1 00:00:00,124 --> 00:00:07,127 This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture. 2 00:00:07,127 --> 00:00:17,132 The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations but not necessarily the only ones to the mysteries we will examine. 3 00:00:17,132 --> 00:00:32,139 Only in the last 100 years has the human race begun to ask the question, were we always human? 4 00:00:32,139 --> 00:00:43,144 It was not until 1973 when an anthropologist happened to look down at the crumbling soil of Ethiopia that we achieved a new look at our past. 5 00:00:43,144 --> 00:00:48,147 A single broken bone can sometimes be a time machine. 6 00:00:48,147 --> 00:00:54,150 Did it transport us to a moment when the link between man and ape walked the earth? 7 00:00:54,150 --> 00:01:15,160 The Great Rift Valley of East Africa extends a thousand miles to one of the most desolate spots on earth, the Afar Triangle. 8 00:01:15,160 --> 00:01:26,165 In 1973, a French-American team began to search the area which they suspected could be rich in pre-human fossils. 9 00:01:26,165 --> 00:01:35,169 What they found may have pushed the story of humanity back to three and a half million years ago. 10 00:01:35,169 --> 00:01:40,172 October. Don Johansson was leader of the American team. 11 00:01:40,172 --> 00:01:50,176 This reenactment, based on his book, Lucy, shows how he literally stumbled onto the first of three amazing discoveries. 12 00:01:50,176 --> 00:01:55,179 The bone seemed to be the shin of a small primate. 13 00:01:55,179 --> 00:02:05,184 Upright walking humans had never been found in soil this old, soil which team geologists had dated to three and a half million years BC. 14 00:02:05,184 --> 00:02:12,187 He carefully marked and cataloged the spot. 15 00:02:12,187 --> 00:02:24,193 Johansson spotted another bone, couldn't believe his luck. Fossil limbs are extremely rare and his two fragments fit into a perfect knee joint. 16 00:02:24,193 --> 00:02:28,194 What he noticed next took his breath away. 17 00:02:28,194 --> 00:02:39,200 He knew that the knees of apes meet in a straight line, human knees at a slight angle. This knee looked almost human. 18 00:02:46,203 --> 00:02:57,208 That evening, Johansson and one of his graduate students snuck outside of camp to a nearby Afar burial mound. 19 00:02:57,208 --> 00:03:06,213 Johansson kept insisting he had to find a human femur for comparison. 20 00:03:06,213 --> 00:03:12,215 The student was worried. The Afar zealously guard their ancestral mounds. 21 00:03:12,215 --> 00:03:19,219 If the anthropologists were caught robbing graves, they might be shot, or worse. 22 00:03:28,223 --> 00:03:35,226 Luckily, inside the mound was a modern femur. 23 00:03:35,226 --> 00:03:46,232 Except for size, the bones were almost exactly the same. They respectfully replaced the femur. 24 00:03:46,232 --> 00:03:52,234 From the knee joint alone, Johansson suspected the unknown creature walked upright. 25 00:03:52,234 --> 00:04:01,239 His subsequent discoveries were to revolutionize our beliefs of when the first human walked the earth. 26 00:04:01,239 --> 00:04:10,243 The following year, Johansson returned to the Afar with a larger group. The digs began to yield dramatic finds. 27 00:04:10,243 --> 00:04:21,248 Prehistoric hippos, crocodiles, the huge skull of an extinct mastodon. 28 00:04:21,248 --> 00:04:28,252 Meanwhile, the pains-taking search continued for human ancestors. 29 00:04:28,252 --> 00:04:38,256 They would have considered themselves lucky that season to find a single pre-human bone. 30 00:04:38,256 --> 00:04:48,261 That's why the events of late November were unbelievable. Johansson hit his second streak of luck. 31 00:04:48,261 --> 00:04:53,264 Crossing down a small gully, he spotted a bone. 32 00:04:53,264 --> 00:05:00,267 And another. They pulled out a vertebrae, part of an arm, and more. 33 00:05:00,267 --> 00:05:06,270 Had they found King Solomon's mines, the scientists could not have been more overjoyed. 34 00:05:06,270 --> 00:05:12,273 What they dug from the dry soil would eventually bring them fame, scientific acclaim, 35 00:05:12,273 --> 00:05:16,274 and a backlash of controversy that continues to this day. 36 00:05:16,274 --> 00:05:22,277 For they had found a full-grown woman, three and a half feet tall, weighing 50 pounds. 37 00:05:22,277 --> 00:05:25,279 A woman who was not quite human. 38 00:05:25,279 --> 00:05:33,283 Dr. Johansson and his colleague, Dr. Tim White, analyzed the fossils and later named the new species. 39 00:05:33,283 --> 00:05:40,286 What we see here is one of the most remarkable discoveries that's ever been made in the study of human origins. 40 00:05:40,286 --> 00:05:43,287 We have a skeleton, which is about 40% complete. 41 00:05:43,287 --> 00:05:46,289 Normally, we're happy when we find a bit of a jaw or a bit of an arm. 42 00:05:46,289 --> 00:05:51,291 And here we've got leg parts of legs, parts of arms, parts of the skull, nearly complete lower jaw. 43 00:05:51,291 --> 00:05:54,293 And she's popularly come to be known as Lucy. 44 00:05:54,293 --> 00:06:00,295 She's an anthropologist around the world. She's known as Australopithecus apharenis, or the aphar ape man. 45 00:06:00,295 --> 00:06:05,298 And she represents for us the oldest, most complete human ancestor known from anywhere in the world. 46 00:06:06,298 --> 00:06:10,300 What Lucy shows us is a creature that was a mosaic creature. 47 00:06:10,300 --> 00:06:13,302 Her hip, her knee, her foot would have been very human in appearance. 48 00:06:13,302 --> 00:06:22,306 And yet when we look to parts of her face represented here by her lower jaw, we find that it's a very protruding lower portion of the face. 49 00:06:22,306 --> 00:06:27,308 We have portions of her brain case and they show that the brain was very, very small. 50 00:06:27,308 --> 00:06:30,310 Smaller even than some modern chimpanzees. 51 00:06:30,310 --> 00:06:35,312 We have been looking and are always looking for various links in the evolutionary chain. 52 00:06:35,312 --> 00:06:43,316 And one of the interesting links in the evolutionary chain which has been filled by the discovery of Lucy is this intermediate form. 53 00:06:43,316 --> 00:06:48,318 That is to say we've got a form that's fully upright, walking on two legs, just as modern humans do, 54 00:06:48,318 --> 00:06:56,322 but still has a lot of evolutionary change necessary to make it truly human in the teeth, in the face, the jaws, and the size of the skull. 55 00:06:56,322 --> 00:07:04,326 So here we have essentially found a very interesting and provocative link between something that was partly human and partly ape-like. 56 00:07:05,326 --> 00:07:07,327 What did Lucy look like? 57 00:07:07,327 --> 00:07:11,329 No record of skin color or hair density remains. 58 00:07:11,329 --> 00:07:15,331 This reenactment is one possible interpretation. 59 00:07:19,333 --> 00:07:25,336 In the hostile environment around primitive African lakes, frequented by large predators, 60 00:07:25,336 --> 00:07:30,338 Lucy's upright walking may have offered a new talent for survival. 61 00:07:30,338 --> 00:07:38,342 For the first time in primate evolution, the hands were free, hands which were shaped just like ours. 62 00:07:55,350 --> 00:08:01,353 We can assume that these hominids were at least as intelligent as a modern chimpanzee. 63 00:08:01,353 --> 00:08:09,357 But we can't assume that they were more intelligent or that they had speed or anything like that because we don't have any record of their tools. 64 00:08:09,357 --> 00:08:15,360 We don't find a stone tool record until much later in time, much younger than Lucy. 65 00:08:16,360 --> 00:08:22,363 The upright walk of a human, the strength and agility of an athlete and the brain of a chimpanzee. 66 00:08:22,363 --> 00:08:29,366 Could Lucy talk? Could she reason? Could she remember the past and plan for the future? 67 00:08:29,366 --> 00:08:33,368 According to Johansson and White, not very much. 68 00:08:36,370 --> 00:08:43,373 The talent for stone tool making would be the ability to make a living out of it. 69 00:08:43,373 --> 00:08:48,375 The talent for stone tool making would not come for another million years. 70 00:08:48,375 --> 00:08:52,377 In that sense, Lucy was still an animal. 71 00:09:06,384 --> 00:09:10,386 Not all scientists agreed with this interpretation. 72 00:09:11,386 --> 00:09:19,390 A year after the Lucy find, Johansson was again in the field, seeking more evidence and again he struck gold. 73 00:09:19,390 --> 00:09:29,395 A movie crew was present when his team unearthed an entire pre-human family, at least a dozen who somehow perished together. 74 00:09:29,395 --> 00:09:36,398 In the years since this monumental discovery, scientists are still arguing its meaning. 75 00:09:37,399 --> 00:09:42,401 Some experts claim the bones represent not one, but three species. 76 00:09:42,401 --> 00:09:45,403 That Lucy was completely human. 77 00:09:45,403 --> 00:09:49,405 That Lucy was a knuckle walking ape. 78 00:09:49,405 --> 00:09:52,406 That Lucy's family evolved into humans. 79 00:09:52,406 --> 00:09:55,407 The controversy continues. 80 00:09:56,408 --> 00:10:04,412 If Lucy is our predecessor, and if the date of her life and death and three and a half million years is correct, 81 00:10:04,412 --> 00:10:13,416 this little creature who lived without speech or reason to thought would be the ancestor of me, of you, of all of us. 82 00:10:13,416 --> 00:10:17,418 Two hundred thousand generations removed. 83 00:10:17,418 --> 00:10:25,422 One million generations before Lucy, fossil fragments have been found of little primates called Ramapithecus. 84 00:10:25,422 --> 00:10:31,425 The theory of evolution claims these monkeys as our ultimate ancestors. 85 00:10:32,425 --> 00:10:39,428 A few footprints in Texas rocks, however, might prove that Lucy doesn't belong to us at all. 86 00:10:39,428 --> 00:10:43,430 That evolution is wrong, and the Bible right. 87 00:10:48,433 --> 00:10:54,435 If the theory of natural evolution is correct, then the earth must be very old. 88 00:10:54,435 --> 00:11:01,439 What scientists call the geologic column is layer after layer of rocks built up over time. 89 00:11:01,439 --> 00:11:07,442 A slice through this birthday cake would expose four billion years of slow change. 90 00:11:07,442 --> 00:11:14,445 Human bones would be found only in the very top, and dinosaur bones only in the middle. 91 00:11:14,445 --> 00:11:19,447 Today, most scientists would agree. Most, but not all. 92 00:11:19,447 --> 00:11:25,450 A growing number of scientists who call themselves creationists interpret these strata very differently. 93 00:11:25,450 --> 00:11:29,452 They believe the world and man were created about ten thousand years ago, 94 00:11:29,452 --> 00:11:33,454 and most of these rock layers were deposited during Noah's flood. 95 00:11:33,454 --> 00:11:39,457 It's hard to imagine a more controversial split today in the ranks of science. 96 00:11:39,457 --> 00:11:48,461 At the Institute for Creation Research in San Diego, scientists are gathering to coordinate and publish their interpretation of origins. 97 00:11:49,462 --> 00:11:55,465 The Creation Research Society now claims 700 PhDs and Masters of Science. 98 00:11:55,465 --> 00:12:00,467 John Morris is one of their experts in geology. 99 00:12:00,467 --> 00:12:06,470 I feel that humans live throughout the entire geologic column, and that the geologic column could very well have been. 100 00:12:06,470 --> 00:12:13,473 In fact, I feel was laid down by a single major hydraulic catastrophe. 101 00:12:14,474 --> 00:12:21,477 Dr. Morris was principal investigator on one of the most amazing bits of creationist evidence ever found. 102 00:12:21,477 --> 00:12:25,479 The footprints in the Pilexie River in Texas. 103 00:12:25,479 --> 00:12:31,482 It was about the turn of the century, 1908, something like that, when there was a major flood on the Pilexie River. 104 00:12:31,482 --> 00:12:38,485 And the people then began to see markings in the rock that they had never seen before, and didn't understand. 105 00:12:38,485 --> 00:12:44,488 They were these huge prints of these bird-like creatures with three toes, things of this nature, 106 00:12:44,488 --> 00:12:48,490 and soon people figured out they were dinosaur footprints, and it was an amazing find. 107 00:12:48,490 --> 00:12:54,493 Discovery of the dinosaur prints attracted many scientists to this rural area. 108 00:12:54,493 --> 00:13:01,496 Some of the huge tracks were removed to various universities, and some were sold on the black market. 109 00:13:02,496 --> 00:13:09,500 Today, the area is incorporated into dinosaur state park to protect the remaining tracks. 110 00:13:09,500 --> 00:13:17,504 The giant reptile prints are fascinating, but other nearby tracks are more difficult to explain. 111 00:13:17,504 --> 00:13:23,506 Creationists claim they are human footprints in the same cretaceous layer, 112 00:13:23,506 --> 00:13:27,508 placed at the same time as the dinosaur prints. 113 00:13:27,508 --> 00:13:33,511 Yet the theory of evolution insists humans and dinosaurs never coexisted. 114 00:13:33,511 --> 00:13:40,515 This, I think, is one of the main evidences for the revision of the geologic column to find humans and dinosaurs together. 115 00:13:40,515 --> 00:13:46,517 It's totally incompatible with our modern-day concepts of evolution and uniformitarianism. 116 00:13:46,517 --> 00:13:52,520 Then, evidence came to light that some of the prints may have been fakes. 117 00:13:53,521 --> 00:14:00,524 A team of creationists excavated, attempting to answer once and for all the charges of a hoax. 118 00:14:03,525 --> 00:14:09,528 Throughout the 60s and around 68 to 71 or so, there was a whole lot of activity at the Plexi River 119 00:14:09,528 --> 00:14:16,532 to uncover new prints, go back into the river to turn over new rock shells where the river has not been before, 120 00:14:16,532 --> 00:14:19,533 where there's no chance of carving. 121 00:14:19,533 --> 00:14:23,535 These prints are in place and there's no chance that they were carved. 122 00:14:23,535 --> 00:14:28,537 These are prints as they were laid down in the original lot, which later turned to limestone. 123 00:14:28,537 --> 00:14:36,541 Six new trails were exposed, startling evidence for the creationist claim. 124 00:14:36,541 --> 00:14:47,546 The Bible tells explicitly the creation of the world, not in four billion years, but in six days. 125 00:14:47,546 --> 00:14:54,550 For creationists, there is only one origin of the species, divine creation. 126 00:14:54,550 --> 00:15:01,553 Animals were made in their own kind and Adam was fashioned from dirt in the image of God. 127 00:15:04,555 --> 00:15:10,557 For evolutionists, blind chance changed simians into sapiens. 128 00:15:11,558 --> 00:15:17,561 Dr. Dwayne Gish, a biochemist, has written that man did not evolve, 129 00:15:17,561 --> 00:15:26,565 that fossils such as Neanderthal and Lucy are misinterpretations of deformed humans or extinct apes. 130 00:15:26,565 --> 00:15:34,569 I believe that these creatures, such as the Australopithecines, were apes, not intermediate, and they were certainly not men. 131 00:15:35,569 --> 00:15:41,572 The primates make up one of the 32 orders of mammals, and as George Gaylord Simpson, 132 00:15:41,572 --> 00:15:44,574 one of the world's leading evolutionists, has stated, 133 00:15:44,574 --> 00:15:52,577 every one of these 32 orders of mammals have appeared with their distinct ordinal characteristics already complete. 134 00:15:52,577 --> 00:15:57,580 In other words, from the very start, when the first time you see a bat, it's a bat. 135 00:15:57,580 --> 00:16:02,582 A whale is a whale, a primate is a primate, and a hoofed animal is a hoofed animal. 136 00:16:02,582 --> 00:16:10,586 And there are no transitional forms, no intermediate, going back to their supposed ancestral order. 137 00:16:12,587 --> 00:16:18,590 The Paluxy Prince are one of many claims which have fired a recent scientific controversy, 138 00:16:18,590 --> 00:16:22,592 a controversy which is often very heated. 139 00:16:24,593 --> 00:16:31,596 Well, I think that the only place that we have definitive evidence for humans and dinosaurs existing together is in cartoons. 140 00:16:32,596 --> 00:16:38,599 And essentially what we're looking at probably is somebody's attempt to pull a joke on scientists. 141 00:16:38,599 --> 00:16:43,602 Science, by their definition, is the attempt to explain everything without a supernatural. 142 00:16:43,602 --> 00:16:48,604 Now to me, that is incompatible with science as it calls itself a search for truth, 143 00:16:48,604 --> 00:16:52,606 because if there is truth outside the naturalistic scheme of things, 144 00:16:52,606 --> 00:16:57,608 then any attempt to explain things without a supernatural element is doomed to failure. 145 00:16:57,608 --> 00:17:03,611 And I feel that much of evolution science is doomed to failure because of that very assumption. 146 00:17:03,611 --> 00:17:07,613 It may be that those human footprints that are there, I've not seen them, 147 00:17:07,613 --> 00:17:11,615 were simply carved in the same rock levels in which you found dinosaur footprints. 148 00:17:11,615 --> 00:17:13,616 These have never been published in the scientific literature, 149 00:17:13,616 --> 00:17:17,618 and scientists have never been invited to critically examine the footprints until that happens. 150 00:17:17,618 --> 00:17:24,621 We would welcome an opportunity to go and look at these footprints and to investigate them personally. 151 00:17:25,622 --> 00:17:31,625 Most of the journals that publish scientific literature are committed to an evolutionary position, an evolutionary framework. 152 00:17:31,625 --> 00:17:42,630 And articles that would be antagonistic toward that viewpoint would be, would seldom be approved for publication. 153 00:17:42,630 --> 00:17:48,633 On many occasions, creationists have written to journals, to publish articles, 154 00:17:48,633 --> 00:17:54,635 or even letters to the editor, that sort of thing, and very, very seldom are they published. 155 00:17:54,635 --> 00:17:59,638 There's a sense that people say there's this discontinuity between the family of man and the family of apes, 156 00:17:59,638 --> 00:18:05,641 but if we look at extant forms, living forms today, and we study the anatomy, we study the biochemistry, 157 00:18:05,641 --> 00:18:08,642 we study the blood, we study the actual DNA sequences, 158 00:18:08,642 --> 00:18:12,644 we find out that there is a lot of overlap between apes and humans, 159 00:18:12,644 --> 00:18:16,646 and obviously somewhere in the past they shared a common ancestor. 160 00:18:16,646 --> 00:18:20,648 Now the similarities in the proteins, of course, are not starting. 161 00:18:20,648 --> 00:18:25,650 We would predict that on the basis of creation, because we are living in the same world, 162 00:18:25,650 --> 00:18:29,652 we're drinking the same water, eating the same food, breathing the same air, 163 00:18:29,652 --> 00:18:35,655 we have exactly the same metabolic problems, we believe God, the creator, then having solved these problems, 164 00:18:35,655 --> 00:18:39,657 would have essentially used the same solution in each case. 165 00:18:39,657 --> 00:18:44,659 But the distinguishing features between man and chimpanzees are really starting. 166 00:18:44,659 --> 00:18:49,662 Of course, he has a brain about one-third of ours, and the many other characteristics of chimpanzees, 167 00:18:49,662 --> 00:18:52,663 they're tremendously different than man. 168 00:18:52,663 --> 00:18:57,665 He has no ability to speak, he does not think abstractly, he does not think into the future, 169 00:18:57,665 --> 00:19:00,667 he does not think about the past, very, very different from man. 170 00:19:00,667 --> 00:19:03,668 He is indeed an animal, we are human. 171 00:19:03,668 --> 00:19:11,672 Okay, one of the things that modern creationists are trying to do is to masquerade under a banner 172 00:19:11,672 --> 00:19:18,675 called scientific creationism and act as though they are actually scientists working within the scientific forum. 173 00:19:18,675 --> 00:19:23,678 This is not true, in fact, what these people have are a set of beliefs, 174 00:19:23,678 --> 00:19:26,679 usually based on the chapter of Genesis in the Bible, 175 00:19:26,679 --> 00:19:31,682 and instead of testing their propositions and trying to answer questions, 176 00:19:31,682 --> 00:19:35,684 they already have the answers and they're not asking any questions. 177 00:19:35,684 --> 00:19:40,686 There's no way that we can construct testable scientific theories about origins. 178 00:19:40,686 --> 00:19:46,689 Evolution is no more scientific than creation and certainly as religious. 179 00:19:46,689 --> 00:19:52,692 It is a basic dogma of humanism, atheism, agnosticism, and things of that nature. 180 00:19:52,692 --> 00:19:58,695 The debate has moved from the laboratory to the classroom to the courtroom. 181 00:19:58,695 --> 00:20:06,698 It was once thought settled, it probably never will be. 182 00:20:07,699 --> 00:20:16,703 Those scientists who espouse evolution and those who believe in creation will probably never close the gap. 183 00:20:16,703 --> 00:20:23,706 Hopefully, they can agree on one point, science needs healthy skepticism. 184 00:20:23,706 --> 00:20:30,710 And we shouldn't forget the famous Nebraska man based upon a single tooth found in western Nebraska in 1922. 185 00:20:30,710 --> 00:20:34,712 Some of the world's greatest authorities were very excited by this discovery. 186 00:20:35,712 --> 00:20:42,715 And they were convinced it was part of a primitive subhuman ancestor of man. 187 00:20:42,715 --> 00:20:45,717 The illustrated London news had their artist draw a picture of this creature. 188 00:20:45,717 --> 00:20:47,718 It turned out to be very man-like. 189 00:20:47,718 --> 00:20:52,720 It showed a picture of the man and his wife and the tools that they were using based upon this single tooth. 190 00:20:52,720 --> 00:20:57,723 However, a few years later, they discovered the skeleton of this creature, the remainder of the skeleton. 191 00:20:57,723 --> 00:21:01,725 And it turned out to be neither a man-like ape nor an ape-like man. 192 00:21:01,725 --> 00:21:03,725 It turned out to be a pig. 193 00:21:03,725 --> 00:21:12,730 Now, again, this darling thing is that great authorities had mistaken a pig's tooth for an evolutionary form of man. 194 00:21:12,730 --> 00:21:17,732 Now, they were honest scientists. They were very good scientists and very careful scientists. 195 00:21:17,732 --> 00:21:18,733 What had happened? 196 00:21:18,733 --> 00:21:25,736 You see, this is what they had wanted to find, this is what they had expected to find, and therefore, this is what they tended to see. 197 00:21:27,737 --> 00:21:31,739 The search for the missing links of our origin will continue. 198 00:21:31,739 --> 00:21:34,740 Perhaps we really hope to find our destiny.