By Hank Hanegraaff
In the television premiere of Ape Man: The Story of Human Evolution, former CBS anchor Walter Cronkite declared that monkeys were his “newfound cousins.”
Cronkite went on to say: “If you go back far enough, we and the chimps share a common ancestor. My father’s father’s father’s father, going back maybe a half million generations—about five million years—was an ape.” Was Cronkite right? Do we and the chimps share a common ancestor? Or is this an illustration of the anti-knowledge surrounding ape-men?
First, whether in Ape Man, National Geographic, or Time, the ape-to-man icon has itself become the argument. Put another way, the illustration of a knuckle-dragging ape evolving through a series of imaginary transitional forms into modern man has appeared so many times in so many places that the picture has evolved into the proof. In light of the fanfare attending the most recent proof-candidates nominated by evolutionists to flesh out the icons of evolution, we would do well to remember that past candidates such as Lucy have bestowed fame on their finders but have done little to distinguish themselves as prime exemplars of human evolution.
Furthermore, as the corpus of hominid fossil specimens continues to grow, it has become increasingly evident that there is an unbridgeable chasm between hominids and humans in both composition and culture. Moreover, homologous structures (similar structures on different species) do not provide sufficient proof of genealogical relationships: common descent is simply an evolutionary assumption used to explain the similarities. To assume that hominids and humans are closely related because both can walk upright is tantamount to saying hummingbirds and helicopters are closely related because both can fly. Indeed, the distance between an ape, who cannot read or write, and a descendant of Adam, who can compose a musical masterpiece or send a man to the moon, is the distance of infinity (cf. Genesis 1:26–27).
Finally, evolution cannot satisfactorily account for the gene- sis of life, the genetic code, or the ingenious synchronization process needed to produce life from a single fertilized human egg. Nor can evolution satisfactorily explain how physical processes can produce metaphysical realities such as consciousness and spirituality. The insatiable drive to produce a “missing link” has substituted selling, sensationalism, and subjectivism for solid science. William Fix said it best: “When it comes to finding a new trooper to star as our animal ancestor, there’s no business like bone business.”
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