How countless are Your works, Lord! In wisdom You have made them all; the earth is full of Your creatures. Here is the sea, vast and wide, teeming with creatures beyond number— living things both large and small. (Psalm 104:24-25)
On January 30, 2017, BBC News published an article entitled “Scientists find ‘oldest human ancestor,'” which suggests that humans evolved from other life forms.
Notice how many times conjectural words such as “thought to,” “probably,” “may,” “we think,” “suggests,” “conclude,” and “might” appear in this short article.
Artist’s reconstruction of Saccorhytus coronarius, based on the original fossil finds. The actual creature was probably no more than a millimetre in size
From these conjectures, scientists assert this creature to be the “earliest known ancestor of humans.”
Researchers have discovered the earliest known ancestor of humans – along with a vast range of other species.
They say that fossilised traces of the 540-million-year-old creature are “exquisitely well preserved”.
Notice here they even call this a “creature.” This infers a Creator.
The microscopic sea animal is the earliest known step on the evolutionary path that led to fish and – eventually – to humans.
Details of the discovery from central China appear in Nature journal.
The research team says that Saccorhytus is the most primitive example of a category of animals called “deuterostomes” which are common ancestors of a broad range of species, including vertebrates (backboned animals).
Saccorhytus was about a millimetre in size, and is thought to have lived between grains of sand on the sea bed.
Saccorhytus was also covered with a thin, relatively flexible skin and muscles. It probably moved around by wriggling
The researchers were unable to find any evidence that the animal had an anus, which suggests that it consumed food and excreted from the same orifice.
The study was carried out by an international team of researchers, from the UK, China and Germany. Among them was Prof Simon Conway Morris, from the University of Cambridge.
He told BBC News: “To the naked eye, the fossils we studied look like tiny black grains, but under the microscope the level of detail was jaw-dropping.
“We thinkthat as an early deuterostome this may represent the primitive beginnings of a very diverse range of species, including ourselves. All deuterostomes had a common ancestor, and we think that is what we are looking at here.”
Degan Shu, from Northwest University in Xi’An, Shaanxi Province, where the fossils were found, said: “Saccorhytus now gives us remarkable insights into the very first stages of the evolution of a group that led to the fish, and ultimately, to us.”
Until now, the deuterostome groups discovered were from between 510 to 520 million years ago. These had already begun to diversify into not just the vertebrates, the group to which we and our ancestors belong and animals such as starfish and sea urchins.
Because they looked so different from one another, it was difficult for the scientists to determine what an earlier, common ancestor might have looked like.
The study suggests that its body was symmetrical, which is a characteristic inherited by many of its evolutionary descendants, including humans.
Saccorhytus was also covered with a thin, relatively flexible skin and muscles, leading the researchers to concludethat it moved by contracting its muscles and got around by wriggling.
The researchers say that its most striking feature is its large mouth, relative to the rest of its body. They say that it probably ate by engulfing food particles, or even other creatures.
Also interesting are the conical structures on its body. These, the scientists suggest, might have allowed the water that it swallowed to escape and so might have been a very early version of gills.
None of this, however, definitely connects this creature to any other. How could they when as stated in Genesis, all things reproduce after their own kind.
“So God created the large sea-creatures and every living creature that moves and swarms in the water, according to their kinds. He also created every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, ‘Let the earth produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that crawl, and the wildlife of the earth according to their kinds.’ And it was so. So God made the wildlife of the earth according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and creatures that crawl on the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1:21, 24, 25)
This story is another example of sensationalism. Mostly speculation and assertion.
