In 1915, Fairfield Osborn produced a diagram which shows the relative brain sizes for Piltdown man, Neanderthal man and modern man57. The brain size for Piltdown man should have been exactly the same as modern man because, as we of course now know, Piltdown was a hoax, consisting of a modern human upper skull and an ape’s jaw. Modern text books agree that the brain of Neanderthal man was larger58 than that of modern man. So the correct representation should show modern man and Piltdown man brains as equal in size, and Neanderthal’s brain as the largest. However, Osborn’s now infamous diagram shows modern man’s brain as largest, Neanderthal’s as smallest and Piltdown’s as intermediate. In other words, so convinced were the scientists that the missing link must be found, that the interpretation they initially placed upon the findings erroneously confirmed their expectations.

Modern palaeontologists believe that Neanderthal was a contemporary of mankind; and that both of these groups made and used tools and inter-traded. There is an interesting correlation here between scripture and palaeontology, since the Bible also supports the simultaneous existence of mankind with a distinct hominid race which it identifies as Nephilim. There are very few references to these people in scripture but it is apparent that they were physically larger than humans59. This larger physical frame would have housed a brain larger than that of man, so it is possible that the Biblical Nephilim may have been the Neanderthal’s.

A new breed of evolutionist, supporting the punctuated equilibrium model, whilst not deserting the evolution theory is beginning to sound rather creationist in its approach, ‘the central inference of this model [punctuated equilibrium] was that most macro evolutionary change is not the result of slow and steady adaptive mutations as proposed by the orthodox, gradualist model. Rather, such change was predominantly the result of the abrupt creation of new species after long periods of inactivity60’ (my italics).

As this new mode of thinking is beginning to take hold, some startling statements are to be found in current evolutionist literature. Gould contends, for example: ‘what options are left in the face of geology’s most frightening fact … we may … accept the implications and learn to seek the meaning of human life, including the source of morality, in other, more appropriate domains … or we may continue to seek cosmic comfort in nature by reading life’s history in a distorted light61’ .

Sadly, many Christians have blindly dismissed the scientific evidence which provides support for the process of natural selection. They have often chosen to ignore the scientists who, of course, are sure to have a valuable contribution to make in the great debate. After all, we must face up to the fact that if God created a man from whom we are all descended, then some biological mechanism must exist to have produced the abundance of races which prevail upon the planet. Or, to put it another way, if we are all descended from the Biblical Adam (the Hebrew word for man), why are we all not the same colour?