Günter Bechly

Günter Bechly is a creationist, but he is unusual in having some real science credentials. It could be argued that that means he knows what realise science is and should know better, but religion somehow blinds people to the faults in their own arguments.

Like all creationists he prefers to use podcasts and videos to promote his nonsense, but here is one paper that got offered to my by a guy on a forum as though it makes a good argument.

New Fossil Human Species Thwarts Core Darwinian Predictions

Science is Tentative​

The first paragraph is about how human evolutionary history is being re-written as new evidence comes to light. Bechly seems to think this somehow invalidates evolution. It does not. This is how science is done. Right from the start he shows us he prefers the certainty of never-changing dogma to the tentative and changeable world of science.

"I can hardly resist the temptation to say “I told you so,” or to jokingly remark, “Oops, they did it again.” "​

I can predict that human evolutionary history will be re-written again. And again and again. That does not make me a prophet or an anti-Darwinism. It just means I understand how science works. I guess Bechly does not.

Apples and Oranges​

"They also do not fall into a temporal cline from older primitive to younger derived forms. Some early australopithecines not only exhibit the expected ape-like features but also some very modern human characters, while some late representatives of Homo (e.g., Homo naledi) still have very primitive characters. Thus fossil humans do not form a transitional series like the famous horse series. They are a frustrating mess for evolutionists, and the new species from Luzon makes the situation even worse."​

Bechly compares the horse series, of which Wiki says: "The evolution of the horse, a mammal of the family Equidae, occurred over a geologic time scale of 50 million years, transforming the small, dog-sized, forest-dwelling Eohippus into the modern horse." In contrast, the evolution of man is over a much shorter timeframe, just 2 million years. A fairer comparison would be human evolution from the basal primate that exists about 66 million years ago. Over that timeframe, we do indeed have a pretty good evolutionary history.

Conversely, we could look at the evolution of horses in the last 2 million years. How well defined is that? Zebras diverged from horses 4 million years ago. How well is horse evolution after that point established?

The problem here is that the shorter the time period, the more the noise becomes a problem (in part because breeding between lineages is still possible).

And the question here is: Does Bechly not realise that? Or does he just ignore it?

Creationism Predicts...​

So where is Bechly's explanation? How does this fossil fit his hypothesis? He does not say. The title of the article is "New Fossil Human Species Thwarts Core Darwinian Predictions". How do the creationist predictions fit? He does not say. Why not?

Because this is pseudo-science.

Like all creationists, his strategy is to rubbish "Darwinism", and imagine his creationism will win by default. Science does not work like that. He has a Ph.D. in science; he should know this. Real science makes predictions.

Evolution is real science; it makes predictions as Bechly tacitly concedes in the title of the article. Creationism, not so much.