Examining Neanderthal claims.

A recent study from Cambridge (2005) dated bone fossils from a cave in France. According to the study, Neanderthals lived in this cave from 40,000 to 38,000 years ago. Then Homo Sapiens moved into the cave for 1,500 years. Then Neanderthals returned from 36,500 to 35,000 years ago. Then Neanderthals apparently become extinct.

How should a Christian react to scientific claims of more than one kind of human and measurements of how long ago they lived? We should always examine all claims about the long-ago past by starting with the first principle. Peter said the first thing to know is the first law (arche ktiseos) of the last days, that all things diamenei: remain the same in being or relation. (II Peter 3:4) A first principle is an elementary assumption that is ONLY supported with evidence that is circularly dependent upon it. Peter’s prediction has come true. The idea that matter does not change is now the foundation for modern reasoning.

The modern first principle affects what one can legitimately measure. Although anyone can invent ways to measure present things, in order to project your measurements into the distant past, the first principle must be valid. Even the units of measurement could be contrived by man, not fundamental to nature, if the modern first principle is false. For example, durations could change and clocks could not measure it, if atoms change as a relationship. Indeed, clocks never isolate their measurements from physical processes, as though time has a private existence.

Relational changes have no independent variables. You cannot ascribe cause and effect to things that change as a relationship, since everything changes together. A simple example of relational change is the metamorphosis of a butterfly. Even the caterpillar’s DNA is affected by the hormones that dissolve its cells during metamorphosis. The butterfly is radically different from the caterpillar, yet in the next generation, the suppressed genes are reactivated in the larvae. The characteristic of a relationship, is that no element is independent and all processes work together.

Is the modern first principle valid? All the light from distant galaxies is shifted in color by the same ratio as its neighbors. This is what one would expect if atoms are a complex shifting relationship. Since the most-distant galaxies have neither the shape nor motions of closer objects, primordial matter was considerably different from the modern variety, yet it was the same kind of matter.

Objections:

The reader might think that we could measure such changes locally. You cannot measure fundamental changes from within the local environment. You can only measure, or model with mathematics, the component of change that is differential. Differentials compare things that change with independent things that are assumed not to change with them. Differential changes are the business of science and mathematics. But science cannot measure relational changes locally because the whole of reality is affected in parallel. Yet the evidence that matter changes is seen in the light from the most-distant objects.

If the first principle is false, our symbolic units of measurement would produce constants while everything was changing. This is because the units of measurement themselves are circularly depending on the assumption for their definitions. For example, our ideas about unchanging years are symbolical and contradicted by the simplest evidence from the long ago. For example, galactic orbits never follow our concepts of time and our laws of gravity. This is why scientists invent invisible “dark matter” to try to force the distant orbits to fit our mathematical way of thinking. If the early earth moved like all galactic motions in the past then earth’s primordial orbits (years) and days (rotations) would have been longer than today.

Since the Bible identifies this first principle, we should carefully eliminate any measurement that expects that atoms are perpetual motion machines and do not deteriorate with age. This assumption is crucial to radiometric dating. The further back one would use radiometry, the more it would be in error. The reader might protest, but we verify radiometry with objects of known age. We do indeed calibrate our radiometric formulas to fit known dates that are relatively recent. But we used the units of measurement, such as the Western symbolic view of time, in the formulas. None of the early people, even the authors of the Bible, could have imagined that anyone could ever think of time the way we do. If the first principle is false, even our units of measurement would be contrivances. We could measure a single generation of men as vast geological ages if our first principle is false. Yet we can use simple evidence, such as strata, to determine the relative age of a specimen. However, we could not be specific about the age of anything in the long ago if the first principle Peter predicted is false.

Did several kinds of men exist in the past, but only Homo Sapiens survived? This is a violation of what the ancients recorded. They wrote that their ancestors lived in a better world for vast long ages. Each generation lived shorter, harder lives, according to their history. The Bible even mentions the deformed faces of those who lived for geological ages, back when dinosaurs and men lived together. (Job 14) Some Neanderthal skulls have thick brows, but the infants have modern features. So we have no reason to doubt Job's statement that faces deformed with the age of the person. Dr. Cuozzo has documented how our facial bones grow in the same direction as the thick brows of Neanderthals. If we lived for geological ages, our brows would be as thick as theirs.

See: http://www.jackcuozzo.com/book.html

Although we do not have their written accounts, we do have the self portraits of these cave people. Some of their images look like modern faces, and some are more Neanderthal. This kind of evidence is far more significant than scientific speculations based upon an untested assumption.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2012385.stm

Notice, that the first principle really is the first thing to know. Notice that the simplest kinds of evidence contradict the modern first principle. Can God really defeat even scientific reasoning so that simple faith in His Word will triumph?

Think about it.

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