ND>I am *not* a scientist or philosopher; I just come here to relax (Hah!
ND>Strenuous life _I_ must have.) I remember several skulls and other various
ND>bones found all over the world, many of which were claimed ot belong to 
early
ND>half-men, missing links in evolution. There are two major flaws with these
ND>findings:
ND>1) Many bones turned out to be either bones of gorrilas, old men, or rare
ND>African tribes.
The creationist sources you are accessing are referring to findings
from nearly a century ago.  Most of what we know about the hominids
has been learned in the last 20 years or so.
ND>2) Why are there so few bones, when the evolutionary process took millions 
of
ND>years (supposedly)?
Fossilization is an extremely rare process.  It is now known that
at least the beginnings of fossilization can occur very quickly
(in a few years, IIRC), but the right conditions have to be present.
In the acidic soils of a jungle or forest, bones might not last even
a few seasons, and on the savannah they are often trampled and scattered.
The best situation seems to be when a dead animal sinks into a river
or lake and is covered quickly by sediments, creating an oxygen-poor
environment.  From the above you can understand why there are zillions
of fish fossils but hardly any ape fossils.
ND>3) I know I said two, but I just thought of another one. Why are there 
still
ND>many other primates around the world, but no neanderthals or half-man,
ND>half-gorrila beings?
Good question.  Apes are apparently better adapted to their
jungle environment than we are, which is probably why it's
only been in our century that they're becoming threatened.
As for the hominids, our ancestors may have killed off or simply
out=reproduced the others.  That is, we may have been competing
with them in a similar habitat, and we won.
Why does evolution favor weak humans? Apes are supposedly
ND>just as intelligent, but stronger.
Chimps are quite good at what some researchers call "Machiavellian"
thinking -- that is, the kind of social conniving we humans are
also good at.  Turn on any soap opera and you'll see a glimpse
of the daily life of chimps: it's mostly about who to mate with
and how to get them to agree, and how to achieve social status
or even social dominance.  Games and negotiations.  Chimps are
capable of deception, which clearly implies that they can model
the mental states of other chimps.
But where symbolic reasoning is concerned, it's no contest.
Much of that takes place in the neocortex, and a chimp's neocortex
is about 1/4 the size of ours.
Strength:  pound for pound, a chimp is about three times stronger
than a human.  This is because a chimp's muscles are attached
to the bones at a point slightly closer to the center of the
bone, which creates much better leverage.  Neandertals were
roughly twice as strong as H. sap.
Why does evolution favor weak humans?  Well, it doesn't.
Evolution favors whatever creature can adapt well to its
environment.  But most creatures are instinctively and
anatomically adapted to a specific environment, and they don't
do well outside of that environment.  Probably what were favored
in human evolution were thinking skills -- the ability to make
tools, shelter, fire, eventually clothing, etc.  This allowed
our ancestors to adapt to a wide range of environments, for example
ice-age Europe.  Anatomically modern humans now live in jungles
and well above the Arctic Circle and everywhere in between,
and we have even taken our environment with us into outer space.
Further, we are now so good at toolmaking that we have flipped the
equation around, so that now we force the environment to adapt
to us.  Unfortunately, this may yet cause our extinction, since
environments do not change as rapidly as we do.
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