However, I realize, not all people have that background, and because the fossil is being used as part of an organized propaganda event, most people will be impacted by it.

So I would like to pass on some information that can be helpful. First of all, there is nothing significant about human evolution that can be learned or proven from a fossil that is claimed to be 47 million years old. According to evolution theory, our ancestors even 3 million years ago were still 3 feet high, stooped over, probably walking on all fours on their knuckles. So something from a supposed 47 million years ago is not a missing link between humans and apes. This find is simply a tool for a media blitz to brainwash our culture with the “truth” of darwinism.

Here is a quote and link from a New York Times article from May 18:

It is science for the Mediacene age.

On Tuesday morning, researchers will unveil a 47-million-year-old fossil they say could revolutionize the understanding of human evolution at a ceremony at the American Museum of Natural History.

But the event, which will coincide with the publishing of a peer-reviewed article about the find, is the first stop in a coordinated, branded media event, orchestrated by the scientists and the History Channel, including a film detailing the secretive two-year study of the fossil, a book release, an exclusive arrangement with ABC News and an elaborate Web site.

“Any pop band is doing the same thing,” said Jorn H. Hurum, a scientist at the University of Oslo who acquired the fossil and assembled the team of scientists that studied it. “Any athlete is doing the same thing. We have to start thinking the same way in science.”

(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/business/media/19fossil.html?emc=eta1)

So this is science thinking like a pop band. Remember that.

What is remarkable is how well the fossil is preserved. It is valuable in that sense and will add to the knowledge we have of extinct creatures. This fossil has a lot of similarities with living creatures today, especially lemurs. A more in depth analysis of this find is given on the Answers in Genesis site. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2009/05/19/ida-missing-link

Approximately 90% of all species that have lived on the planet are now extinct. So finding fossil creatures that no longer exist should be, and is, the norm. But because a species is now extinct does not mean that it was a transition evolving into something else. Logic, science and what we really know about the fossil record all indicate that many more things existed in the past than exist now. For a variety of reasons (one of which being a world wide flood) many creatures from the past have become extinct. They did not disappear because they were a link in an upward moving macroevolutionary chain but because they are part of a fallen creation and ecosystem that has been subjected to a global catastrophe. The clearest message of the fossil record is that many life forms have existed in the past – and they do not change over time in the fossil record, but they do go extinct.

Remember, the incredible media blitz you are seeing is not about science. It has nothing to do with the significance of this fossil, which was actually found in 1983. (Don’t you think the fossil hunters who dug this up 26 years ago would have failed to recognize it as significant if it really was so critical to human evolution?) Let me end with a quote from another media expert who understood the process of shaping cultural thought. It may encourage you in thinking independently.

All this was inspired by the principle – which is quite true in itself – that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes. (Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf)

Did you catch what Hitler said?  All big lies leave their mark, even after they have been exposed as being false.  Again and again evolutionary claims like the one above are proven to be false or irrelevant.  But that doesn’t matter.  They have had their effect.  This one will as well.
But the effect on you can be to make you more aware of the distinction between pop band marketing and the truth about science and history.  Check out the links above.  And remember, some people’s goal is to influence a culture.

Although I’m not sure Darwin would approve, many people would like to make him the patron saint of… their religion? Richard Dawkins wrote “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.” Which, I can see, would be quite a contribution.

There are, of course, a host of reasons to question whether Richard Dawkins really has a good claim to his fulfillment. But challenging other peoples’ intellectual foundations for their world view is hardly worth our time – and is perhaps none of our business – unless those views have profound implications that affect us all.

That is exactly the case with evolution and the atheism that rests on it.

It is interesting that these two men were born on the same day. Because their lives touched upon the same issue – in opposite ways. Abraham Lincoln opposed slavery and led a nation of people opposed to slavery into a war to stop that slavery. In the end, 620,000 Americans lost their lives, more American casualties than in all other wars combined. They went to war with a notion that all men were created equal and that no man should own another, regardless of the color of his skin. It was a notion founded upon the belief in a Creator God.

In 1859 Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species – the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. The book was such a success it sold out the first day. Within a short time the notion of “Favoured Races” and unfavored races had captured the intellectual community of Europe and America. Darwin himself wrote in The Descent of Man that those with dark skin were “degraded” and said that he would rather be descended from a monkey than from such a “savage”. Within a few years social Darwinism would justify deplorable working conditions for the poor, aborigines in Australia would be killed as subhuman and the leading American paleontologist would be making statements such as, “The Negroid stock is even more ancient than the Caucasian and Mongolian … . The standard of intelligence of the average adult Negro is similar to that of the eleven year old of the species Homo sapiens.” Within 80 years of Darwin’s publication the greatest war on earth would be raging in an attempt to prove which European race was superior and destined to prevail.

But if Darwin had published his ideas when he first developed them rather than waiting until 1859 he might have prevented one war. It is doubtful a nation would have gone to war to prevent the slavery of “degraded” individuals belonging to an inferior race. Perhaps even Lincoln himself would have hesitated in the face of such an audacious but subtly flattering (to the white man) explanation of racial origins and racial inferiority.

“We hold these truths to be self evident – that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights…” Rights and respect for our fellow man come from a Creator. Anything that founds an intellectually fulfilled atheism will not bring about a respect for the value and equality of every human life. And it will never move one man to die for the rights of another.