# How do creationists explain away prehistoric humans? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 1, 2017, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-creationists-explain-away-prehistoric-humans/783522 "2017-04-01T18:58:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2017, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-creationists-explain-away-prehistoric-humans/783522/1 "2017-04-01T18:58:49Z")
I’m currently watching a fascinating documentary on Arte TV about the findings of a 25,000 year old burial of a female homo sapiens who carried a fetus with neanderthal features and DNA. This seems to prove earlier DNA findings that modern humans and neanderthals interbred. That lead me to the question in the title. Of course, everything is twisted in creationists’ argumentation, but I somehow can see how they brush away fossils of extinct animals by explaining them to be victims of the flood, but how do they reconcile neanderthals, homo erectus etc. with the Biblical accounts? There’s nothing about other human species in Genesis, if you don’t count the nebulous Nephilim or even farther fetched, angels and demons (though I wouldn’t be surprised if someone declared, say, [Lucy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_(Australopithecus)) to be a demon skeleton :rolleyes:). So what gives? ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2017, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-creationists-explain-away-prehistoric-humans/783522/2 "2017-04-01T19:06:27Z")
Oh fuck, WHOOSH, this was a mockumentary :eek::smack::D, I forgot the date, but my question still stands :). ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2017, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-creationists-explain-away-prehistoric-humans/783522/3 "2017-04-01T19:54:04Z")
It’s a good question. I once had a friend who, during a chat about life, revealed to me that he was raised as a fundie who believed that everything in the bible is literally true and that the earth is 4,000 years old, and blahblahblah. I asked your very question about human fossils and dinosaur fossils. His answer was: “God put them there to test us.” I responded with carbon dating, and he said that he didn’t believe in it. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2017, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-creationists-explain-away-prehistoric-humans/783522/4 "2017-04-01T20:15:55Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > It’s a good question. I once had a friend who, during a chat about life, revealed to me that he was raised as a fundie who believed that everything in the bible is literally true and that the earth is 4,000 years old, and blahblahblah. I asked your very question about human fossils and dinosaur fossils. His answer was: “God put them there to test us.” I responded with carbon dating, and he said that he didn’t believe in it. :smack: So they explain it by declaring ‘God is a dick’. Very clever and convincing :rolleyes:. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2017, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-creationists-explain-away-prehistoric-humans/783522/5 "2017-04-01T20:16:35Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > It’s a good question. I once had a friend who, during a chat about life, revealed to me that he was raised as a fundie who believed that everything in the bible is literally true and that the earth is 4,000 years old, and blahblahblah. I asked your very question about human fossils and dinosaur fossils. His answer was: “God put them there to test us.” I responded with carbon dating, and **he said that he didn’t believe in it.** :smack: I don’t know why he didn’t say “That’s part of the test”. _Everything_ is part of the test. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2017, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-creationists-explain-away-prehistoric-humans/783522/6 "2017-04-01T20:22:19Z")
When you are starting from the basis that a self-contractors book drawing liberally from other prior sources with varied interpretation that has been extensively translated and edited is the absolute authority of historical information even when contradicted by direct evidence and an often completely lack of factual veracity, you don’t need to “explain away” anything beyond arguing that it is all part of your central deity’s plan. The creationists who actually try to come up with explanations–and especially those attempting to use science-y wording or find small gaps in evidence and the fossil record to argue for a more vast case that all of evolutionary and geological science is completely wrong–are simple engaging in intentional deception and obtusity in the effort to protect their adopted superstition. The same is true for flat earthers, “Bigfoot” enthusiasts, UFO abductees, and adorators of Ayn Rand. It’s nothing new or unique, except that creationists have somehow managed to gain considerable influence over a formerly technologically-focused nation with major economic and military power, as well as a large nuclear arsenal. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2017, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-creationists-explain-away-prehistoric-humans/783522/7 "2017-04-01T20:37:37Z")
Good old Jack Chick dismissed Neanderthals as “victims of arthritis.” They didn’t _really_ look that way; we just found one poor old twisted-up guy, see… Slightly more modern creationists recognize Neanderthals as human, and pretty much stop there. The older fossils are just apes; Neanderthals are just people. They have nothing more to offer on the topic. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2017, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-creationists-explain-away-prehistoric-humans/783522/8 "2017-04-01T21:51:57Z")
“The scientists made up fakes”, “God put them there to test us” and “Satanic deception” are all favorite “explanations”. Basically it’s a religious variant of the conspiracy theorist mindset; _any_ evidence that comes to light supports the theory, if it _appears_ to contradict it that just shows how true the theory is or nobody would go to such effort to fake the evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2017, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-creationists-explain-away-prehistoric-humans/783522/9 "2017-04-01T22:19:00Z")
If you accept the idea that God can make things, it’s not that much of a stretch to the idea that God can make _really old_ things. ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2017, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-creationists-explain-away-prehistoric-humans/783522/10 "2017-04-02T00:57:43Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > I’m currently watching a fascinating documentary on Arte TV about the findings of a 25,000 year old burial of a female homo sapiens who carried a fetus with neanderthal features and DNA. This seems to prove earlier DNA findings that modern humans and neanderthals interbred. That lead me to the question in the title. Of course, everything is twisted in creationists’ argumentation, but I somehow can see how they brush away fossils of extinct animals by explaining them to be victims of the flood, but how do they reconcile neanderthals, homo erectus etc. with the Biblical accounts? There’s nothing about other human species in Genesis, if you don’t count the nebulous Nephilim or even farther fetched, angels and demons (though I wouldn’t be surprised if someone declared, say, [Lucy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_(Australopithecus)) to be a demon skeleton :rolleyes:). So what gives? The way we reconcile it is by pointing out the highly illogical nature of ASSUMING that certain processes remain the same for long periods of time. Evolutionists recognize (in theory) that this is a problem–but they just hand-wave it away, instead of actually doing something constructive. > [@](#): > > Organisms capture a certain amount of carbon-14 from the atmosphere when they are alive. By measuring the ratio of the radio isotope to non-radioactive carbon, the amount of carbon-14 decay can be worked out, thereby giving an age for the specimen in question. > > But that assumes that the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere was constant — any variation would speed up or slow down the clock. The clock was initially calibrated by dating objects of known age such as Egyptian mummies and bread from Pompeii; work that won Willard Libby the 1960 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. But even he “realized that there probably would be variation”, says Christopher Bronk Ramsey, a geochronologist at the University of Oxford, UK, who led the latest work, published today in Science. Various geologic, atmospheric and solar processes can influence atmospheric carbon-14 levels. > **[Carbon Dating Gets a Reset](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carbon-dating-gets-reset/)** > > Climate records from a Japanese lake are providing a more accurate timeline for dating objects as far back as 50,000 years And so we get things like this– > [@](#): > > Radiocarbon dating, which is used to calculate the age of certain organic materials, has been found to be unreliable, and sometimes wildly so - a discovery that could upset previous studies on climate change, scientists from China and Germany said in a new paper. > **[Many global warming studies may be wrong as carbon dating found to be highly...](https://www.scmp.com/tech/science-research/article/1856329/many-global-warming-studies-may-be-wrong-carbon-dating-found)** > > Radiocarbon dating, which is used to calculate the age of certain organic materials, has been found to be unreliable, and sometimes wildly so - a discovery that could upset previous studies on climate change, scientists from China and... The same issue applies to other types of radioactive dating. Anybody who understands this won’t trust any result unless the item being tested is of a known age by a reliable technique. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2017, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-creationists-explain-away-prehistoric-humans/783522/11 "2017-04-02T01:10:36Z")
And since radiocarbon dates aren’t always 100% accurate, that proves the Earth is 6000 years old. Man, those scientists are dumb. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2017, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-creationists-explain-away-prehistoric-humans/783522/12 "2017-04-02T01:13:53Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > The way we reconcile it is by pointing out the highly illogical nature of ASSUMING that certain processes remain the same for long periods of time. > > Evolutionists recognize (in theory) that this is a problem–but they just hand-wave it away, instead of actually doing something constructive. . . . Actually, scientists have long sought for any evidence that the laws of nature are variable, and have found little. The light from the farthest stars shows that the laws of chemistry are the same there (i.e., were the same billions of years ago.) The proportions of radioisotopes in minerals shows that the rate of nuclear decay has not changed in billions of years. It’s extremely clear that the laws of physics have not changed catastrophically in the last 6,000 years, putting the YEC crowd in a completely untenable position when they try to argue this kind of (weird) physical revision. Ultimately, it collapses into “Last Thursday-ism.” ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2017, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-creationists-explain-away-prehistoric-humans/783522/13 "2017-04-02T01:17:03Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > . . . The same issue applies to other types of radioactive dating. Anybody who understands this won’t trust any result unless the item being tested is of a known age by a reliable technique. That’s how isotope dating was established as valid in the first place: it was used (and continues to be used!) on items exactly as you describe, whose age is actually known by other techniques. That’s how the process is calibrated, and that’s how we know it really works. Did you imagine it relied only on abstract reasoning? ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2017, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-creationists-explain-away-prehistoric-humans/783522/14 "2017-04-02T11:10:27Z")
You really have to give a lot of credit to that Jehovahaha dude. He fabricated detailed geologic, astronomic, paleontologic data to test scientists’ faith. The detailed clading structure relating the DNA of different species is all a concocted scam. Gravity waves, the Higgs boson — all a trick, trying to make people atheists so he can send them to Hell. I think he spent more effort concocting all this fake evidence than he spent on his whirlwind 7-day creation. Yet for all his cleverness, Jehovahaha never guessed Eve would want Adam to pluck her apple. Women! Who can understand them? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2017, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-creationists-explain-away-prehistoric-humans/783522/15 "2017-04-02T11:57:57Z")
So, **Flyer** , are you saying that you believe that God is a liar? ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2017, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-creationists-explain-away-prehistoric-humans/783522/16 "2017-04-02T12:28:09Z")
One of the favorite phrases of fundies is “mystery,” like in “mystery of life,” “the mystery of God,” “the mystery of the cross,” etc. At that point, all investigation stops because you have reached something God didn’t intend for man to understand, just gaze in wonder at. Supposedly that’s a good thing. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2017, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-creationists-explain-away-prehistoric-humans/783522/17 "2017-04-02T16:40:06Z")
I’ve no objection to theological “mysteries.” There are things that Christians do not know about their God. Many ministers have said that the Trinity simply cannot be explained in terms we can comprehend. Where it rankles is when they try to say, “We don’t know…and neither do you,” and try to use that logic to prohibit the teaching of science in public schools. The “reasoning” they use, casting doubt on every possible link in the long chain of evidence, can be made to work against any form of knowledge. Christianity could not withstand that kind of hyper-critical assault. Hell, the existence of George Washington couldn’t bear up. (“What if his letters were written by someone else? What if he had died and been replaced by a cousin? We know the Cherry Tree story is a myth; why not the surrender at Yorktown?”) ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2017, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-creationists-explain-away-prehistoric-humans/783522/18 "2017-04-02T16:47:33Z")
Go faster in your frame of reference = time slows? Go slower in your frame of reference = times go faster? “IF” you are at the physical point of the center of the big bang, are you going slowest possible so all time frames are ??? :::: view-able knowable things made in one time reference when viewed from another are invalid? As a born & bread Roman Catholic I think both views are correct due to the frame of reference and the inability to properly or correctly describe actual combinations of time frames. Of course this is GusNSpot talking with a bit of a lack of sleep . ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2017, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-creationists-explain-away-prehistoric-humans/783522/19 "2017-04-02T17:47:25Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > The way we reconcile it is by pointing out the highly illogical nature of ASSUMING that certain processes remain the same for long periods of time. > > Evolutionists recognize (in theory) that this is a problem–but they just hand-wave it away, instead of actually doing something constructive. > > [Carbon Dating Gets a Reset | Scientific American](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carbon-dating-gets-reset/) > > And so we get things like this– > > [Many global warming studies may be wrong as carbon dating found to be highly unreliable for organic matter over 30,000 years old | South China Morning Post](http://www.scmp.com/tech/science-research/article/1856329/many-global-warming-studies-may-be-wrong-carbon-dating-found) > > The same issue applies to other types of radioactive dating. Anybody who understands this won’t trust any result unless the item being tested is of a known age by a reliable technique. My question is totally independent from carbon dating: first, I’m quite sure that most early human fossils are not dated by the C14 method, but by geological means, and second you could dig out Australopithecus fossils and claim they were buried last Tuesday, but that still doesn’t explain what an Australopithecus is/was, and why the Bible is quiet about it. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2017, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-creationists-explain-away-prehistoric-humans/783522/20 "2017-04-02T17:51:38Z")
I’m glad my church doesn’t worry about stuff like this. Shoot, in one of our stained glass windows, there’s a grouping of ancient figures from the past, one of which is a naked, hairy caveman sitting on a rock, carrying a club in one hand and gnawing on a bone held in the other hand. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-creationists-explain-away-prehistoric-humans/783522.md?page=2)