A short examination of the most famous skeletons on which evolutionists rely for support of evolution will only emphasize how hard up they are for proof.
Pithecanthropos Erectus (meaning ape-man standing erect) or Trinil ape-man, is one of the most famous "missing links" that evolutionists have heralded forth.
This title was given by Haeckel, who gave the name on pure assumption, a notable example of begging the question.
The remains were discovered by Dubois, a Dutch physician, on the island of Java. They consisted of:
1. A tooth found several feet below the surface of the earth (September, 1891).
2. Roof of skull, three feet from where he found the tooth (October, 1891).
3. A thigh-bone, forty-five feet further away (August, 1892).
4. A tooth.
A year or two after, the world's famous zoologists met at Leyden, and, among other things, examined and discussed these remains.
Ten concluded they were the remains of an ape.
Seven concluded they were the remains of a man.
Seven concluded they were the missing link
How much reliable opinion can be formed on such divergence, when seventeen out of twenty-four scientists refused the "missing link" opinion, we leave the reader to judge.
Professor D. C. Cunningham (Dublin), a high authority on questions of comparative anatomy concluded the remains did not belong to the same animal, but that some belonged to a monkey or a baboon and the rest were human, whilst Lord Avebury believed the bones belonged either to a very large Gibbon monkey, or to a very small man
The Piltdown Skull, or Eoanthropos (meaning age-dawn man), was discovered on Piltdown Common, near Uckfield, Sussex. It was recovered in several fragments, some in the autumn of 1911, and the rest with the jaw six months later.
Professor Smith-Woodward and Dr. Chas. Dawson reconstructed this man and built up something essentially ape-like with receding forehead, projecting brows and a gorilla-like jaw. Sir Arthur Keith, the celebrated professor of anatomy, curator of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, London, uses very strong words concerning the reconstruction of Drs. Smith-Woodward and Dawson:- "I soon saw that parts of the reconstructed Piltdown skull had been opposed in a manner which was IN OPEN DEFIANCE [capitals ours] of all that was known of skulls, ancient and modern, human and anthropoid. Articulating the bones in a manner which has been accepted by anatomists in all times, I found that the brain-chamber, instead of measuring 1,070 cubic cm., as in Dr. Smith-Woodward's reconstruction, measured 1,500 cubic cm.,—a large brain-chamber for even modern man."
Professor W. K. Gregory and Professor G. S. Miller pointed out further modifications. A tooth described as right lower canine, was in reality a left upper tooth. Miller contended, that the jaw and tooth belonged to a fossil chimpanzee, and not to the owner of the skull at all.
Sir Arthur Keith's vigorous denunciation turned out to be well-founded, for since the above was written, the leading newspapers of the day have reported that the Piltdown Skull had been faked in an unauthorized manner. This was publicly admitted. In face of this, the evidence furnished by the discovery of these fragments was worthless. So much for the triumphantly trumpeted "missing link!"
The Neanderthal Skull, in reality a fragment, was found in 1856 by two laborers, who were, digging in a small cave at the entrance of the Neanderthal Gorge, Westphalia, Germany. The following were found in the same cave, a human thigh bone well preserved, several human arm bones, not so well preserved, some fragments of human elbow bones (forearm), a fragment of a human pelvic bone, a fragment of a human right shoulder blade, a small piece of a human right collar bone, and five broken pieces of human rib.
Of course attention was fixed mostly on the skull. Was it the missing link? Professor Schaffhausen said it had a cubic capacity of 1033. Professor Huxley corrected this and gave the cubic capacity of 1230, the cranial capacity of the modern school teacher. Remember the highest cubic capacity of the ape does not exceed 600 cc. Where then is the missing link in this?
Professor Wassmann says:- "It has fallen to the lot of this Neanderthal man, to be described variously as an idiot, a Mongolian cossack, an early German, an early Dutchman, an early Frieslander, a connection of the Australian blacks, a paleolithic man, and a still more primitive ape-man. The remains of his skeleton clearly are of a nature to admit of many interpretations, and each student can make of them whatever he wishes " (MODERN BIOLOGY, p. 468).
The Engis Skull was found near Liege, Belgium, in 1833 by Dr. Schmerling. Professor Huxley says:- "The Engis skull, perhaps the oldest known, is a fair average skull, which might have belonged to a philosopher, or might have contained the thoughtless brain of a savage."
The great Virchow says:—"We must really acknowledge that there is a complete absence of any fossil type of a lower stage in the development of man, Nay, if we gather together all the fossil men hitherto found, and put them parallel with those of the present time, we can decidedly pronounce that there are among living men, a much greater proportion of individuals which show a relatively inferior type than there are among the fossils known up to this time... Every positive progress which we have made in the region of pre-historic anthropology has removed us farther from the demonstration of this [evolutionary] theory,"
Let the reader weigh over these words carefully. The evidence is that man is degenerating, that instead of rising higher and higher, the reverse is the truth.
Quite within recent years, so lately as 1913, a complete skeleton was found in the Oldoway Gully in what was German East Africa by an expedition of the Geological Institute of the University of Berlin. Why has this not been heralded forth? Here we have a complete skeleton, needing no guess-work to complete it.
Professor Th. Graebner says:- " Unquestionably ancient as these remains are—the bones are completely fossilized—they contain lamentably few primitive characteristics,' and hence have not been exploited in the interest of the evolutionary theory. A fragment of skull, a tooth, a thigh bone, offer much more inviting fields to the evolutionist, since they permit his imagination to range without the restraint of fact. The Oldoway fossil, which is in every essential respect a normal human skeleton, possesses no special attractions for those who would represent man as a descendant of brutish ancestors " (Evolution. An Investigation And A Criticism, p. 98).