A question for progressive creationists

Glenn R. Morton (grmorton@waymark.net)
Sat, 24 Apr 1999 10:53:44 -0500

Given the discovery last week of a possible Neanderthal/Modern human
hybrid, I have a question for the progressive creationists. The current
most widely held formulation of this view places the discontinuity
between animal and human between the Neanderthals(and other early
hominids) and anatomically modern humans. God, it is claimed, directly
created anatomically modern man to be special, to have communinion with
him and to clearly be different than the beasts of the field, like
Neanderthals and their ilk.

Over the week I have read other accounts of the discovery and reading
somewhat between the lines, here is what I expect the scientific reports
to contain. The skeleton had an anatomically modern human chin (which
neanderthals did not possess) and other anatomically modern skull
traits, but his body had the muscle attachments characteristic of
neanderthals. Neanderthal muscle attachments were different than ours.
They were extremely strong and some people believe that this evolved in
response to the way they hunted big game (by getting them to charge and
at the last minute stepping aside and grabbing the animals fur and
using short knives to stab the animal and the Neanderthal was carried
along).

No anatomically modern human has Neanderthal-type muscle attachments.
If this boy had those types of attachements, then he was a hybrid, no
doubt. And if he was a hybrid, then here is the question:

Why would God create Adam as an anatomically modern man with an ability
to interbreed with the animals? In the progressive creationist view Adam
was supposed above the beasts of the field. So why would God create the
crown of creation in a fashion to be able to produce offspring with
beasts?????

To me, this possibility destroys the viability of the progressive
creationist view, as currently formulated. Any comments?

-- glenn

Foundation, Fall and FloodAdam, Apes and Anthropologyhttp://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm