However, this find provides good example of how speculative such discoveries are. By the 12th of July an article appeared in the Science / Nature section of BBC news on-line claiming the skull was not as it seems. In this on-line article, Dr Brigitte Senut of the Natural History Museum in Paris said the skull looked to her like the skull of an ancient gorilla. She told Reuters news agency that the creature's short face and small canines merely pointed to it being female and were not conclusive evidence of it being hominid. She also said "Moreover, other characteristics such as the occipital crest (the back of the neck where the neck muscles attach) ... remind me much more of a gorilla". The fact that experts can disagree about such a find lends weight to the early quote on this page about the similarity between ape and human skeletons.

What was also interesting was how the skull was dated at 7 million years old. In the Times of 11th July 2002 the article stated that the skull could not be dated by radio-active dating techniques, as there were no layers of volcanic ash near the skull which would normally provide the necessary argon and potassium for radio-active dating. As such, the skull was dated on the basis of the fossils found near it, which included "primitive" versions of elephants, giraffes, horses, rodents and monkey's. However, such dating techniques are based on an assumption of certain layers in the geological column corresponding to certain time periods. Such an assumption is based on a circular argument that evolution is true. If such dating techniques are wrong, then not only could the skull be a gorilla, rather than an early form of man, but it may also have come from a different time period. To top

Ramapithicus. This animal was long believed to be the 1st branch from that line of apes which evolved into man about 14 million years ago. Noted scientist Dr. Elwyn Simons stated confidently, "The pathway can now be traced with little fear of contradiction from generalized hominids - to the genus HOMO." The crucial importance of Ramapithicus as an early ancestor of hominids is evident in this comment by Simons in Time magazine (Nov. 7, 1977):- "Ramapithicus is ideally structured to be an ancestor of hominids. If he isn't, we don't have anything else that is." How true a statement! From what evidence are these conclusions drawn in the 1st place ? Once again a few teeth and a jaw bone. From this, many drawings have been made of Ramapithicus walking upright!

Renowned secular anthropologist Richard Leaky (American Scientist 1976, 64:174) stated that "The case for Ramapithicus as a hominid is not substantial, and the fragments of fossil material leave many questions open". Zilman and Lowenstein went even further by stating that "Ramapithicus walking upright has been reconstructed from only jaws and teeth".

The legitimacy of this ape has been sanctified by millions of textbooks and Time-Life volumes on human evolution. However, Harvard University paleontologist David Pilbeam, a hugely secular scientist summed up what all know is true (Science 82, April 6-7): "A group of creatures once thought to be our oldest ancestors may have been firmly bumped out of the human family tree. Many paleontologists have maintained that Ramamorphs are our oldest known ancestors. These conclusions were drawn from little more than a few jaw bones and some teeth. Truthfully, it appears to be nothing more than an orang-utan ancestor." To top

Neanderthal man.The first ape-man found in Darwin's day. In 1856, in the Neander Valley of Germany, a school-teacher discovered a skull cap, 2 femurs, 2 humeri and other fragments. A careful examination and description by Professor Schaafhausen reported them to be human and normal. Two years later, 2 similar skulls were found in Belgium. Subsequently over 60 parts of skeletons were found in 11 different countries. (Indeed, they are still being found-but more on that later).
In 1908, Professor Boule of The Institute of Human Paleontology in Paris declared Neanderthal an ape-man because of his low eye brow ridges and the stooped over posture of some of the specimens. This was to shape opinion and teaching for most of the 20th century. However, in 1950, things began to change. An embarrassing fact came out. Neanderthal man's brain capacity was larger than modern man's by over 200 cc's! One wonders if this fact would have been hidden if it had been 200 cc's less? Modern tests, including electron microscope scanning have proved that Neanderthal man, at least the stooped over ones, suffered from acute osteo-arthritis.
Now lets talk about modern excavations. So many Neanderthal skeletons have been found now that all evolutionists cringe from the name. Not only skeletons either. Stone tools and iron tools have been found in quantity. Not only that but the iron in the "London Artifact", which was found in the same age layer of rocks, shows a pureness that we can't duplicate today. Also, it was forged using chlorine in the process somehow as 2% of the iron content is chlorine. Chlorine wasn't "invented" by modern man until well into the 1900's!
Evolutionists have finally come up with a ready answer for their problems with Neanderthal man. They have decided he was an evolutionary dead-end. On what basis ? The fact that his brain cavity was 200 cc's larger than modern man's! Evolutionists couldn't have Neanderthal be a true man. After all, he had a larger brain size. That would mean evolution didn't work. If everything is a constant upward progression, Neanderthal just wouldn't do. Hence.... evolutionary dead-end. To top

Nebraska man.Hesperopithecus haroldcookii. Discovered in 1922 in the Pliocene deposits of Nebraska by a mysterious "Mister Cook" and made famous by Henry Osborn of the American Museum of Natural History. All Nebraska man originally consisted of was a tooth. This tooth was being heavily promoted by the press at the Scopes "monkey" trial in 1925 as irrefutable evidence of the animal ancestry of man. A "picture" of Nebraska Man and his wife were published in the London Daily News (picture right). All from a tooth! When other parts of the skeleton were found in 1927, it quickly became clear that it was nothing more than the tooth of an extinct pig! To top

Piltdown man.Eanthropus dawsoni or "Dawn man." Discovered in 1912 by Charles Dawson, a medical doctor and amateur palaeontologist who discovered a mandible and a small piece of a skull in a gravel pit near Piltdown England (picture left). The jaw-bone was ape-like but the teeth had human characteristics. The skull piece was very human-like. These 2 specimens were combined to form dawn man, which was supposedly 500,000 years old. However, the whole thing turned out to be an elaborate hoax. The skull was indeed human (about 500 years old) but the jaw was that of a modern ape whose teeth had been filed to look like human wear. The success of this hoax for 50 years, despite the scrutiny of the best authorities in the world, led Solly Zuckerman to say, "It is doubtful if there is any science at all in the search for man's fossil ancestry." Had the original bones been available for study, then this hoax would not have continued for as long as it did. It was not until 38 years after the bones had been "found" that the hoax was exposed. In 1953 Kenneth Oakley, Joseph Weiner and Wilfred Le Gros Clark realized that Piltdown man was a hoax. To top

Australopithecus.  Donald Johanson in his book "Lucy" refers to the "australopithecine mess" - and it definitely is that. The very word Australopithecus means "southern ape" because the first fossils were found in South Africa by Dr. Raymond Dart, professor of anatomy at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg.
Dart was convinced that some teeth were man-like and thus concluded it represented a transitional between apes and man. His opinions on the matter were largely scorned by the scientists of his time (1924) who considered it nothing more than a chimpanzee. The skull was soon known derisively as "Dart's baby". Perhaps no one has studied the australopithecines more than Sir Solly Zuckerman who wrote: "Evolution as a Process" in 1954: "There is indeed no question which the australopithecine skull resembles when placed side by side with specimens of humans and living ape skulls. It is the ape so much so that only detailed and close scrutiny can reveal any difference between modern ape and Australopithecus."  To top

Australopithecus afarensis. Commonly know as "LUCY" (picture right) - Discovered in 1974 by Donald Johanson was a half complete skeleton he named after the Beetle's song "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds". A year later 13 more similar skeletons were found. Remarkably the skull was even more ape-like than other australopithecines.

In his book "Lucy, The beginnings of Human Kind," Johanson said: I had no problem with Lucy. She was so odd that there was no question about her not being human. She simply wasn't. She was too little. Her brain was way too small and her jaw was the wrong shape. Her teeth pointed away from the human condition and back in the direction of apes. The jaws had the same primitive features."
On the basis of a hip and knee joint found later, however, Johnson "decided" that Lucy did walk in an upright bipedal fashion. He thus deduced Lucy was an ancestor of man, as well as an ancestor of A. africanus (the original Australopithecus). 

However, there are conflicting reports as to whether Lucy did actually walk upright. The following quote was taken from The Institute for Creation Research web-site.

"The features which suggest upright posture to Johanson are primarily the hip and knee joints, but numerous studies on the hip have shown otherwise. Oxnard, in his 1987 book, Fossils, Teeth and Sex (which contains an excellent summary of these various studies), claims that, "These fossils clearly differ more from both humans and African apes than do these living groups from each other. The australopithecines are unique" (p. 227). Evidently they could walk somewhat upright, as pygmy chimps do today, but not in the human manner at all". To top

Homo habilis.The taxon Homo habilis had an illegitimate birth when Mary Leakey discovered some badly shattered skull fragments in 1959. Her husband Louis made the comment that it was nothing more than a "damned australopithecine". His attitude soon changed however when he found stone tools near the site of Homo habilis. Jumping into the fire, he quickly named it Homo and publicized the find widely. He was soon discredited when other australopithecines were found in Africa, also with stone tools. Homo habilis was "demoted" to australopithecine. This didn't stop Leakey though. In 1964, he found four more specimens in Olduvai Gorge. These he claimed had bigger brains than Australopithecus and surely deserved to be classified as Homo habilis. Measurements of the cranial capacity were nearly impossible since the skulls were so badly crushed but, nonetheless, it was concluded that they averaged 642 cc's, or 200 cc's larger than Australopithecus and he considered that enough to make them Homo.

Not everyone was as enthusiastic as Leakey was about his new "handymen". Homo habilis was soon considered an empty taxon that was inadequately proposed.

New life was breathed into Homo habilis by Louis and Mary's son, Richard Leakey who was working in the Lake Rudolf area in Kenya. Leakey found numerous stone tools and 40 specimens of Australopithecus. Then, in 1972, he he made a discovery that was to shake the world of paleo-anthropology to it's foundations. He found the toolmaker his father had long sought in vain. Perhaps he found even more than he bargained for. He found several fossilized bone fragments of a skull which his wife Meave carefully assembled to make a nearly complete skull minus the lower jaw. The skull was named KNMER 1470 for its registration at the Kenya National Museum in East Rudolf.

The skull capacity was difficult to measure because of the condition of the assemblage but was estimated to be 800 cc's (later lowered to 750 cc's), much larger than so called ape-men skulls. There were only small eyebrow ridges, no crest and a domed skull typical of humans today. Indeed it appeared to be a human skull. Professor A. Cave who first demonstrated that Neanderthal man was completely human examined 1470 in London and concluded: "As far as I can see, typically human". In addition, Leakey found 2 complete femurs, a part of a third femur and parts of a tibia and fibula near the skull which he said "cannot be readily distinguished from Homo-sapien."

Let's talk about the dating of 1470. In 1969 samples of KBS tuft from just above the layer in which 1470 was found was sent to Cambridge University for potassium argon dating. Three different test gave an age of 220 million years old +or- 7 million years! This was considered unacceptable for for this strata given its fossil content, so the errors were blamed on "extraneous" argon. Several more tests were done, and the best, most acceptable date was placed at 2.61 million years old. In National Geographic of June 1973 Richard Leakey stated," Either we toss out the 1470 skull or we toss out all our theories of early man. It simply fits no previous models of human beginnings. 1470 leaves in ruin the notion that all early fossils can be arranged in an orderly sequence of evolutionary changes."

What was the problem? The problem, given the age of 2.61 myo, made 1470 contemporaneous with Australopithecus, if not older - yet looked identical to modern man. This absolutely unseated Australopithecus as ancestor of modern man!

In later lectures, Richard Leakey never made reference to 1470, preferring perhaps, to sweep it under the rug. However, in a PBS documentary in 1990 he stated, "If pressed about man's ancestry, I would have to unequivocally say that all we have is a huge question mark. To date, there has been nothing found to truthfully purport as a transitional specie to man, including Lucy, since 1470 was as old and probably older. If further pressed, I would have to state that there is more evidence to suggest an abrupt arrival of man rather than a gradual process of evolving." This from the world's foremost paleo-anthropologist! To top

Homo erectus (Java and Peking man). This specimen is undoubtedly the weakest link in the human evolution scenario. Shortly after Darwin published his Origin of the Species, a Dutch physician named Eugene Dubois, went in search of Pithecanthropus in Sumatra. Dubois had been a student of Ernst Haeckel, famous for his "biogenetic Law" that stated a human embryo went through a sequential evolutionary stage of its ancestors. It is now well known through medical science that this is far from true. What else is well known is that Haeckel falsified most of his data.

Having failed to get financial assistance from the Dutch government, Dubois enlisted in the French Foreign Legion to gain his goal. While in Sumatra, he heard about a skull found on the nearby island of Java. He was able to secure the skull and even found another like it at the same location. However, these skulls were too human looking to be of any use to someone looking for an ape-man. In 1891, he found a molar tooth along the Solo river. Later the same year, he found another molar and an ape-like skull cap. The following year he found a human femur 46 feet from where he found the skull cap (see picture left). Although at first he thought it was a chimpanzee skull, after consulting with Haeckel, he declared the whole collection to belong to one and the same creature, stating it was "admirably suited to the role of missing link".
This missing link arrived just in time to salvage Darwin's theory as it was under fire because of the total lack of transitional forms found or not found as the case was. By joining an ape skull with a human femur he had truly created an ape-man. He originally claimed that the strata he was working in was Pliocene but after discovering his ape-man, he decided it was really tertiary. We now know both to be false.
When taking his specimen on tour, he could not find a single legitimate scientist to chair any of his meetings. Nonetheless, newspapers and magazines embraced him wholeheartedly, even drawing many pictures of complete ape-men. As Dubois came under increasing attack, he became very secretive about his fossil finds - to the point of hiding them under his dining room floor and refusing to let them be examined. A few years before his death in 1940, Dubois finally admitted the skulls were in his opinion those of a large Gibbon. Evolutionists however refused to accept this and to this day it is still being taught as a transitional, though all modern scientists have debunked it.

The other fossil in the Homo erectus taxon is Peking man. An almost complete skull cap was discovered in 1929 in an in-filled limestone cave near Peking, China (now Beijing). This ape-like skull cap was similar to Java man. The cave continued to be investigated until the beginning of World War II. Fragments of 14 skulls, 12 lower jaws and 147 teeth were found. Also, several skeletons of modern man were found slightly higher. Once again, bone fragments were assembled from various places to form a skull. For example, the jaw bone came from a level 85 feet higher than the skull and face bones. After hiring a sculptor to model a woman's face from the made-up skull, the result was named "Nellie". Nellie has appeared in almost all textbooks.
As usual, at the site where "she" was found was found also numerous stone tools and evidence of butchery and fires. Recently, Chinese scientists have found over a 1,000 stone tools, the skulls of over 100 modern day animals, as well as 6 modern human skulls. The skulls and all fragments showed evidence of being shattered or broken in. In addition, a layer of ashes nearly 4 feet thick was found. The Chinese assume Homo erectus made these tools, despite the fact that the brain capacity of the put-together skulls was only that of a small chimp. The whole and complete modern human skulls found were completely discredited.

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Cave men (by Professor Donald DeYoung). There have always been cave dwellers on earth, including the present day.  Caves provide natural protection and climate control that long have been utilized worldwide by displaced or nomadic people, hunters, and settlers. There are dozens of cave references in the Bible, whether used as homes, hiding places, or tombs.  See Job 25: 9-11 for a description of mining for riches in a cave or shaft. One should not be misled by the false impression that early cave dwellers were primitive, ape-like creatures that were inferior to us. The early art (picture right) and tools often found in caves show that early inhabitants were intelligent and culturally refined.

There are certain hazards to living in a cave. The humidity, darkness, and cool temperatures can aggravate health problems such as arthritis. This may be the reason why the remains of some early cave dwellers show them possibly to have been stooped over with bone disease. However, these fossil remains do not necessarily date back to ancient "prehistoric" times.  In the creation view, bones and artifacts from cave areas date from relatively recent post Flood times as people explored the new, unfamiliar landscape. This view places existing caveman evidence within the last four or five thousand years.

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Skin colour How did different skin colour arise from one couple, if we were to believe a literal Biblical story of all nations arising from one couple.See also How did different skin colors come about?

With regards to skin colour, we all have similar skin, but the colour of our skin depends on the amount of melanin in the skin. Black people have lots of melanin in their skin and white people only a little. If two people with brown skin both from mixed black and white parentage have children, the children can be any of thirteen different colours, ranging from black to white ("Origin of the races," Mackay). Thus, if the first human couple were brown skinned,  in one generation one could have a full spectrum, or nearly so, of skin colours. One can imagine that in several generations, if people tended to choose partners of similar skin colour and then related groups migrated to different parts of the world, one could have the start of different races. Dietary and climatic differences could help contribute to further differences within groups. The process of meiosis can be involved in shuffling around of genes for various attributes, including skin colour.

John Mackay in his video "History of man" suggested that the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel (The Bible, Genesis chapter 11) is the time and place where not only different languages originated, but also where "tribal" groups with similar languages migrated to different part of the world. If this story is true and if different languages were given to different family or tribal groups with similar colouring and features, then could this have been the origin of the different races we know today?

The above may seem difficult to believe but do black people turn white after several generations in a less sunny climate? Do white people turn black after several generations in a sunny climate? The theory of Evolution would teach us that skin colour arose in response to the environmental conditions in different part of the world.

If you are interested in DNA relatedness with respect to the origin of man, the please go to the homology page.

If you are a Scientist and want to take up the challenge of making a man, then please go to the "make a man" page. To top

Spirit and soul of man

The article below by Dr Dennis Bonnette explores whether Darwinian evolution can explain the evolution of the spirit and man from ape ancestry. 

Natural Reason Shows Darwinian Naturalism Wrong

Quite aside from experimental science arguments about evolution, unaided natural reason proves that atheistic evolution is false regarding one of its most important claims – the origin of man himself. We need not study paleoanthropology to realize that true human beings could not be merely the product of purely materialistic evolution – and this for two clear reasons.  

First: Formation of Universal Concepts Proves Human Spirituality  

Everyone knows that mankind exceeds all the other animals of Earth by possession of culture, religion, technological progress, art, politics, and science. Some evolutionists would claim that lesser animals, especially lower primates, bear some vague analogy to these attributes, but everyone really knows that such claims push the boundaries of credibility. Still, how do we prove that man’s possession of these qualities is truly unique to him alone and that they place him qualitatively and essentially superior to all brute animals? We can show that such properties are uniquely possessed by man because man alone has both sense and intellective powers, while brute animals possess only sense powers and not intellect. This conclusion is demonstrated in my Ape-Language Studies page on this web site.  

Man exhibits intellect by his ability to form universal concepts, make judgments, and reason. We shall focus here on the manner in which universal concepts clearly manifest properties that are strictly spiritual in nature – unlike the images which are found in sense knowledge and which are shared by lower animals.  

Can you imagine a man or a triangle? Of course, you can. Now try to imagine humanity or triangularity. You cannot do it. Whatever image you have of a man or even of many men does not fulfill the universal concept which expresses the essence of every man in every age in every part of the globe. Whatever triangle you imagined (probably an equilateral one) presents the shape and sensible appearance of only a single triangle or perhaps a few of them, but not the essence of the three-sided plane figure that can be expressed in potentially infinite shapes, sizes, and appearances. Images are always concrete, singular, particular, sensible, and imaginable. In contrast, the universal concept (1) entails no sensible qualities whatever, (2) can have varying degrees of extension when predicated, and (3) is entirely unimaginable. Indeed, for most words or meanings, you have no “proper” image. What image do you have for words, such as, “inequality,” “amortization,” or even “the?” Words express meanings, not pictures. Most words are associated only with arbitrary physical sounds or phonetic spellings that fit only the language of the speaker. Translation is based on communication of meanings (essences), not sounds or written words. Animals may make word-like sounds or signs; but man alone understands the words he says or writes.  

The distinction between image and concept manifests the radical difference between the material and spiritual orders. Images cannot escape the individuating, quantifying conditions of matter – and that is why they are always of this particular thing with these sensible qualities: this single black, tall, male, old man or that blue, scalene, three-foot tall triangular plaster statue. Concepts manifest their spiritual nature because, though they express the essence of every man or triangle, they have the particular sensible qualities of none. It is the ability to form concepts that is the basis for human possession of genuine language, and the ability to translate from one language into another the same meanings that constitute our understanding of the nature of things. Brute animals are forever restricted to manipulation of sense images that grasp merely the sensible appearances of things, not their intrinsic natures. This is more fully explained on my Ape-Language page.  

Because man can form these universal spiritual concepts, he must possess some spiritual component in his nature. Mere matter can never give rise to true spirit because the lesser can never give rise to the greater.  

Second: Human Free Will Proves Human Spirituality  

Does anyone seriously think that no one on Earth has ever done a really evil act rightly deserving of punishment of some sort? Would we totally exonerate Stalin, Hitler, and Bin LadEn from all their crimes against humanity? If not, we have just implicitly recognized the existence of human freedom. To hold anyone responsible for something he could not avoid doing would be entirely unjust and contrary to reason. Since we do hold some evil-doers responsible for their heinous misdeeds, we must realize that some of them, some of the time at least, committed evil acts they need not have committed. That is to say, they were free to not do these acts, but chose to do them anyway.  

What does freedom’s existence imply? Purely material things are absolutely determined by their natures to act in a predetermined manner. The entire order of natural science depends on physical things acting strictly according to their physical natures. Thus sodium tends by nature to combine with chlorine, birds seek worms, fish swim, and so forth. Even brute animals, acting on the variegated dynamism of constantly changing sensible objects, still respond instantly to the immediate stimuli – without freely choosing their objects. That is why we may put a dangerous dog to sleep, but we do not accuse it of being morally reprehensible for its behavior.  

But man acts with true freedom, bearing the consequent awesome responsibility for his acts. Hence, man is not bound by purely material forces and must possess some spiritual component in his nature. And, as noted above in the case of man’s formation of spiritual universal concepts, mere matter can never give rise to true spirit because the lesser can never give rise to the greater.  

Therefore, both from the fact that man forms spiritual concepts and from the fact that he acts with genuine freedom, it follows that human nature possesses a spiritual component which mere material evolutionary processes could never explain, precisely because they are merely material forces and mere matter cannot produce true spirit. Moreover, these spiritual components are at the very center of our humanity because man is distinguished from lower animals by his intellective knowledge and freedom of choice.  

God Alone, Not Materialistic Evolution, Must Create Man’s Spiritual Component  

Since the lesser cannot give rise to the greater, mere matter cannot account for spirit – regardless of how the material forces of nature interact in any proposed evolutionary scheme. But a central spiritual component (soul or spirit?) does exist in man as shown above. Since every man is born into this world, every man has a beginning in time, and hence, his spiritual component requires a cause. But pre-existing matter cannot be an adequate cause for new spiritual reality. Only spirit can beget spirit. Human parents may form the material components of a new human being, but they do not produce that spiritual component which comes from no pre-existent matter. Rather, such spirit simply begins to be from no prior state of being. That is, it is created from nothing. Only an infinite power can create from nothing. And an infinite power must reside in an Infinite Being, namely, God.  

Darwinian materialistic evolution fails its most crucial test – for it cannot adequately account for the origin of the most perfect of all living organisms: Man. Adequate explanation of human origins cannot be had unless God Himself directly intervenes in the order of nature, by an individual act of creation in the production of each human being.  To top

Suggested reading

Books - These do not focus specifically on the contents of this page, but all will have some content of direct relevance to this page. All these books can be bought on- line.

Creation Facts Of Life, by Dr Gary Parker.

Darwinism And The Rise Of Degenerate Science, by Dr Paul Back.

Darwin's Black Box, by Professor Michael Behe..

Darwin's Enigma, by Luther Sunderland

Evolution, A Theory In Crisis,by Dr Michael Denton.

Evolution, The Fossils Still Say No, Dr Duane Gish..

Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth?: Why Much of What We Teach about Evolution is Wrong, by Jonathan Wells

The Fossil Book (Wonders of Creation), by Gary Parker, Mary Parker.

The Naked Emperor: Darwinism Exposed, by Antony Latham

On-line articles

Are there apemen in your ancestry?

A shrinking date for ‘Eve’

Did Lucy walk upright?

Homo erectus 'to' Modern Man: Evolution or Variability?

How did different skin colors come about

The Human Fossils still Speak

Skull wars: new ‘Homo erectus’ skull in Ethiopia

The non-transitions in ‘human evolution’ — on evolutionists’ terms.

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On-line videos

Agreements: Between Evolutionists and Creationists
3:53 mins.

The Ape-Man: Missing Link
2:26 mins.

DNA: Human & Chimpanzee DNA
1:23 mins.

Videos to buy

Origin of the races

The education debate

The World Of Living Fossils

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