I recently came across a creationist espousing a book titled
The Upright Ape.
I haven't actually read it, but the author, a spinal neurosurgeon, is suggesting that humans evolved from a bipedal ape. That is, quadrapedalism is apomorphic for modern apes like chimps and gorillas.
I was able to get two quotes from the book. One from the preface:
quote:
In part, this book details what I have discovered since the day in 1981 when David Pilbeam placed in my hands the problem of explaining a seemingly inexplicable 21-million-year-old fossil. This bone had the totally unique features found in humans, but it was from a creature that lived 15 million years too soon. There should not have been anything that looked like this until the human-chimp split 6 million years ago. I believe this conundrum can be explained, but Darwinian Evolutionary Theory as it now stands cannot provide everything that is required to explain it.
And one from the conclusion:
quote:
The first upright ape was also human. In the millions of years that followed, new species branched off and abandoned their upright posture to descend to what we now call "ape."
What do you think? Sound plausible in the least? Honestly, I think it violates everything I know about 'maximum liklihood' cladistics (i.e. not much). How could all apes bar one end up with the hunched over character....how could our spine be so screwy if it had evolved for that long...how could the other fossils be interpreted so wrongly?
Is the author a quack?
Human origins, please.
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