it can stand on its two feet only as much as an ape.

Each supplementary research disclosed Lucy's ape-like characteristics further. Some researchers compared the apes still living in our day with the fossils of Australopithecus afarensis species. One of these scientists was Adrienne L. Zhilman from the University of Santa Cruz. According to Zhilman, Australopithecus afarensis could be a variation of Pygmy Chimpanzees. Zhilman had made a comparison between Pygmy chimpanzees and Lucy, and declared how startling the similarities between the two were. Their body dimensions, body structures and cranial capacities were almost the same. Again according to Zhilman, the way that Pygmy Chimpanzees used their arms and feet was very much similar to Lucy.

Briefly, Lucy's skeleton and anatomy ascertained the fact that this creature could not walk upright as asserted. In addition to this fact, its cranial capacity which is even too small for an ape, its small body, long arms and legs, curved hand and foot bones prove that this living being carried no humanlike qualities.

Another evidence of the fact that Australopithecus afarensis is an ape, is its teeth array. In the evolutionist literature, it is stated that the teeth array structure of Australopithecus afarensis was between men and apes. Whereas, the teeth and mandibular structure of Australopithecus afarensis look very similar to that of Ramapithecus which today has been included in the orangutan class.

This is the reason why many evolutionists, who take the ape-like features of Lucy into account, place it in the evolutinary chain of apes instead of the evolutinonary chain of men and define them as the ancestors of apes. In an article titled "Man's Roots in Question" published in New Scientist magazine in 1997, it is stated:

This situation implies that although the evolutionists do not openly declare, it is clearly acknowledged that Australopithecus afarensis, which was sought to be brought to the status of the ancestor of man with big hopes, is merely an extinct ape species. Instead of throwing this species on which they spent so much effort aside, some evolutionists still try to use it in another evolution legend, namely in the evolution scheme drawn for the ape species.

A supposed A. afarensis colony is pictured during a stride. This drawing published in one of the leading evolutionist publications, National Geographic, is one of the numerous pictures drawn to place the notion of evolution in the subconscious of masses.

***Australopithecus* *Ramidus***

One of the fossils that the evolutionists have lastly included in the Australopithecus series, is Australopithecus ramidus or Ardipithecus ramidus. This is a very recent classification. It was found in Ethiopia by a team of researchers from California University headed by Tim D. White and J. Desmond Clark and announced to the public in September 1994. Nearly all hand finger bones and 7 wrist bones were found belonging to this living being which was supposed to be 4,4 million years old. His hands are long and curved.

It is assumed that A. ramidus was 120 cm. tall. His teeth look similar to apes. His baby teeth are even more similar to apes than the other Australopithecus. Other fossils which were found along with Ramidus show that this creature lived in forests on top of trees. Evolutionists generally think that it is even more primitive than Lucy.

Evolutionists who have learned much from their previous mistakes have not yet concluded their remarks by stating that this creature was the ancestor of man as they are afraid of facing another great loss. Generally, in articles relating Australopithecus ramidus; it is written that it has not yet been certified whether this creature is the ancestor of men or apes. Besides, it is stated that this fossil is the most primitive among the species asserted to be the ancestor of man. In reality, Australopithecus ramidus is nothing but an ape.

Footprints in Laetoli Do Not Belong to Lucy but A Real Man

The footprints found in 1978 by Mary Leakey in Ethiopia's Laetoli region over volcanic ash layers, made up an important part of the evolutionary propaganda. These footprints were displayed as the most solid proof of Lucy's bipedalism. It was announced that the footprints were 3.6 million years old like Lucy and that they were an evidence of its upright stride.

As a matter of fact, the diagnosis was true for the most part: Footprints were indeed as old as Lucy and it was clear that they had been left by a living being walking upright. Yet, there was no evidence that these footprints belonged to an Australopithecus afarensis like Lucy.

However, according to Johnson; the writer of the book named Lucy, these footprints should have been left by Australopithecus afarensis in any case. Do you wonder why?… Because otherwise it would be a catastrophe for the evolutionists to accept that modern man lived in such an early date.

Finally, these footprints which could well be left by actual men, were attributed to Australopithecus afarensis as a result of the biased and prejudiced interpretations of the evolutionists. Instrinsically, it was very clear that these footprints belonged to actual human beings. Paleoanthropologist Timothy White who worked with Mary Leakey remarked:

Australopithecus

After examining the footprints, Louis Robins from North California University made the following comments:

The arch is raised -the smaller individual had a higher arch than I do- and the big toe is large and aligned with the second toe… the toes grip the ground like human toes. You do not see this in other animal forms Briefly, it was impossible for these supposed 3,6 year old footprints to be of Lucy's. There was actually not a relation between these 3.6 million year old footprints and Lucy. The reason is that having curved hands and feet, and using its front feet while walking, Lucy could possibly not have left these prints. The only reason why it was thought that these footprints belonged to A. afarensis lied in the fact that this fossil was found in a volcanic layer which was supposed to be 3.6 million years old. As it was thought that humans could have not lived in such an early date, the prints were attributed to A. afarensis.

Impartial examinations on the footprints revealed their real owners: in reality, these footprints consisted of 20 fossilized footprints of a 10 year old modern human, and 27 footprints of a younger one. And they were, certainly modern people like us.

Kanapoi Elbow Bone Fossil

One of the most flagrant cases of wand and waving to deflect evidence that could be most embarrasing to the idea of human evolution involves a fossil found at Kanapoi, southwest of Lake Rudolf (Turkana) in northern Kenya. This fossil, known as KP 271, is the lower end of a left upper arm bone (distal end of the humerus). It was found in 1965 by Bryan Patterson (Harvard University), and is in an excellent state of preservation. The most recent dating of the fossil gives it an age of 4.5 million years (m.y.a)." This is the reason why this fossil is considered as the oldest hominid fossil ever found. It is even older than Lucy and other Australopithecus.

Well, who does this fossil belong to?

Meeting in 1967 to define KP 271, researchers like B.Patterson and W.W.Howells have argued that though these fossils looked similar to human beings, they actually belonged to Australopithecus.

Howells, who used the most widespread method of comparison in his paleontological researches, compared KP 271 with an ape humerus, the humerus belonging to Australopithecus robustus which was the only similar fossil known until then and a human humerus. Howells and his assistant Patterson published the report of their study in Science magazine, on 7 April, 1967.

In these diagnostic measurements, Kanapoi Hominid 1 (the original name given to the fossil) is strikingly close to the means of the human sample. The evolutionist scientists who found that the Kanapoi specimens looked dramatically like human specimens came up with an unexpected result. Yet, this situation did not alter their initial preconceptions. Although Howells and Patterson accepted the similarity of the bones to modern man’s bones, they still went on to assert that this fossil belonged to an Australopithecus as the fact that such a dated fossil belonged to a modern man was unacceptable for them.

Further computer analysis of many more measurements revealed even more dramatically the similarity of KP 271 to modern humans. Henry McHenry (University of California, Davis) reported the results of his computer based researches he conducted in 1975 in one of his articles as follows; ‘The results show that the Kanapoi specimen, which is 4 to 4.5 million years old, is indistinguishable from modern Homo sapiens…"

In the following years, other researchers (such as David Pilbeam and Brigette Senuts) proved with many experiments and comparative studies that the KP 271 fossil was identical with the Homo sapiens bones. However, despite all these researches and manifest evidences, even the owners of these researches did not personally admit that this fossil could belong to Homo sapiens. All of the evolutionist researches made since 1965 concluded that this fossil looked very much similar to Homo sapiens bones, but still belonged to Australopithecus africanus species.

Why, then is it still thought that this fossil belongs to A. africanus and not Homo sapiens? The head of the first research done on the fossil, Howells, writing in 1981, fourteen years after the fossil was first ascribed to africanus, gives us the reason:

Homo sapiens

Australopithecus

Homo

although it would be the correct one without the time element.

As it is clearly observed, this elbow bone named KP 271 belonged to an actual human being, but was ascribed to Australopithecus africanus who allegedly lived in that time slice just for the sake of placing it within the imaginary scheme of the evolution of man. The conviction that such an early dated human remain could not exist influenced the interpretation of this fossil to a great extent. This situation actually reflects the general rule of the evolutionary theory: According to this ideology, the expectations set up previously always outrun the actual facts.

The Miracle that the Theory of Evolution Can Not Explain: Bipedalism

Man’s stride is a very special act unprecedented in none of the other living beings. The human beings who perform this act so easily are usually unaware of how complex this act actually is. A more detailed examination of this act will make it more clear that the incident rests upon extremely sensitive balances.

When the first step is taken, only the coming of the second step can stop man from falling down. When the person wants to take a step; the pelvis bone, the legs and other parts of the body engage in a series of muscle movements. Gravity forms the energy to withstand the acceleration of the body. When a foot is swing forward, the centre of gravity of the body is given forward. Meanwhile, the other foot touches the ground to provide balance. Pelvis bone plays a very important role in this movement as the rotation angle of the pelvis bone determines how far ahead the foot can go. Also, the muscles on the bone help to maintain the balance of the body when the foot is swung forward.

All the while, the foot behind the body's centre of gravity provides the source of energy which moves the body forward. Ground is first pushed by the heel, then by the toe and energy is produced by the walking person through the usage of the muscles. This is the "pushing" stage of walking. The foot at the back passes over to the starting point of the walking act, that is, the "swinging" stage, as soon as its interaction with the ground is over. As the foot is swung forward, it does not hit the ground because the knee, wrist and pelvis are slightly bent. The acceleration is relatively slowed down due to the slightly high pose of the foot while it is swung forward. Before the foot swung ahead steps on the ground, the knees flatten but the wrist remains to be bent. Hence, the heel touches on the ground first. With the stepping of the heel on the ground, the circle is completed and the other foot enters the swinging stage once more.

Ebenhart and his friends who made studies during World War II to develop artificial legs and widened the scope of their researches later on, found out that the body was moving its center of gravity in space with minimum energy by means of a series of several deterministic factors. In man’s stride, many factors like gravity, acceleration of the body and balance interact with each other in harmony and provide that minimum energy is spent during the action.

Human stride is realized in such a scrupulous balance and precise adjustment that no robot can be made that can perform this movement despite the time consuming trials on the subject. The robots which are manufactured adopting man's stride model lose their balance and fall down as soon as they lift up their foot to take a step due to the hopeless failure in the adjustment of the center of gravity. In an experiment designed to overcome this negative effect, a relatively big pendulum was placed at the back of the robot, and it was adjusted as to sway to the opposite direction of the foot that is lifted up to take a step. The limping walking style attained through this method could only be carried on at a constant speed. The movement ability of man who can change his speed as he likes, can not be imitated at all despite all efforts.

The most interesting point is that, human beings never have to plan or think how they are going to walk while doing it. Actually, man accomplishes a difficult movement such as that, unconsciously, as if it had to happen anyway. Being quite prone to fail if left to the control of the person, the act of walking is quite a serious action not to be left to human's responsibility just like respiration, the functioning of the stomach and liver, and beating of the heart.

This situation raises a very important question; How did the human being learn to walk in this way? How did he happen to acquire such an ability during the "evolutionary process"?

It goes without saying that the evolutionists have no answer available to this question.

Is Bipedalism An Evolutionary Advantage?

The evolutionary theories put forward regarding the root causes of bipedalism, rest upon speculations and estimations rather than serious studies. The reason is that the evolutionists face a very big problem: When examined in terms of mechanics, it is seen that quadropedalism is more "superior" than bipedalim. A living being able to move on all fours can run faster and has more chance to survive. Bipedal stride is both harder and slower. Therefore, a thesis claiming that bipedalism evolved out of quadropedalism cannot be explained by natural selection which is based on the argument of survival of the fittest.

If we think in terms of evolutionary criteria, we have to contend that bipedal stride of man is more "advanced" and "successful" than the quadropedal ape. Yet, it can not be said that contemporary apes are unsuccessful in terms of evolution, because they possess the characteristics most befitting to their environment and they have the ability to move in the most appropriate way for themselves. Niles Eldredge states with a question that the idea of "improvement of creatures through evolution" is logically untrue. Do plant and animal species really improve and develop into a more complex structure? If this is the case, then should we consider the simple and unchanged life forms, such as sponge, as evolutionary failures?… The evolutionary slogan "the evolutional is inevitable" should be replaced with "why apes are succesful".

Theory of evolution is absolutely paradoxical about this subject: According to the theory, transition from ape to man (hence from ape's stride to man's stride) should be considered to be an "improvement". However, ape's stride is easier, faster and more efficient compared to man's stride… Human beings can neither proceed by jumping from tree to tree without stepping on the ground at all like chimpanzees, nor run 125 km/hr like a cheetah. On the contrary, man relatively moves in a much more slower fashion on the ground due to its bipedal stride. Again for the same reason, he is one of the most defenseless creatures in nature in terms of movement and protection.

If we admit the evolutionary argument, we must assent to the idea that man’s first ancestor split off from the apes and started to walk on its two feet in an upright posture. Yet, since bipedalism is a disadvantage rather than an advantage, natural selection would eliminate this "ancestor of man". This is one of the biggest contradictions within evolution itself. As a result of this inconsistency, the French L’Express magazine published several articles stating that apes were superior to men in terms of evolution, so they could have evolved from them.

"Explanations" of the Evolutionists on Bipedalism

Evolutionists are far from bringing a logical explanation to the emergence of bipedalism. Their interpretations on the subject do not depend on any concrete facts, but rather speculations produced out of their imagination. Sometimes, it can even be observed that these speculations are also covered up with an ideological and emotional disguise. Ilhan Selçuk declared that the first ape that is supposed to stand on its two feet was a "leftist", and set a very good example for the emotional nature of the evolutionists.

"Donald C. Johnson named the first human passing from horizontal position to the vertical as Australopithecus afarensis; later on, this man who stood on his feet for the first time was called as "Lucy". Which innate instinct and external effect caused man to stand on his feet while he was walking like an animal?... Why had he diverged from the majority while walking on all fours? Wasn't this man who stood up for the first time making a revolution? Maybe, this man standing up was the first "leftist".... Other theories seemingly more scientific, actually consist of groundless speculations and interpretations on the root causes of bipedalism. Evolutionary arguments of both Darwin's era and modern times rest upon baseless speculations.

Since the science of genetics and hereditary laws were not very well known in the 19th century, explaining bipedalism seemed easy for Darwin and his followers. The most popular theory was that the apes living in the savannas of Africa stretched their necks in order to look over the high bushes and thus bipedalism originated. It did not take too long to understand that this Lamarckist theory was entirely incorrect.

Contemporary evolutionists assert only a single thesis regarding the origins of bipedalism. However, when examined closer, it is possible to see that this theory presented by evolutionists by the reasoning of "best of the worst", is far from bringing an explanation to the origins of bipedalism just like the previous ones. According to the "theory of transition from woods to the open field", the common ancestors of men and apes used to live together in the woods in the past. With the reduction of woodlands and for some other reason, some of them passed over to the open fields which gave way to bipedalism as a result of adaptation. Thus, the roads of the apes in the trees and bipedal men living in the fields separated, and both started to carry on with their evolution in their own direction.

The famous Science magazine explains bipedalism exactly as follows:

Bipedality, the definitive characteristic of the earliest hominids, has been regarded as an adaptive response to a transition from forested to more-open habitats in East Africa sometime between 12 million and 5 million years ago. Although this "theory of transition from woods to the open field" receives a lot of support, it is extremely baseless. Primarily, this kind of an adaptation is impossible on molecular level. Even if it is assumed to have occured, there is no evidence of it in the fossil records. Furthermore, according to this theory, woodlands in East Africa should have started to diminish gradually. Yet the studies have proved just the opposite and disclosed that East Africa did not undergo such a change. Studies conducted by J.D.Kingston in Kenya in 1995 reveal concrete evidence to prove this theory wrong. Kingston writes:

¹³

Briefly, transition from the woodlands to savanna environment in East Africa never realized. The plantation in this region remains the same for millions of years.

Even if assessed logically, the theory on the roots of bipedalism is unacceptable. It is asserted that the shrinking of woods urged the apes to travel to the open fields and transfer to bipedal stride. How rational is this idea? In our day, do the shrinking woods lead some apes to descend from the trees and adapt to the ground environment? Is it possible that these apes started using tools after descending from the trees and becoming bipedal? Are these quadropedal apes going to be bipedal by means of a "magical stick"?

There is no doubt that the answer to these questions will be negative. In case of the declining of trees, the most natural behaviour of the apes would be migrating to another region. Or else, these apes would die out as a result of the destruction of their homelands. There is no basis for the theory claiming that the apes have come down from the trees somehow and adapted to the conditions on the ground.

The evolutionists assert that Australopithecus are living beings able to walk on their two feet, but unable to adapt completely to such a way of movement. The computer based studies made by Robin Crompton (seen above) reveal that a living being should walk either on its two feet or four feet. A movement in between these two is impossible as it is very unavailing. Therefore, the assertion that Australopithecus walked on their two feet in an imperfect fashion is untrue. Australopithecus had the stride style exactly of the apes of our day.

A recent evolutionist, Ulug Nutku confesses the insufficiency of the theory of the shrinking of woods as follows:

The shrinking of the woods can be considered as the initiatory factor for the the process of turning to be a human. This is a paleoanthological data. Although Napier's thesis is appropriate, it leaves out the question of why did the ape stay in the forest while an animal species went out of the forest and started to become a human? As the degree of speculation is decreased, it is becoming more difficult to reply this question, at least for the present. Hermann Klaatsch had given a very interesting answer at the beginning of the century when anthropology was still too young. According to Klaatsch, hominid apes attemped to be a human but theirs was an "unfortunate effort". They could not go up in the evolution ladder and drew back to the "protective darkness of the forests". But this time the question remains "why the apes could not succeed?" There are many questions besides the question of "why the apes could not succeed?", and all of these still remain unanswered.

Another Monkey Type: Homo Habilis

Until 1960’s, there was an uncoverable and wide gap between Australopithecus and Homo erectus. These were very different from each other; Australopithecus were creatures with long arms, short legs, a small brain and organs suitable for climbing. Found towards the end of the 19th. century, Homo erectus was indistinguishable from today’s man in terms of its skeleton structure and his tallness, his teeth, mandibular and cranial structure were as modern as to make him one of the contemporary races. It had become necessary to fill this gap between these two different structures.

Homo habilis was invented as a result of this need.

In 1959, Mary Leakey found a skull fragmented into 100 pieces while making a research in Olduvai Vally, East Africa. The capacity of this cranium was not more than 500cc and had a primitive and protruding structure just like Australopithecus and contemporary monkeys. After Leakey completed her examination, she concluded that this skull belonged to a hominid which was killed by a hard object hit on the head. Setting out from this preconception, Mary Leakey judged that this creature had the skills to use stone tools, and even it was "civilised" enough to kill another member of his species with these tools. Due to that reason, the real owners of these fossils were called "killer apes".

However, after a while Mary Leakey changed her mind and said that the capacity of this primitive creature’s cranium was not big enough to manufacture tools. According to Leakey, only more intelligent beings could manufacture the stone tools found around the fossils. The owners of these stone tools could absolutely not be these primitive creatures.

In 1964, Louis Leakey and his team found four more new fossil samples in the researches they made around the same region. Those fossils they found were again cranial and mandibular fragments tragically scattered around. Judging that their molar tooth resembled that of the human beings, Leakey measured the capacity of the cranium although it was shattered and found his cranial capacity to be 640 cc. He again argued that this skull volume was sufficient to assume that this creature was a hominid. Louis Leakey believed that he finally had found the traces of the living creatures who manufactured the stone tools.

According to Mary Leakey, both the 500cc skull she found priorly and the 640 cc skull belonged to the hominids, ancestors of modern men. However, the more advanced hominid in the evolution ladder had hunted the other and moreover, fed on it. The stone pieces they had found, must have had been the weapons which the more developed hominids used while hunting the others. Mary Leakey named this species which she thought to be more developed "Homo habilis", meaning 'tool using man'. The others who are assumed to be killed and eaten by this species were included among Australopithecus who was placed at one stage lower in the evolution ladder.

After the finding of this fossil, the researches of Leakey family gained a new velocity. Louis Leakey's 23 year old son Richard Leakey started to make a research in Kenya's Rudolph Lake region funded by the National Geographic Magazine. During these researches, many fossils were found which would be placed in the Australopithecus class later on.. In 1972, a fossil was unearthed in East Rudolph which triggered diverse debates in the history of paleoanthropology. This was a complete cranium with the lone lack of a mandible. The skull was composed of almost 300 pieces. These pieces were put together by Richard Leakey and his wife Meave Leakey and then officially registered in the Kenya National Museum as KNM-ER 1470 (Kenya National Museum-East Rudolph 1470). This fossil was also included in the category of Homo habilis.

Misinterpretation of Homo Habilis

Homo habilis has been the subject of many serious discussions. The reason is the scarcity and the imperfection of the fossils classified as Homo habilis. The skeleton and the skull of Homo habilis are very rarely unearthed side by side. This has led to many speculations regarding which species it belonged to.

Homo habilis species has many common characteristics with the apes named Australopithecus. It has an simian skeleton structure with long arms and short legs just like Australopithecus. Its fingers and toes are fit for climbing. These qualities show that Homo habilis spent most of its time among trees.

The cranial capacities of most of the fossils designated as Homo habilis do not exceed 650 cc. This volume is quite close to that of today’s gorillas. Besides, his jaw structure which is very similar to that of the contemporary apes proves that it is certainly an ape.

As we have stated, Homo habilis bears immense similarities to Australopithecus. When assessed with his general cranial characteristics, it looks more like Australopithecus Africanus. Just like Australopithecus africanus, Homo habilis neither has eyebrow projections and this feature caused it to be misinterpreted in the past and presented as a being similar to humans.

Especially, the fossil number KNM-ER 1470 has been subject to many interpretations by his lacking of this enormous eyebrow ridges and his large cranial capacity higher than the average Homo habilis. Thus, many researchers did not hesitate to designate KNM-ER 1470 as Homo sapiens.

On the contrary, it is not true that; KNM-ER 1470's wide and long structured forehead, hardly visible eyebrow ridges, its deprivation of the protruding over the skull which is called 'saggital crest' in gorillas, and 750 cc cranial capacity, make it look like a human being. J.E. Cronin explains why this craium can not be similar to that of a human being. Homo habilis is just one of the archaic apes classified as Australopithecus by the evolutionists:

naso-alveolar clivus

Australopithecine

A. africanus

australopithecines

On the same subject, C. Loring Brace from the University of Michigan states that the size of the jaw and the molar teeth indicates that ER1470 had exactly the same face and tooth structure as Australopithecus.

Another well-known paleontologist Bernard Wood comments that there are no phenetic or cladistic evidences indicating this skull is similar to H.Erectus or H. Sapiens. In phenetic aspect, KNM-ER 1470 is comparible with the other Homo habilis fossils found in Olduvai.

The reason why KNM-ER 1470 was interpreted to be a human fossil for a while is due to the subjective and misleading interpretation of Richard Leakey who is the founder of the fossil. Leakey tried to imply that the fossil had some simian characteristics, but its cranium was too big for an ape. The main reason was to earmark this creature as a transitional link.

Yet, the 750 cc skull of KNM-ER in no way dismisses it from being an ape species and renders it a hominid as there exist many apes having the same skull volume. When the ape skulls are at issue, the evolutionists usually refer to the chimpanzees who generally have lesser brain volumes and disregard the gorillas for the most part. The cranial capacity of chimpanzees surge between 300-500cc, at an average of 400 cc. Gorillas’ average cranial capacity is 500 cc, but the bigger ones may have a cranial capacity of 700 cc and even 750 cc.

As a result, the large cranial capacity of KNM-ER 1470 indicates that it can not be a hominid but a coarse ape. Estimated to be a male, 1470's big teeth and large cranial capacity shows that also his body is coarse in consort with these factors.

The fact that 1470 had no eyebrow ridges does not prove tahat 1470 is a transitional link. In many primate species living today, there are no eyebrow ridges. For instance, contemporary orangutans have flat and non-protruding skulls. This structure is a common feature the orangutans share with KNM-ER 1470s and other Homo habilis. That is the reason why the assertion claiming that "the absence of eyebrow protrusions in the fossils is a hominid characteristic" is not true.

The datas reveal that KNM-ER 1470 is structurally an ape similar to Australopithecus. The protruding structure of the face, extraordinarily big molar teeth and the cranial capacity too small to belong to a human being disclose this fact evidently. Besides, 1470’s teeth are exactly the same as Australopithecus.

One wonders whether other Homo habilis fossils had more human-like features or not?

No! The Homo habilis fossils unearthed lately yield very important data regarding the skeleton structure and stride style of this species. The most important of these fossils which has helped settle many controversial issues on Homo habilis was OH 62 which was unearthed in 1986 in Olduvai Valley by Tim White. The approximate age of OH 62 is assumed to be 1.8 million years. It is composed of a damaged skull, an arm, and some feet bones as well as teeth. Almost all of the characteristics of this skull were in consort with the other Homo habilis fossils such as OH 24, ER 1813 and ER 1470. However, the height of this animal was shorter even according to ape standards, being only 105 cm.. Its skeleton indicated that this creature had long arms and short legs. These characteristics also exist in the apes living today who use them for climbing. Another interesting point is that its skeleton structure looks very much similar to A.aferensis, which was comprehended to be nothing but an ape.

Other skull fossils unearthed have also proven that the other fossils included in Homo habilis species were absolutely not ‘hominid’. Especially KNM-ER 1813 found at Koobi Fora in 1973 by Kamoya Kimeu sets a good example. ER 1813 of 510cc which had striking similarities with ER 1470 skull was categorized under Australopithecus until the beginning of 1980’s. The situation changed when the similarity of this skull with ER 1470 caused speculative arguments. Today, KNM-ER 1813 is known to be an Homo habilis just like KNM-ER 1470. Yet, some sources still insist that this is an Australopithecus.

All of these indicate that actually there is not a considerable difference between the fossils of Australopithecus class and the fossils of Homo habilis class. All of these consist of different ape species that cannot walk on two feet and have very small cranial capacities compared to man. What the evolutionists do is to try to generate a starting point, a first link for the legend of "evolution from apes to human" by making use of some characteristics of these fossils.

Thus far, we have seen that Homo habilis was nothing else but an ape species. Until recently, the evolutionists asserted Homo habilis to be a being with an apelike skull, yet a human-like body and posture. According to them, Homo habilis was a bipedal able to walk upright. Evolutionists should well have had reasons for such an argument.

Until 1986, body and skeleton bones of Homo habilis were not unearthed side by side. Yet, some of the fossils unearthed in the same layer with Homo habilis were assumed to belong to this species. Some KNM-ER 1481 and ER 1472 thigh bones which were indistinguishable from Homo sapiens were unearthed within the same layer but kilometers away from Homo habilis. These fossils were as well thought to belong to Homo habilis species.

When OH 62 fossil was found in 1986, prevailing opinion regarding Homo habilis had changed. OH 62 had a typical Homo habilis sort of skull and a body very smilar to that of Australopithecus. His long arms and short legs showed it had a very convenient body for climbing. It was now understood what kind of a being Homo habilis was: Homo habilis was fully an apelike being. Thus, it was realized that Homo habilis was an actual ape just like other Australopithecus.

Then, how could the thigh bones belonging to real humans unearthed within the same layer and dated equally with Homo habilis fossils be interpreted? If these thigh bones did not belong to Homo habilis, then to whom did they belong?

Before long, these thigh bones were included in Homo erectus species. The modern structure of these bones actually compelled them to be categorised under Homo sapiens species; but these were designated as Homo erectus just because of their supposedly old ages.

Right after these two species, come well-known human fossils, tall and walking totally upright. The sole difference between the species termed as Homo erectus, Homo sapiens neanderthalis, or Homo sapiens archaic is nothing but various racial characteristics.

Real Human Fossils

We observed that Australopithecus and Homo Habilis were no different than real apes. However the postulated evidences about the legend of human evolution are not limited with these. These two ape species constitute the preliminary two stages of the so-called evolution process.

After Homo habilis, Homo erectus comes next in the imaginary scheme of the evolution of man. Homo erectus is followed by respectively, Homo sapiens archaic, Neanderthal man and Cro-Magnon. These fossils presented as intermediate forms succeeding Homo habilis by the evolutionists are nothing else but real humans as we’ll study in the following pages. There are only some racial differences between them.

In other words, evolution scheme is nothing more than an array made by the successive arrangement of different ape species followed by the successive arrangement of different human races. Apes end with Homo habilis. Human races begin with Homo erectus.

After Homo habilis, the cranial capacities of the human fossils in the imaginary human evolution scheme vary between 900-1600cc. Evolutionists seek to generate a "process of skull enlarging" by making use of this data. However these different capacities are within the range of the cranial capacities of today's man. Intrinsically, the cranial capacities of Neanderthal man and Cro-Magnon are above contemporary man's average.

After this introductory information, we can now start to study the real human fossils which are presented as intermediate forms and labeled as "primitive" by the evolutionists. In the following pages we’ll examine these fossils respectively from the youngest to the oldest.

Cro-Magnon Race

The fossils of Cro-Magnon man were found in March 1868, in a rocky shelter in Les Eyzies, France. These individuals anatomically had no difference from the modern humans.

It is estimated that the Cro-Magnon man lived 30,000 years ago. It has a dome shaped cranium and a broad forehead. His cranium of 1,600 cc. is above the average of contemporary man.

Although Cro-Magnon race is known by the "Cro-Magnon I" cranium firstly unearthed, various skulls found in other regions of Europe can have some different characteristics. Some of them have thick projecting eyebrows and also have the bony protrusion behind their skulls which is characteristic of Neanderthal man and Homo erectus.

Although Cro-Magnon man is accepted as a European race, the skull of the people living in Europe today are not similar to his skull. However the capacity and shape of this cranium looks much more similar to that of some races living in Africa and tropical regions today. Depending on this similarity, it can be stated that the owner of the skull Cro-Magnon I and his family members are an African origined archaic race.

Cro-Magnon man disappeared rapidly. And this has a single reason: Paleoanthropological discoveries have demonstrated that Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal races melted in each other and laid the basis for current races. Today it’s acknowledged that members of Cro-Magnon race still live in various regions of Africa and in Salute, and Dordonion regions of France. People carrying the same characteristics can also be found in Poland and in Hungary.

It is an indisputable fact that Cro-Magnon men which are intended to be presented different from today’s man by the evolutionists were no different than us.

Neanderthal Race

One of the most striking part of the man’s evolution story is Neanderthals. Neanderthals who were real human beings were introduced for a very long time as "a primitive human race" by the evolutionists and were presented as an intermediate transitional form from ape to man.

The story of the Neanderthal man begins in Neander valley in Germany. A teacher in a local school runs across a skull fragment, a thighbone and other small skeleton pieces in 1856. These pieces are studied by an anatomy professor named Schaafhausen in Bonn University and are allocated after many surveys and comparisons as a typical man without any anatomical abnormality. According to Schaafhausen who made the first study, the bones belonged to an old human race, possibly to a barbarian tribe who resided there before the German race moved to the region.

Afterwards the fossils were sent to the University of Berlin and re-examined here by Professor Rudolf Virchow. Virchow who were to be called as the father of pathology later on, made a diagnosis which still maintains its validity today: These bones belonged to a Homo sapiens who had suffered from severe arthritis in his childhood. And the actual reason of his death seemed to be several strokes he got on his skull.

Nevertheless, the anatomy professor William King from Queen University in Ireland who studied the fossils after Virchow made a totally new interpretation which started the Neanderthal man legend. As a long-dated passionate advocator of the theory of evolution, King drew some conclusions from the structures of bones in accordance with evolutionist prudence. He pronounced that this fossil man was more "primitive" than the modern man and therefore could not be classified alongside with him. He also assigned a "scientific" name to it: "Homo neanderthalensis". According to King he was a member of Homo (human) species; but at the same time too primitive to be a human.

Two years later, similar skeletons were found in Belgium. These skeletons which did not draw much attention at the beginning, afterwards attracted the attention of some who were looking for the supposedly ape ancestors of man under the deep influence of Darwin's book, Origin of Species.

In 1908, new Neanderthal skeletons were found in Le Moustier village in the region of La Chapelle-Aux-Saints, France. These were studied by Professor Boule from the Paleoanthropology Institute in Paris who had dedicated himself to support the evolutionist theory. Professor Boule was assigned to create a primitive Neanderthal man image in people’s minds. Professor received his task with enthusiasm and began his studies. He told his discoveries as follows:

Neanderthals seem to be closer to apes than any other group of man and their intelligence is not wholly developed. The composition, position and the order of the cerebellum and spinal cord are the same as the apes. Besides, the feet have the same grasping attribute as in chimpanzees and gorillas. The anotomical structure of Neanderthals indicate that they walk in an awkward and clumsy way.

At the same time, Professor Boule had taken an initial step by making the first Neanderthal reconstruction. According to this reconstruction which he made relying upon his preconceptions, Neanderthal man is a half man and half ape being. He can’t walk upright and stoops as apes. This baseless construction made by Boule in accordance with his subjective interpretation of the Neanderthal fossils he had, caused to originate a biased opinion about Neanderthals which still abides today.

Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Kebara 2 ("Moshe") found in Israel is the most integral Neanderthal fossil ever found. The skeleton of this individual who is 1.70 metres tall, cannot be discriminated from modern man. The tool remains found together with the fossil induces the thought that the community to which this individual belonged shared the same culture with the Homo sapiens communities that lived in the same region at those times.

Despite all efforts of the evolutionists, this subjective approach to Neanderthals began to change starting from 1950s. Advanced technical means confirmed that Neanderthals were by no means primitive men in contrast to the prevailing iew.

In the light of these data, there remain the following questions to be replied; Was the Neanderthal man, who was alleged to live only 30,000 years ago, really primitive as the evolutionists claimed? Were Neanderthals primitive creatures who had no civilization and even unable to walk upright?

These questions were replied by two researchers who examined La Chapelle-Aux-Saints fossils in 1957. The anatomists named Straus and Cave found out why the fossil man found in 1908 and depicted in a reconstruction by Boule stooped. As Professor Rudolf Virchow from Berlin University had pointed out once, this fossil also had suffered from chronic arthritis like the Neanderthal man who was firstly found. This bone disease was deforming the shape of the spinecord and led to stooping due to the dissolving of the bones. His mandible bone was also deformed. In short, the reason why Neanderthal fossil had a bent posture was the severe arthritis disease he suffered from and not his relevance to a primitive species.

On the other hand, all the other finds yielded human characteristics. His big toe was not bent as Boule claimed. His thighbone was just same as that of man’s. The report prepared by Straus and Cave was ending with the following words: "If they had come back to life today, most probably they would not be discriminated from the other people in New York subway provided that they had bath and were shaved and wore modern suits."

Thus it had become imperative to find a new scientific name for the Neanderthal man who was formerly considered as a distinct species from the man of our day and earmarked as Homo neanderthalensis. Henceforth, the Neanderthal man was illustrated as a sub-species of man and named as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis.

Today there is not much for the evolutionists to say about Neanderthal man. It has been apparently revealed that the reason why the fossil, which was illustrated in a construction by Boule stooped was the arthritis desease. Fully modern skulls and skeletons of the other Neanderthal fossils are not open to any kind of speculation. An estimated authority on this subject, Erik Trinkaus from New Mexico University, remarks as follows:

Neanderthal

What’s more, the evidence indicates that the Neanderthals were people of incredible power and strength -far superior to all but the most avid body builders of today. Trinkaus continues as follows:

the Neanderthals

Valerius Geist from Calgary University states the following in relation to the subject:

Neanderthal

The evolutionists deliberately ignore the difference between the 1400 cc. skull volume of modern man and 1250-1750 cc. skull volume of Neanderthals. They well know that the announcement of this fact would pose a serious problem in terms of their thesis. Since the evolutionists interpreted the skull volumes they found as sole evidences of evolution, accepting the fact that Neanderthal man had a large skull volume than the modern man would imply a sheer regression in the evolutional process because this would simply mean that Neanderthals were more intelligent than the modern man.

Nevertheless the skull of Neanderthal which is slightly bigger than that of the modern man, does not indicate that they are more "intelligent" or ahead in the evolution process since such an evolution process never existed. Neanderthals are just a particular mankind race differing from the current moderate mankind with some minor anatomical differences. It is in fact a known fact that various mankinds have different cranial capacities. It is evident that the capacity of the cranium has nothing to do with intelligence or being advanced.

The fate of Neanderthals constitute another serious problem for the evolutionists. The question why these men disappeared completely from the fossil record 30,000 years ago extended various disputes and speculations among the evolutionists.

There are three theories on this issue. The first is the theory of intermediate transition form advanced by the American anthropologist Ales Hridlicka. According to this imaginary theory, the evolution of mankind beginning with Homo erectus continued with Neanderthal man, and then originated the archaic form of Homo sapiens and lastly the modern Homo sapiens had evolved. The lineage of Neanderthal man, which was inferior to Homo sapiens, had died out during the period of natural selection.

The second theory suggested that the Neanderthals which are accepted to be a European race were exterminated by Homo sapiens communities coming from Africa Thus the Neanderthals which were a blind alley for the evolution were totally wiped out from the face of history. This theory suggests that there is no trace of Neanderthals in modern man’s genes.

The last theory seems to be the most credible one. According to this, the people who emigrated from Africa 100-150 years ago assimilated the Neanderthal race and some other Homo erectus communities living in Europe. Therefore Homo erectus, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens sapiens groups which had been thought to live in the same era mixed with each other and formed a single homogeneous group.

The most important point here is that the real men designated as Homo sapiens sapiens, Homo sapiens archaic, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis and Homo erectus by the evolutionists were different races who lived in the same era and mixed with each other in time. The allegation that they evolved from each other is totally groundless. Neanderthals are not a different human species, but a different human race.

The fossils certainly support this conclusion. According to the dates given by the evolutionists, Neanderthals had appeared 200 thousand years ago and disappeared ambiguously 30 thousand years ago. These fossils which have no anatomical difference from modern man were also found in Qafzeh cave in Israel. This proved both facts that people lived in Near East since ancient times and Neanderthals lived with other human races in close regions side by side for nearly 60,000 years. As understood from the fossil records, men earmarked as Homo erectus by the evolutionists also lived together with these races at that time. It is undoubtedly very reasonable for various mankind races to have close relations with each other and compose a homogeneous group by mixing in time.

The Real Story of Homo Sapiens Archaic

Homo sapiens archaic is one of the most recent classifications devised by the evolutionists. They say that this is an archaic (old) form of Homo sapiens sapiens which is the modern man. Some fossils that can not be considered as Homo erectus, Neanderthal or Homo sapiens sapiens according to some classifications based on criteria like cranial capacity and skull morphology was included in this group. This is why fossils designated as Homo sapiens archaic have very diverse brain volumes and characteristics and are of different ages.

The first point that should be known about Homo sapiens archaic, is that there isn’t much difference between them and Homo sapiens sapiens. It is generally accepted that the difference between these two is based on their cranial capacities. The most typical feature of Homo sapiens archaic is the projecting eyebrow curvature which Homo sapiens sapiens do not have at all or have very little. Furthermore the skeleton structure below the skull is accepted to be same as the modern man. As far as the evolutionists state, the cranial capacity of Homo sapiens archaic is around 1100-1400cc and these man had lived between B.C. 700 thousand and 5000 A.D.

Some evolutionists who reckon Neanderthals to be a blind alley of evolution accept that not the Neanderthals, but Homo erectus and, their descendants, Homo sapiens archaic are the ancestors of mankind. In this respect they argue that Homo sapiens archaic is an intermediary form between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens sapiens.

The fossil which represents Homo sapiens archaic best, is the Rhodesian man fossil which is one of the firstly attributed fossils to this species.

Rhodesian man fossil was found in 1921 in Zambia, which was then called North Rhodesia. According to the evolutionist palaeontologists who studied the fossil, the projecting eyebrow as the most remarkable feature of the skull rendered it a primitive species. However the 1280 cc. cranium capacity necessitated it to be included in the Homo sapiens category. His age which which was determined to be around 20-40 thousand years in 1921 supported this finding.

However, the age of the Rhodesian man fossil was changed by the evolutionists about 30 years after the fossil was found. The first estimation of 40 thousand years was found far too young for the Rhodesian man who had a "primitive" structure. Thus, the evolutionists applied the formula, "change the test where you do not like the result". The age of Rhodesian man fossil was increased from 40 thousand to 200-400 thousand years as a result of radiometric tests. This age complied with the evolutionist schemes much better.

However there are many reasons to think that these dating estimations are faulty and that the Rhodesian man has actually lived much more recently.
.
The first reason comes out when taken a brief look at the date the fossil was found. In the British Nature Magazine which first introduced the Rhodesian man fossil to the world of science, a report was published in 1921 which said; "The skull is in a remarkably fresh state of preservation, the bone having merely lost its animal matter and not having been in the least mineralised."

However according to the rules of geology, any organic remain which stays for about 200-400 thousand years under the ground would definitely be mineralised. Therefore, the fact that Rhodesian fossil was not exposed to mineralisation as stated in the original report indicated that it couldn’t be as old as the evolutionists said. The reason why it was said to be that old was only that its appearance was speculatively thought to be "primitive". There is actually no logical reason to stop thinking that Rhodesian man fossil belongs to a near past.

Another interesting point is that the fossil was actually unearthed from a tunnel at the far end of a zinc-lead mine nearly 2 metres under the ground. Moreover, fossils of two or three people were found at the same sight alongside with the Rhodesian man. In comparison to the Rhodesian man, these skeletons possesed much more modern characteristics. This showed that the Rhodesian man who was presented as an older and more primitive species than Homo sapiens sapiens, actually lived at the same age with Homo sapiens sapiens and therefore was only a different race.

This situtation also hinted that these people were possibly fossilised by being buried under the ground as a result of an accident that occurred while they worked in the mine. The idea that these archaic people had attained such a high civilisation as to dig a mine and work there conflicts with all the assumptions of the evolutionist theory. The fact that the supposedly "primitive species" called as Homo sapiens archaic was modern enough to do mine labour was an evidence refuting all the assertions on both the biological and the cultural evolution.

The Real Story of Homo Erectus

Homo erectus series is possibly the weakest link in the story of evolution of mankind. Because the species called Homo habilis preceding Homo erectus in the evolutionist scheme was definitely an ape species walking on all fours. Homo erectus means "the man walking upright (erect)" and its skeleton has no difference from that of the modern man. The only reason why the evolutionists interpreted this fossil to be a different species more primitive than the modern man, was its cranial capacity which was a little bit smaller than avarege contemporary man, and its certain cranial characteristics. However these two traits do not make Homo erectus a distinct species, but a particular race like Neanderthals.

Now let’s examine this truth we briefly summarised above together:

The story of Homo Erectus reaches up to the German biologist Ernest Haeckel who is one of the famous advocates of the theory of evolution and among the prominent racists of the 19th. century. Becoming a zealous advocate of the theory of evolution right after reading Darwin's Origin of Species, Haeckel came up with a new theory after a short while making an interesting contribution to the evolutionist theory. According to this theory, which was allocated as "embryological evolution" and summarised as "individualisation is the repetition of generation", during its development, an embryo passes through the stages which reflect the physical characteristics of its ancestors. According to this, for instance, during the development of a human embryo, it is possible to observe the characteristics of apes, namely his oldest ancestors.

Soon it became clear that this theory which was the figment of a broad imagination was totally false. Moreover, the forgery Haeckel used to support his theory were disclosed in a short time. This "great" scientist had not restrained himself from extracting the one third of ape or human embryos from his drawings in order to prove his assertion.

Soon it became clear that this theory which was the figment of a broad imagination was totally false. Moreover, the forgery Haeckel used to support his theory were disclosed in a short time. This "great" scientist had not restrained himself from extracting the one third of ape or human embryos from his drawings in order to prove his assertion.

Haeckel’s explanation regarding his forgery is also quite interesting. While confessing the forgeries he had made, he defended himself by stating that his other collegues had also followed the same way. Haeckel says:

To cut short this unsavoury dispute, I begin at my numerous drawings of embryos (perhaps six or eight percent) are in a sense falsified - all those, namely, for which the present material of observation is so incomplete of insufficient as to compel us, when we come to prepare a continuous chain of the evolutionary stages, to fill up the gaps by hypotheses, and to reconstruct the missing links by comparative syntheses… After this compromising confession of 'forgery' I should be obliged to consider myself condemned and annihilated if I had not the consolation of seeing side by side with me in the prisoner's dock hundreds of fellow - culprits, among them many of the most trusted observers and most esteemed biologists. The great majority of all the diagrams in the best biological textbooks, treatises and journals would incur in the same degree the change of 'forgery', for all of them are inexact, and are more or less doctored, schematised and constructed.

Here is Haeckel, the "forefather" of Homo erectus.

Java Man

After his studies on evolution models and fossils, Haeckel convinced himself that once upon a time a sort of ape-man should have lived in South Asia and Africa. Depending upon the scientists who once made researches in the area, he already knew that there were some fossils found in the region. Haeckel named the species he imagined in his mind as "Pithecanthropus alalus" (the man who cannot talk). Afterwards he faithfully began to inculcate this idea to the people around him and to the students in Jena University where he gave lectures. Furthermore, he began to draw pictures depicting how this imaginary creature lived with his wife and children in his natural environment.

Haeckel's thesis made a great influence on one of his Dutch students, Eugene Dubois. Dubois strongly believed that Pithecantropus alalus had once existed and began his studies to follow the track of this being. Meanwhile Haeckel heard that some interesting fossils were found in Sumatra Island, Indonesia. Being inspired by this, he decided that the remains of Pithecanthropus alalus should be in Sumatra or Java Islands in Indonesia. Taking up this inspiration immediately, Dubois decided to go to the region to launch an investigation. First, he goes to the Dutch government to ask for financial support for his investigations. When his application was refused, he found a more interesting way and he enrolled to the Dutch Royal Army as a sergeant to serve in Indonesia. After he arrived to the region, he learned about the discovery of a skull fossil near Java Island. After seizing this skull, Dubois also found other skulls around the same region. But these skulls were too human-like for an ape-man.

Dubois continued his investigations exuberantly. In October 1891, he came across a big molar tooth in a cave near Solo River. Next month he found another. One month later, he found the upper part of the skull of "Java man", which later would be classified as Homo erectus. One year later, 12 metres away from where this skull fragment was found, he unearthed a fossilised human pelvis bone. Dubois reached to the conclusion that all his findings, namely the skull fragment, two molar teeth, and the pelvis bone belonged to the same person. And he announced his "great" discovery to the world of science: All these pieces were the remains of the "lost link" between man and ape which the evolutionists were searching for decades. This fossil which gave birth to the imaginary species of "Pithecanthropus erectus" (the man who can stand upright) was earmarked as "Java man" because it was found in the Java Island.

The findings of Dubois came to the help of the theory of evolution right at a time when it was exposed to severe criticisms on account it lacked evidence. The fossils were exhibited in Berlin under Dubois' inspection and were introduced as a great evidence for evolution to the whole world. Many pictures and illustrations depicting the fossil man Pithecanthropus as primitive and ape-like were drawn and published in all related publications.

This is the story of Java man, which is the most famous member of Homo erectus species. When we unravel this story recited by the evolutionists as the persistent venture of a researcher (Dubois) who was burning with the love of science, we come across with interesting points. The reason is that Dubois has acted so subjective as to the degree of forgery.

What is more important is that Dubois had concealed the other fossils he found in the same region. In the layer where Dubois found Pithecanthropus, he had also found two more skulls belonging to the same era. The cranial capacities of these two fossils were even bigger than the cranial capacity of the modern man. However Dubois never displayed these two skulls, and only exposed the Pithecanthropus fossil, which he thought to be primitive. The American palaeontologist Ruth Moore describes the destiny of these two "inconvenient" skulls called Wajdak skulls as follows:

Dubois packed up the Wajdak skulls neatly, because he did not want anything to overshadow his discovery after he brought out Pithecanthropus. Both of the Wajdak skulls had large cranial capacities. Dubois found their capacity to be 1500 cc. which is over the moderate cranial capacity of modern European people. As the news about Wajdak skulls became public, serious doubts raised about Java man. As the criticisms directed to Dubois increased, he started to be more discreet about the fossils he found. He did not show his findings to anyone, and had even locked some fossils in the basement below his dining room. However 40 years after the discovery of Pithecanthropus, he was compelled to confess that he had found modern man skulls in the same region. The exposure of the fact that a species which was thought to be primitive had lived in the same era with modern man only indicated that the fossil did not belong to a primitive species, but to a different race.

Nonetheless, the evolutionists did not want to renounce the Java man. The fossil which was named Pithecanthropus by Dubois, was later re-named as Homo erectus and placed within today’s imaginary series of man’s evolution.

Well, who exactly was Homo erectus? Was it the much sought "lost link" between the ape and the man, or was it merely a particular mankind?

Most recent information regarding Homo erectus were found in 1960 by Louis Leakey in Olduvai Valley in Tanzania. This firstly found skull was named OH9. In the following years new fossils were unearthed. In 1970, there were many Homo erectus fossils available mostly found by Louis Leakey's son, Richard Leakey in the region called Koobi Fora. Furthermore, many Homo erectus fossils were found in various regions of China along with miscellaneous tool remains. Interestingly enough, in the excavations in China, complex tool remains and remains related with fire use were unearthed. These remains were attributed to Homo erectus with the assumption that Homo sapiens should not have lived there for 500 thousand - 1 million years more.

**Pekin Man and Other Homo Erectus Fossils**

The Chinese researchers came across some human fossils in Choukoutien 35 kms far away from the capital of China, Pekin in 1921. These fossils were composed of 30 skull fragments, 11 jaw bones and 147 teeth. However there were very few body bones belonging to these fossils, but there was only a fragmented arm bone available.

The idea to call these fossils Sinanthropus pekinensis was firstly suggested in 1929 by Dr. Davidson Black who was an anatomy professor in United Medical School in Pekining. In the very same year, some new remains were found in the excavations made in the Choukoutien region. These new skeletons which were soon to be named as Sinanthropus by Davidson Black, were unearthed from a cave with a ceiling which seemed to have collapsed. All the skulls were damaged and their mandible bones were lacking. Their cranial capacities varied between 900 - 1200 cc.

When Dr. Davidson Black died in 1934, the German paleoanthropologist Franz Weidenreich overtook his mission. From then on Weidenreich carried out the studies of introducing these skulls to the world of science. Weidenreich made plaster casts for each skull. He also made the reconstructions of these fragmented skulls.

Unfortunately, during the disorder caused by World War II between 1941-1945, all fossils were lost except two molar teeth. These lost bones were never found again. All that have reached to our day are only a few undestroyed teeth and the above mentioned plaster casts made by Weidenreich.

In 1952, two researchers named Boule and Valois made a detailed research on one of these plaster casts. According to their findings, there was very minor difference between Pithecanthropus, who was allocated as Java man, and the Sinanthropus fossil in their hands. It was so that the differences between the skulls of different Neanderthal individuals were more than the differences between Sinanthropus and Pithecanthropus. These two groups of skulls discovered in different geographies were very much alike. After these results, these two groups were brought together under a single species and Java man fossil was called Pithecanthropus erectus while Peking man fossil was called Pithecanthropus pekinensis. After a while, the evolutionists defined them as a single species and gave them a new name: Homo erectus, that is, "the man who stands upright".

Meanwhile the most important Homo erectus fossil was found in 1965 in Vertesszlöllös, Hungary. These remains which were suggested to be the skeleton of a man of about 30 years old were dated as 400-500 thousand years. This Homo erectus fossil which was extraordinarily alike Homo sapiens was classified as a new species named as Homo paleohungaricus (Erectus seu sapiens). Another group of fossils found in the same region after a while were modern enough to be included into both Homo erectus and Homo sapiens classes. The other remains found in Sidi "Abd-Ar-Rahman" and "Rabat" in North Africa also had the same obscurities. Most of these fossils sharing the same characteristics with both Homo erectus and Homo sapiens were afterwards included into archaic Homo sapiens class. However this was an evidence showing that there was no difference between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens.

In June 1984, Richard Leakey and his team found a fossil in Turkana, Kenya, which was considered as a great accomplishment in regards to palaeontology. This was the fossilised skeleton of a 12-year-old boy. With the lone exception of some characteristics of his skull, this skeleton belonged to a fully modern human. He had an even less evident eyebrow ridge than some modern human races and his upper forehead was narrower than usual. Briefly, he was not much different from us.

When he first found this fossil, even Richard Leakey stated that this boy could well merge in a crowd of people if he lived today. The fact that this skeleton was found in a layer assumed to be 1.6 million years old hindered this fact to be admitted. Because the fact that a Homo sapiens had lived at such an early date was entirely in contrast with the evolution schemes. Thus the child was included in the Homo erectus class. Leakey described the discrepancies this fossil created with the evolutionary theories in his article, "Modern and Tall" as follows:

Homo erectus

This human fossil called Turkana Child was 1.60 m high and was the oldest human fossil ever found. According to Walker, he was expected to be 1.83 m. tall when he reached adolescence. Even the evolutionist paleoantropologists who examined the fossil, Richard Leakey and A.Walker expressed their surprise saying that it bears a dramatic similarity to ancient man and its skeleton very much resembles that of a modern child.

The facts yielded by these results were quite important: Evidently there was no important difference between Homo sapiens sapiens defined as a modern man and the so-called species of Homo erectus. The difference between these two Homo species was at most same as the difference between various races currently living on earth -and that could remain isolated. Homo sapiens sapiens and Homo erectus were merely different races which were discriminated from each other in order to fill in the evolution scheme.

This was true also for Homo sapiens archaic or Neanderthals. As a matter of fact, it could well be thought that Turkana Child fossil was a member of the Neanderthal race. Walker tells that when they placed the jaw bone within the skull, Leakey and he laughed a lot since it was so similar to Neanderthal.

Homo Erectus; A Modern Man

With reference to above information, some basic facts about the most important member of imaginary evolution scheme, Homo erectus, can be highlighted.

It should be firstly emphasised that the postcranium of Homo erectus is exactly the same as the modern man. They are all tall, and have an upright posture. Moreover, probably Homo erectus is the first living thing all over the world that have an upright posture. (Homo habilis which are placed right before Homo erectus in the evolution scheme are quadropedal apes who cannot walk upright - as mentioned in the previous pages.)

In some sources it is even stated that the morphological structure of Homo erectus enabled them to use the energy spent while walking in a more productive way and thus they could even walk more efficiently than the modern man. It is evident that such excellent stride is not attained through an evolutional process, but through a "special design", which is creation.

The only difference between Homo erectus and today's modern man is the skull. This difference is especially seen in the projecting part of the eyebrows. The eyebrow curvature in Homo erectus is a little bit more projecting in comparison to ours. Yet this does not make a big difference neither in the genetic structure nor the physical appearance. The mentioned skull characteristics of these people called Homo erectus are racial and also normal. Richard Leakey who is among the leading defenders of the theory of evolution cannot restrain himself from making the following statement on Homo erectus in his book "The Making of Human Kind" although it is in contradiction with the evolutionist thought:

One would also see differences in the shape of the skull, in the degree of protrusion of the face, the robustness of the brows and so on. These differences are probably no more pronounced than we see today between the separate geographical races of modern humans. Such biological variation arises when populations are geographically separated from each other for significant lengths of time.

An article published in Time magazine, in November 1996 had a big impact. In this article, the 27 thousand year old Homo erectus fossils which were firstly announced in the Science magazine were taken up. These articles initiated an important argument among the evolutionists. It was to the astonishment of the evolutionists how it could be possible for "a primitive species" which was supposed to arise 2 million years ago to come as close as 27 thousand years before today. Thus the scientific realities refuted the idea of man's evolution once more. On the left is seen a representative reconstruction of Homo erectus man. Above is the skull and the place it was found..

Former president of Istanbul University Social Anthropology Department, Professor Doctor Nephan Saran has stated the following about the absurdity of the robustness of the eyebrows which is determined as the most important criteria defining Homo erectus:

Pithecanthropus

Sinanthropus

Neanderthal

Rhodesi

Yet here again the true incidents do not support this idea. This robustness is not seen in the young gorilla and adolescent orangutan. But it exists in the adolescent gorilla. As for the human fossils, it exists in some, and absent in some others. In Asian Mongoloids, it has already completely disappeared. It is present in some of the Caucasians and Negroes. All these reveal that the anthropologists are faced with a very confusing situation.

Despite his evolutionist attitude, Richard Leakey expresses the truth on the issue as follows:

Neanderthal

Peking

Homo sapiens

Briefly, today it has been understood that the robustness of the eyebrow, skull structure and jaw structure which are assumed to be primitive characteristics, can not prove one race to be superior over another or one race to be more "primitive" than the other in terms of evolution. As stated in the last sentence of the above quotation, these characteristics are various disparities of different races. Just like the yellow race has slanting eyes or Eskimos have robust bodies, these kind of structural traits are completely racial.

Unsurprisingly, each new found fossil disclaims the thesis that man underwent an evolution in time and further proves that the people designated as Homo erectus or Neanderthal are not evolutionary steps, but only individuals of various human races.

This situation is made more clear when these fossils are put in a chronological order. In contrast with the evolutionist claims, these people, interpreted as different species by the evolutionists have not lived in subsequent historical eras, but in the same time span and sometimes altogether. Thus far, 222 Homo erectus fossils have been unearthed in Australia, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Depending upon these fossils which are totally accepted by the evolutionists and registered in various natural history museums under certain names, Marvin L. Lubenow declared that 106 out of these 222 fossils were more recent than 300 thousand years. And 62 out of these 106 fossils were more recent than 13 thousand years. Thus it is understood that men called Homo erectus are only a different race of Homo sapiens.

Looking at what we have inquired from the beginning of this chapter, there seems to be only one conclusion to be drawn. The evolutionary affirming that man came into existence through evolving from primates does not depend on any concrete evidence and in contrary is invalidated by all available proofs. The scheme on the evolution of man which is sought to be kept alive, is actually based on extremely subjective interpretations, distortions and even forgeries of the evolutionists.

In short, evolution of man is only a deception just like all the other thesis of the theory of evolution…

Source

Thus they taught

EMBRYOLOGY IN THE QUR'AN

Why Have Muslim Scholars Been Undervalued Throughout Western History?

Muslim Scientific Inventions

Science conflicting with Religion? Not for Muslims!

The superiority of amassing knowledge over wealth

The Universe: Quran

Expanding universe

Muslim Navigators

THE WORLD OCEAN

Importance of Enlightened Thinking not Blind Faith

A Historical Lie: The Stone Age

3 - The Myth of Human Evolution

- THE EVOLUTION DECEIT -

Fossil Records and the Biased Interpretations of the Evolutionists

Forgeries Done On Behalf of the Theory

Piltdown Man

Bringing a Hoax into Daylight

Nebraska Man

Ramapithecus

The Imaginary Evolution of Man

The Real Story of the Australopithecus

A Young Ape: Australopithecus Africanus

Australopithecines: An Ordinary Quadropedal Ape Species

Similarities of Australopithecus and Orangutans

Australopithecus Afarensis or "Lucy"

Australopithecus Ramidus

Footprints in Laetoli Do Not Belong to Lucy but A Real Man

Kanapoi Elbow Bone Fossil

The Miracle that the Theory of Evolution Can Not Explain: Bipedalism

Is Bipedalism An Evolutionary Advantage?

"Explanations" of the Evolutionists on Bipedalism

Another Monkey Type: Homo Habilis

Misinterpretation of Homo Habilis

Real Human Fossils

Cro-Magnon Race

Neanderthal Race

The Real Story of Homo Sapiens Archaic

The Real Story of Homo Erectus

Java Man

Pekin Man and Other Homo Erectus Fossils

***Australopithecus* *Ramidus***

**Pekin Man and Other Homo Erectus Fossils**