It Is What It Is! and It’s Not What It’s Not!

by Ken Ham
Featured in Ken Ham Blog

Headlines last week boldly proclaimed, “Discovery of 13 Million-Year-Old Ape Skull Shows What Human Ancestors May Have Looked Like.” Of course, this is nothing more than evolutionary hype. What the research team discovered is, by their own admission, nothing more than a baby ape skull. Yet they proclaim, “To find this little baby that perished in volcanic ash 13 million years ago . . . [is] a glimpse of what our prehuman stage looked like.”

What the team found was “the most complete skull of an extinct ape species in the fossil record.” Using scans of the skull, they saw the brain cavity, the inner ears, and “unerupted” adult teeth. The images were so precise that the researchers concluded the ape was about one year and four months old when it met its doom. This is the observable evidence. Now cue the evolutionary interpretations.

  • The fossil was found in Middle Miocene ash layers, which are conventionally dated at 13 million years. But there are huge problems with dating methods (as detailed in this article series). Therefore, there is no good reason to trust the age assigned to this fossil. But, of course, the researchers trust it.
  • Because of the supposed age, and because this is an ape skull, the researchers assume we share a common ancestor with this baby ape, sometime before our alleged common ancestor with chimpanzees. But that is nothing more than an assumption (i.e., a made-up story) based on their evolutionary worldview.

So how should we actually understand this remarkable find? We should understand that it is what it is—an ape. And it’s not what it’s not—an ancestor of humans! When we interpret this find through a biblical worldview, this well-preserved skull offers insights into a species of ape that lived sometime after the Flood before it was buried by volcanic ash.

By the way, inside our Creation Museum near Cincinnati, we have a stunning exhibit on “Lucy,” which evolutionists often called Exhibit A of our ape-like ancestor. Using a holographic representation of Lucy’s bones, this exhibit shows that it was actually a knuckle-walking ape.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.

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