Welcome to Science, Scripture, and Salvation, a radio ministry of the Institute for Creation Research. In this program, we want to encourage you in your Christian faith by showing how scientific evidence supports the Bible, particularly the Genesis account. The book of Genesis lays the foundation for all matters addressed in the rest of the Bible. The nature of God, His sovereignty in creation, man's purpose, sin, marriage, family, and why we need a Savior are all introduced and explained in Genesis. When we see that the first and most foundational book of the Bible can be trusted in all matters, including science, it builds confidence in the rest of the inspired word all the way to Revelation.
On today's show, we'll get to hear from Dr. Tim Clary, geologist and research associate with the Institute for Creation Research. Here's Dr. Clary. Today we're going to be talking about a new species, or a claimed new species, of hominid called Homo Naledi.
Spelled N A L E D I, Homo Naledi. And it's a claim missing link. And why is this important to Christians? Oftentimes secular science is trying to push these so called transitional or missing links on us. They're trying to find these missing links between different species of apes and trying to find that connection all the way to humans, because that's what they insist.
They don't believe God's word, where God says clearly on day six He created man after his own image. Ever since Darwin published his book on the origin of species in 1859, Scientists have been searching for these transitional fossils. Fossils that are, they claimed ancestors of man, which is what, again, Homondaledi has claimed to be another one of these ancestors that fits right in. But the more and more fossils that we seem to find as anthropology finds more and more fossils, the more it seems to be a jumbled up mess. And we never seem to find these transitional fossils.
And the same thing is true of all the fossil record. We always see animals and plants and fish and trilobites and all these different specimens just show up in the fossil record. They just show up and then they disappear. They show up and they disappear.
So the fossil record really Has been a problem for Darwin and all the scientists coming after him because they can't explain. Why we have just animals showing up in the rocks and then disappearing, showing up and disappearing. And it's because they refused to believe that there was a flood. And the flood is He explains why animals just show up in the order of their burial.
So, the scientists that refuse to believe God's word and the historical accuracy of Genesis are always looking for another explanation.
So, Homo Neletti is the latest.
So-called and claimed link between humans and human ancestors.
Now the discovery was actually announced in October 2015 on the front cover of National Geographic. In their October 2015 issue called Almost Human, A New Ancestor Shakes Up Her Family Tree. And this supposedly is a link between Australopithecus, the so-called Lucy fossils, and the our own genus Homo sapiens. It was discovered in the Rising Cave system in South Africa in 2013. and a chamber called the Denaletti Chamber.
To get into that chamber, they had to hire special archaeologists and anthropologists to get in that were small enough they get in through about a 10-inch passageway. And so larger anthropologists were excluded just because of the physical impossibility of getting in.
So they sent the a group of scientists in after the initial discovery. It was actually in a rock that caves formed in rocks called the Molmani Supergroup. And it seems that these rocks were deposited possibly even before the flood. They might have been part of the preflood world. The caves, however, are much more recent.
The secular world claims the caves formed in the last three million years, but as creationists we believe that the caves and the water that formed these caves probably happened late in the flood or even as late as the ice age, right after the flood. What did the scientists find when they went into the cave? In the upper eight inches of clay and sediment in the bottom of this cave, They found over 1,550 bones of fifteen individuals. They had infants, they had juveniles, they had mature adults. And it was claimed by the discoverer A fellow by the name of Dr.
Lee Berger said this is a mosaic species, a species that sort of branches between humans and non-human animals in the past. And they claim this specimen was 2 million years old. But, however, they didn't date it, by any means. And so it's a mystery as to the true age of this, and we'll talk more about that a little bit later. How this fits in with the Bible.
One of the problems that they discovered was that the hands and the feet were very human like. And yet the pelvis and other bones were more like this Australopithecus, or this lucy type specimen. The cranium. Uh the top of the skull didn't fit the jaws. It looked like they kinda had a cone head, as one scientist described it, where the top of the skull was too small to fit to the jaws.
They did no carbon fourteen dating? Which they probably could have done to eliminate The young age of these specimens, if they're claiming it's two million years old, they could have at least done something to try to show that it's older than that by their own dating methods. They could have done electron spin resonance, which they've done on other specimens in that region. They could look at the enamel in the teeth, get an age. Any of these methods would have probably shown that this specimen was actually much younger than two million years.
So, how did the fossils get in the cave? We're going to look at that. What happened, what appears, is there was a flooding in the outer cave. And the animals may have actually washed back into the second cave.
So they are all found dispersed in the second cave, this Tenelli chamber, further back from the open into the outside world, through this ten-inch little gap. And so it's a mystery to the scientists exactly how they got into this particular cave system. They actually believe Lee Berger and his colleagues, the Discoverer, believes that they were dragged back there by these almost human animals that dragged their dead bodies back and just threw them in a heap in the back. It's very difficult. Logistically, to try to fit and climb through at the same time and dragging a body behind you that's the size of a human.
Through this little 10-inch opening.
So it seems a little bit far-fetched with his explanation. Other scientists have. come forth and said, that there must have been another opening. There must have been another way to get into the cave. And it's possible that there was, and it was sealed over later by some of the cave flow in the flowing.
When we return, we'll hear some final words from Dr. Clary. Stay with us. From sharks to butterflies, bats to orangutans, we can't help but marvel at the stunning and amusing creatures God has made. If you and your kids enjoy learning about animals, then you'll love our book, Guide to Animals, with its beautiful full-color images and fascinating facts.
Published by the Institute for Creation Research, Guide to Animals provides answers to many popular questions about the animal kingdom. How do chameleons change colors? How do jellyfish live without a brain? And what happened to the dinosaurs and other extinct animals? Guide to Animals shows how everything that can slither, crawl, soar, or swim displays the handiwork of God.
Order your copy of Guide to Animals from the Institute for Creation Research by calling 800-628-7640 or visiting icr.org. That's 800-628-7640 or visiting icr.org. Welcome back to Science, Scripture, and Salvation, a radio ministry of the Institute for Creation Research. Here's Dr. Clary.
We've been talking about a claimed new ancestor or transitional fossil or human ancestor claimed by the secular science as a new species that's halfway between humans and apes called Homo netleti. Interestingly enough, the discoverer of this specimen also discovered about 10 miles away from the Rising Star Cave system where he found Homodelati, he also found in 2008. Actually, his 14-year-old son found some fossils sticking out of some solid rock. And the solid rock was dated by the psychic scientists to be something on the order of two million years old, at least so they claimed. But this specimen he named it Australopithecus sedeeba.
And this new specimen that he found in 2008 was supposedly another ancestor in between our species Homo. And the Astralopithecus or the Lucy. type of genus. It was found by the leakies. in East Africa as well.
So here we are looking at fossils. that are found 10 miles apart from each other. but they're completely different. This particular fossil we're talking about today, Homoneleti, was found in just loose soil, the upper eight inches of the back of a cave, not in solid rock whereas most of these fossils, like Australopithecus sedeba, were found in solid rock, probably flood deposits. They were not really two million years old, but only thousands of years old.
And so we have two different ages that we can infer just from whether it's in rock or not. And Homo Niletti is actually supposed to be older than. This Australopithecus sediba, even though sediba is found in solid rock, to me there's there's kind of a problem there.
So I believe that the Homo Naledi, as we're going to find out later, is much, much younger. Then these scientists are portraying it. It's nowhere near the two million years old, as they claim. They just claim that because that's where they need things to fit in in their scheme of things. The cave opening itself, again, Lee Berger argues that the bodies were dragged through from one cave to the next through this 10-inch opening.
which is again very very difficult logistically Others have argued, as I mentioned, that they must have washed in through another entrance.
Well, the evidence in the caves themselves, the geology that's been published on this cave system, shows a lot of evidence of flooding, particularly the outer cave. There's gravels in the back, coarse material as if the water flowed in and out catastrophically several times. And then that water possibly could have been the source of these Moving these animals back, almost like when you flush your toilet, the water goes up and through the pipes, it has to go up and over. And the same thing might have happened here. The bodies that were washed into the back of the cave, whether they were buried or were flooded and drowned at the time, were actually washed back into the next cave system.
So what we see in the second cave are bodies that are in total disarray. Total disarray is not how we find any human fossils today. We find them generally buried specifically by humans, especially in the post flood world. We find these humans dead in some sort of a nice ritual. We don't just see them lay in dispersed Scattered around as if these were settled out from water.
And so the evidence, the geology, and the the way these bones are just broken apart and just in disarray in the back cave, all imply that they settled out from some sort of flood waters and washed in and up and through the cave. It's more likely there was some sort of Ice Age flood. As ice melted catastrophically towards the end of the ice age, water flooded these caves periodically. Any animals and humans that might have been caught in these caves drowned in the back and floated into that inner chamber, that inner leady chamber.
So again, the dispersal of the body is tells us that all other humans, as I mentioned, generally will bury in nice graves in some sort of orderly fashion.
So in summary, Homo nileti appears to be made of bones from possibly humans and possibly nonhumans both. Other creation scientists have argued that maybe these are diseased humans, and that's why the bones look a little odd. But there's still time to work this out. There's a lot of debate. back and forth in the creation community and in the scientific community what these bones really represent.
The flooding of the cave seems the best answer for how these bodies and how these bones end up in the cave, however. contrary to what the Sacred Real claims. And the bones are likely only thousands of years old, as they're found only in the upper eight inches of this clay sediment in the back. They're not found in rocks like the other specimens found ten miles away are found in solid rock. Those specimens in rock are probably from late in the flood.
Whereas these bones are probably after the flood.
So they may only be 4,000 years old. Versus 4,500 years old for the ones in the rock. It says in Genesis 1.26 that God made man in his own image. He didn't make creatures. That were almost human.
And so, all these supposed ancestors and transitionary fossils of humans over the years, many of them have been found to be hoaxes, many of them have been found to fall by the wayside. Every discovery in anthropology seems to turn the whole tables over again. They have to start from scratch. But be assured, God's word is true. God created humans, fully human, no almost human.
Animals were created by God. Thank you for joining us on Science, Scripture, and Salvation, a radio ministry of the Institute for Creation Research. That's all the time we have for our program today, but we would love to connect with you through our website at icr.org. For over 45 years, ICR has equipped believers with evidence of the Bible's accuracy and authority by showing how science supports the Genesis creation account. Our scientists research the evidence for creation and communicate their findings through books, articles, DVD series, and conferences.
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