More Reasons to Doubt the Evolutionary Caveman Story

Complex behaviors showing foresight and planning are adding to a long list of contradictions to evolutionary explanations about “brute” ancestors.

Caveman recycling plan:  Studies in an Israel cave supposedly dating 1.3 million years old show its inhabitants making sustainable use of its resources, recycling like moderns do.  The story on PhysOrg begins, “If you thought recycling was just a modern phenomenon championed by environmentalists and concerned urbanites—think again.”  If these presumed evolutionary ancestors had this much mental power for planning, what stopped them from planting farms and building ox-drawn carts for another 1.25 million years?  Worse, the modern behavior could potentially be older in the evolutionary timeline: “Recycling was widespread not only among early humans but among our evolutionary predecessors such as Homo erectus, Neanderthals and other species of hominids that have not yet even been named,” one of the researchers said.

Hand over the toothpicks, please:  The Dmanisi skulls show evidence the Homo erectus denizens of the cave used toothpicks, a paper in PNAS reported.  The skeletons are thought to be 1.77 million years old in the evolutionary timeline.  Apparently these people were wise enough to engage in dental hygiene.  “Dmanisi further provides the first clear evidence for toothpick-induced local periodontitis,” the summary says.  “This study illustrates how excessive tooth wear leads to dentognathic pathology and complete tooth loss, which was evidently compensated for by culturally mediated food processing.”  The BBC News coverage includes photos of the wear marks on the teeth.  “‘It shows once more how complicated the story of human evolution is,’ Prof Lordkipanidze, co-author of the work, told BBC News.”

The yelp theory of music:  To show that evolutionists only have just-so stories to explain “Why humans are musical,”  Science Daily begins, “Why don’t apes have musical talent, while humans, parrots, small birds, elephants, whales, and bats do?”  After a series of hmms and hahs, the article discusses dopamine as a feel-good molecule that might be implicated, postulating, “it may as well have been rewarding for the brain in relative safety, resulting in activities such as hand- clapping, foot-stamping and yelping around the campfire.”  Evolutionists have yet to find birds, elephants, whales, or bats building musical instruments, let alone concert halls, let alone clapping their flippers or wings over a complex contrapuntal symphony utilizing four-part harmony and multiple skilled musicians playing in an orchestra or choir, reading music, even though they had more time to evolve than humans supposedly did.  This criticism applies also to the view of Jay Schulkin, who proposed in a new book that music allowed humans to practice living with uncertainties—a behavior that was rewarded with oxytocin and dopamine in the brain (see book review on New Scientist).  If this were a law of nature, it should have made musicians of all primates.

Language evolution theory #1,523:  PhysOrg tried again to ask, “Why is language unique to humans?”  It must be remembered that while animal signaling is widespread in nature, true abstract thought with syntax and semantics is a unique human trait.  Researchers from Durham University could only conclude that it is rare to get all the requirements together in one species; that’s why it’s unique to humans.  “”The scientists argue that these constraints can only be bypassed if individuals have the sufficient socio-cognitive capacity to engage in ostensive communication,” they concluded. “Humans, but probably no other species, have this ability. This may explain why language, which is massively combinatorial, is such an extreme exception to nature’s general trend.”  This implies there is no evolutionary explanation.

Why do we pay attention to these fibbers?  Darwin was right about one thing: “the descent of man,” down lower and lower into stupidity as time goes on.  Adam could teach these DODO heads a thing or two.