Pygmies used to illustrate link between man and ape

Mustafa Akyol, a thoughtful Muslim active in the ID controversy, sends this note about a French film called Man to Man, described as "An epic about anthropologists who hunt and capture pygmies for study back in Europe, in an attempt to illustrate the link between man and ape."

Mustafa writes,

The film is really interesting: The pygmies are brought to England and some "scientists" examine them. Based on skull size and other features, they soon decide that this is a "sub-species" and a "missing link" between ape and man. They put these people in cages and a kind of zoo and present to the public by using the same "missing link" concept. At some point one of the pygmies become pregnant and one "scientist" decides to operate on her to reach take embryo while it is in its 3 or 4 months, in order to see the unborn stage of this "species". There are many interesting scenes like that.

Speaking as a small person, I am always intrigued by the assumption that small people might be a different species somehow. This came out in the controversy surrounding the recent find of Flores man (homo Florensiensis) of Indonesia 18 000 years ago, who was only a metre (39 inches) tall. Some insisted that Flores must be a different species, on account of small size. But I have seen perfectly formed women on the streets of Toronto who are less than 45 inches tall. Heaven knows, those ladies must get all their clothes made to order but, perhaps for that very reason, they almost always seem very well dressed .....

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

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