Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

Has All Life Descended From a Common Ancestor?

The Origin of Life—Five Questions Worth Asking
- TEXTBOOK DRAWINGS AND MODELS OF APE-MEN
  
  Fact: Depictions in textbooks and museums of the so-called ancestors of humans are often shown with specific facial features, skin color, and amount of hair. These depictions usually show the older “ancestors” with monkeylike features and the ones supposedly closer to humans with more humanlike facial features, skin tone, and hair.
  
  Question: Can scientists reliably reconstruct such features based on the fossilized remains that they find?
  
  Answer: No. In 2003, forensics expert Carl N. Stephan, who works at the Department of Anatomical Sciences, The University of Adelaide, Australia, wrote: “The faces of earlier human ancestors cannot be objectively constructed or tested.” He says that attempts to do so based on modern apes “are likely to be heavily biased, grossly inaccurate, and invalid.” His conclusion? “Any facial ‘reconstructions’ of earlier hominids are likely to be misleading.”⁴⁷

Has All Life Descended From a Common Ancestor?

The Origin of Life—Five Questions Worth Asking
- WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
  
  Such pictures as this are based on the biases and assumptions of researchers and artists, not on facts.⁵¹
  
  The majority of such drawings are based on partial skulls and isolated teeth. Complete skulls, let alone complete skeletons, are rare.
  
  There is no consensus among researchers as to how the fossils of the various creatures should be classified.
  
  Artists cannot reliably reconstruct the facial features, skin tone, and hair of these extinct creatures.
  
  Each creature is placed in its position leading to modern man largely because of the size of its brain case. This is done despite evidence that brain size is not a reliable indicator of intelligence.