Plaster Ape-men

PLASTER-OF-PARIS APE-MEN

This article was published in the Church of God Junior Sunday School quarterly in 1990

If man’s ancestors were apes, then a million fossils should be available that show the linking characteristics between the two. According to the evolutionary theory, these changes began more than five million years ago. I would think with all the excavating been done, at least one fossil for every five years of time should have been found.

It seems men have a greater desire to find the “missing link” between man and apes than the missing links between the other kinds of life. Let’s look at some evidence that has been used to try to prove they are connected.

Back in 1891, Dr. Eugene Dubois thought the missing link between man and apes could be found in the East Indies. He went to Central Java and within a year, he had dug up the top of a skull, a fragment of a left thighbone, and three molar teeth. They were not

found together, but within 50 to 75 feet of each other.

Evolutionists were thrilled with this find. Dr. Chapin exclaimed, “It is fortunate that the most distinctive portions of the human frame should have been preserved. Using these portions we can reconstruct the entire being.” This specimen of man supposedly stood halfway between the man and the ape.

What portions were found? the top of a skull, a left thighbone and three molars. From a piece of head bone, one leg bone and three teeth, what can be learned about how a creature looked, or how tall he stood? He supposedly lived 750,000 years ago.

It was not until 1922 that scientists decided that this Java man, (for so he was called) was just a big blunder. What Dr. Dubois actually found was the skull of a gibbon, the leg and premolar of a man, and two molars of an orangutan! For thirty years, however, the Java man was exhibited in museums and praised by books as the missing link between man and ape. Some magic or great imagination was used to produce a man from only a gibbon’s skull, leg and tooth of a man, and two orangutan teeth. The ‘magic’ plaster-of-pairs formed most of his body.

But the search was on, and in 1926 the Science Newsletter announced, “The

jungle speaks again on man’s per-human relatives: A perfect skull of prehistoric man is found. This find, which is complete and sound, will be kept in Dutch East India, as transportation of such relics is prohibited.” This important relic turned out to be the knee bone of an extinct elephant!

Another famous would-be link between ape and man was the Piltdown man. Around 1910, Charles Dawson found a reddish-brown skull in a gravel pit where some roadwork was being done. Later, in the same pit, a jawbone of about the same color and two dark teeth were found. Dr. Arthur Smith of the British Museum created a bust of how he imagined this ape-like man looked.

He named it the Piltdown man and placed it in the museum. Pictures were taken of the Piltdown man and writers wrote about him. It was printed in children’s science textbooks. Henry Osborn, of the American Museum of Natural History, called him the Trina Ape-man, I suppose because he was made of three parts. Yes, this one was created with only three parts, and much plaster-of-paris! For forty years children around the world studied from their school textbooks that the Piltdown man was the missing link between man and ape.

In 1949, Kenneth P. Oakley examined these same bones under new microscopic methods. He found the bones readily absorbed fluorine, collagen fibers could be seen under a microscope and that their color was only surface deep. These three tests showed that the bones were not old.

Using a microscope, Mr. Oakley found file marks on the teeth. The teeth had

been filed to look like man’s teeth. In addition, the black paint on the teeth could be scraped off. The teeth and jawbone were found to be those of a modern orangutan. It was nothing but a hoax!

However, for 35 years innocent children had been taught that the Piltdown man was proof that they were related to apes. The whole thing was revealed to the public by a splendid article in the Popular Science Monthly. It was entitled, “The Great Piltdown Hoax” and reprinted in the October 1956 issue of the Reader’s Digest.

The Nebraska man, another ape-like man, was created out of plaster-of-Paris in 1922. He was supposed to have lived in the United States of America one million years ago. At the Scopes Trial in Tennessee, William Jennings Bryan was made to look like a fool because he didn’t believe in evolution. The Nebraska man had recently been discovered and was used as evidence for evolution.

Twenty years later, in 1943, S.E. Winbolt, in the Pelican Book Series, Britain, B.C., alluded to the Nebraska man as a genuine link between man and ape. Yet what fossils or bones of the Nebraska man were actually found? One tooth! That’s right, only one tooth.

In the years since the Scopes Trial, it has been discovered that this tooth belonged to a peccary, a species of a pig now extinct in the United States. “Give us a tooth, and plenty of plaster-of-Paris,” the evolutionists seem to say, “and we will create a whole race of fossilized ape-like men.”

Now we come to another missing link that was exhibited in the museums and whose pictures you still see in books. He is called the Heidelberg man, but he is really just one jawbone. The jawbone of Mr. Heidelberg was found in sand and was said to be from 375,000 to 700,000 years old. If bone could be preserved that long in sand, we’d probably be tripping over bones all the time!

At any rate, the Heidelberg man is in the books for study, although even scientists have great differences of opinion about him. Some said it was a valuable find, while others said it was worthless. One scientist observed that a whole race of South Sea islanders have massive jawbones like the Heidelberg man, another showed the skull of a modern Eskimo to have the same appearance. Using plaster-of-Paris, the ape-like man was made and demonstrated as proof of the evolution of man. As far as I know, the Heidelberg man is still referred to as proof that man evolved from an ape.

It seems that when there is a great desire to create an ape-man, it can be done from plaster-of-Paris using as evidence of a once-living creature either a pig's tooth, the top of a man`s skull, the jawbone and molars of an orangutan, the skull of a gibbon, leg and tooth of a man, or just one jawbone! The search continues without success for ape-man fossils. Millions of American tax dollars are spent each year in this search, but each uncovered fossil of man is found to be basically like man is today, for that is how God created him.