Consider the following quote by David Pilbeam, quoted by Richard Leaky in his 1981 book, The Making of Mankind; as used by certain creationists:
http://www.darwinismrefuted.com/origin_of_man.html
But real experts on the subject are aware that there is no scientific foundation for the claim of human evolution. David Pilbeam, a Harvard University paleoanthropologist, says:
If you brought in a smart scientist from another discipline and showed him the meagre evidence we've got he'd surely say, "forget it; there isn't enough to go on."
This is plagiarized at another anti-evolution site,
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The same sentence is wrongly attributed to Leakey himself, here:
http://www.thinkreal.org/evquote.htm
In this forum, Willowtree has quoted Richard Milton quoting this same statement:
http://
EvC Forum: Some Evidence Against Evolution -->
EvC Forum: Some Evidence Against Evolution
So, what is this quote really saying?
Let's see the quote in context:
Of the primates, the chimpanzee is man's closest relative, while the two other great apes, the gorilla and orang-utan, are slightly more distant evolutionary cousins. The apes and hominids are collectively known as the 'hominoids'. Biologists would dearly like to know how modern apes, modern humans and the various ancestral hominids have evolved from a common ancestor. Unfortunately, the fossil record is somewhat incomplete as far as the hominids are concerned, and it is all but blank for the apes. The best we can hope for is that more fossils will be found over the next few years which will fill the present gaps in the evidence. The major gap, often referred to as 'the fossil void', is between eight and four million years ago.
David Pilbeam comments wryly, 'If you brought in a smart scientist from another discipline and showed him the meagre evidence we've got he'd surely say, "forget it; there isn't enough to go on".' Neither David nor others involved in the search for mankind can take this advice, of course, but we remain fully aware of the dangers of drawing conclusions from the evidence that is so incomplete.
Fortunately, there is quite good evidence regarding the ape-like creatures that lived over fourteen million years ago [...]
A discussion follows of the extensive fossil evidence of dryopithecinces and ramapithecines, biochemical estimates of the date of divergence of humans and chimps, a discussion of the rise of bidpedalism, and David Pilbeam's estimates of the branching times for the various groups of hominoids. That's just chapter three ("Ape-Like Ancestors"). Chapter four ("The Early Hominids") picks up on the near side of the fossil gap referred to in the quote.
Notice the matter of fact assertion of the relatedness of the apes and humans, compared with the qualified warning about making inferences about the precise paths involved in the origin of hominoid sub-groups - the first point is well-confirmed, whereas the second topic had plenty of room for dispute in 1981 (and there remains plenty of room for debate still, of course). Does this passage really question the relatedness of apes and humans? Of course not. Does it call for caution in pin-pointing the timing of the branch off points for the various groups, and in identifying the particular evolutionary paths, Yes.
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