Evidence of the Missing Link Found?

HUADPE writes to tell us CNN is reporting that scientists in northeastern Ethiopia recently discovered a skull that they think may be evidence of the "missing link" between Homo erectus and modern man. From the article: "The hominid cranium -- found in two pieces and believed to be between 500,000 and 250,000 years old -- 'comes from a very significant period and is very close to the appearance of the anatomically modern human,' said Sileshi Semaw, director of the Gona Paleoanthropological Research Project in Ethiopia."

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Did Adam have a belly button?

[hey!]

One nineteenth century minister, considering the then brand new evolution debate, had an idea.

When Adam was created, why didn't he immediately collapse from low blood sugar? Because he had the products of digestion already in his veins -- he probably even had the remains of a meal in his belly. This was a meal which he never actually ate , as moments earlier he'd been an inanimate lump. A human adult is the product of a long developmental process; his bones and sinews are knit through a lifetime of activity, which in Adam's case never happened. Adam was conceived as if he were the product of an ongoing process, even if that process never happened. And thus Adam would have had a belly button of course.

If not Adam, why not the world, and all the creatures in it? Clearly the world God conceived, in order to operate, would have to be the product of a similar process of development, and it would show all of the manifestations of that process, even if that process never actually happened. Indeed, evidence for evolution would be the very hallmark of the Creator Himself.

This seemed to the poor fellow a splendid idea. He felt certain the the religious side of the debate would lay down its arms and embrace evolution. Naturally, he was completely wrong. The religious side of the debate was the forerunner of the modern Fundamentalist movement, and much preferred a science whose purpose was to prove religious dogma. Under this naive man's idea, the free inquiry into evolution becomes practically sacred, something that no human authority has any right to tinker with.