“Those who promote evolution do so, not because they are interested in science, but because they want it as an excuse to get rid of God in their lives. They do not want to be answerable to God their Creator.” — from And God Said by Dr. Farid Abou-Rahme
The term missing link is used to describe fossils that are believed to bridge the evolutionary split between higher primates, such as monkeys and apes, and human beings. It is a term that scientists don’t like to use because they see the term as referring to a pre-evolutionary view of nature. They prefer to call them “transitional fossils.” Transitional fossils are the fossilized remains of a life form that exhibits traits common to both an ancestral group and its supposed derived descendant group.
According to the theory of evolution, Homo sapiens (human beings) are the result of an endless series of accidents, genetic mutations, and evolutionary processes over millions of years. Evolutionist scientists propound that these processes—which, by the way, no one has been able to observe due to the large time spans involved—have led to the evolution of man from apes. If this were the case then you would expect to find billions of fossils within the fossil record of transitional forms, for example, a fossil of an ape-like man.
But is this the case? Has such a transitional fossil been found? Around the beginning of the twentieth century there was a race among scientists and palaeontologists to find this missing link. These scientists believed if they could find a transitional ape-like man then the biblical account of man’s creation would be discredited and the theory of evolution established as fact. The Dutch paleoanthropologist and geologist Eugène Dubois claimed to have found the missing link on the banks of the Solo River in East Java. In 1891, Dubois discovered remains of what he described as “a species in between humans and apes.” He called his find Pithecanthropus erectus (meaning “ape-human that stands upright”), otherwise known as Java Man. His discovery consisted not of a whole skeleton, but merely of a leg bone, skull cap, and three teeth. Prior to his death, however, Dubois confessed that the skull was that of a mere ape and therefore the fossil was not the missing link he had claimed it to be.
Other fossils that have been set forth as evidence of a transitional form between humans and apes have also been proven to be hoaxes and frauds. In February 1922 Harold Cook wrote to Dr. Henry Osborn to inform him of a tooth that he had in his possession. The tooth had been found years previously in the Upper Snake Creek beds of Nebraska along with other fossils typical of North America. Around that single tooth evolutionists developed the idea of Nebraska Man. Further field work on the site in the summers of 1925 and 1926 uncovered other parts of the skeleton. These discoveries revealed that the tooth had been incorrectly identified. The newly discovered pieces revealed that the tooth belonged neither to a man nor an ape but to a fossil of an extinct species of a skunk-like pig called Prosthennops serus.
In recent times the Ledi jaw, discovered in 2013 in the LediGeraru region of Ethiopia’s Afar Triangle, has been hailed as the earliest specimen of Homo, the human genus. The find consists of the bottom portion of a left lower jawbone and five teeth. However, Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell, Dr. David Menton, and Dr. Andrew A. Snelling point out in an article entitled, “Is the Ledi Jaw the Missing Link in Human Evolution?” that “The Ledi jaw’s bid to be Homo or an early transition to Homo rests largely on the fact that its assigned dates place it in the desired gap between the ape Lucy and archaic varieties of humans. Had its host sediment been dated substantially older, its human features would likely have been ignored or explained away.” In the future the Ledi jaw will not be seen as the much sought after transitional fossil form its discoverers claim it to be, but most likely the fossil of a jaw belonging to a person or an ape.
In his book On the Origin of Species Charles Darwin describes the perceived lack of transitional fossils as “the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory.” Today, some 157 years after the publication of his book, the lack of any credible transitional fossils argues for the rejection of his evolutionary theory and the acceptance of the biblical record which tells us that God made every animal “after his kind” but made man after “his own image.” Evolutionists continue in their quest to find the missing link. However, the Genesis record of creation affirms that the missing link in the fossil record will always be missing. The real missing link today is in man’s relationship to his Creator. Sin has separated us all from God rendering fellowship with Him impossible. Yet the cross work of Christ reconciles trusting sinners to God and brings them into union with Him. That severed link is now restored and men can have fellowship with God. It is this missing link that we need to concern ourselves with.
Rev. David Stewart is the minister of Portglenone Free Presbyterian Church in Nothern Ireland.