Is there agreement in the scientific community concerning the origins of man?
The general agreement on human origins can be summarised thus: The hominid lineage arose in Africa. We are primates, and our closest living relatives are chimps and bonobos. Sahelanthropus tchadensis, found in Chad, is one of the earliest ancestors known, very close to the split between the chimp and human lineages. For a picture of a skull and a description, see here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/toumai.html There are a variety of Australopithecine species represented in the fossil record; all of these species display a mixture of ape and hominid characteristics (e.g. their brain size was no larger than chimps and their faces were apelike, but they were bipedal and had teeth closer to our own than to apes), and the genus is considered to be ancestral to our own, although a lot of people enjoy arguing over exactly which species in that genus were ancestral. There is agreement that our ancestors were among the gracile australopithecines (that is, the smaller and more slender one
There is a general agreement in the scientific community that a general agreement of the scientific community doesn’t constitute proof of anything. Only the evidence matters. Science is not a democracy; no votes are taken. Anyone who tries to claim that something is true because there is a ‘consensus’ among the experts does not understand how science works. If you wish to prove the theory of evolution to someone then provide them with the evidence. There is plenty of it.
