Creationist rejects discovery of 2.8 million-year-old jawbone: Were scientists there?

An Australian creationist dismissed the recent discovery of a jawbone fossil that pushes back the origins of humanity by half a million years.

The fossil, which scientists say is 2.8 million years old, appears to be from a previously unknown species that represents the earliest known member of the human lineage.

Tas Walker, a geologist from Creation Ministries International, said in an interview with Australia's 693-AM that he doesn’t trust scientific dating methods because researchers deliberately skewed their findings.

“Every dating method is based on assumptions about the past, and so you choose the dating method to get the date the sort of date to fit in with where it is and you select the results that fit in with your research program,” Walker said.

Besides, the creationist said, there is only one scientific authority.

“The only way to reliably know the age of something is by eyewitness reports,” Walker explained. “That’s how I know my age, that’s how you know your age, and basically the Bible gives us an eyewitness report -- people who were there from the beginning that’s recorded down, and it’s about 6,000 years old.”

Walker said he acknowledges the jawbone’s discovery, but he disputes scientific conclusions about its significance.

“The argument, or the differences, is over the interpretation – and the evolutionary interpretation is based upon basically a belief system that evolution happened,” he said. “So it’s just plugged into that belief, it’s a whole framework.”

Walker argued that evidence suggested the jawbone proves the biblical account of the flood.

“These particular fossils, this jawbone in Ethiopia, it’s found there within sediment that’s classified as Pliocene, 2.8 million years old, according to the evolutionary model,” he said. “But that would be very, very late flood, most likely, and these would be the remains of creatures that perished, and this is just the remains of the carcasses being buried as the floodwaters were receding right toward the very end of that event.”