I Love Lucy? | The Institute for Creation Research

I Love Lucy?

Download PDFDownload I Love Lucy? PDF

Lucy, to TV audiences of the 1950s and 1960s, was a spunky red-headed actress. To our more educated schoolchildren today, however, "Lucy" means something quite different. She is the celebrated fossil that appears in textbooks as a hairy, semi-naked, upright-walking ape striding boldly across a treeless African landscape. Her jaw is set and she leaves behind her a set of trailing footprints. As the unquestioned icon of human evolution, her fame is comparable to that of the former actress. Why is it that all public school children have heard of this fossil? Let us consider Lucy and her species, Australopithicus afarensis.

The human evolution story usually begins with the more primitive australopithocines (literally, "southern apes") that transition into the genus Homo (or human), through either Homo habilis or Homo erectus, depending on who you talk to. Homo habilis is a mixed taxon of both human and ape remains, and has fallen into disrepute. As for Homo erectus, a great many suggest this category be subsumed into Homo sapiens. Thus "Lucy" and the afarensis fossils occupy a critical place in the human evolution story, squarely between that of the truly apish australopithocines and humans.

Lucy's skeleton was about 40% complete and was a remarkable discovery when unearthed by Don Johanson in 1974. The creature would have stood 3.5 feet tall, about the height of a chimpanzee. Its skull was grossly ape-like, and also about the size of a chimp's, with very little in the way of human-like features. Lucy possessed very long fingers with a decided curve to them, like modern apes possess for tree-swinging activities. From other A. afarensis finds, it is believed Lucy possessed long toes with a curvature that also suggested prehensile and arboreal behavior. Lucy's upright-turned shoulder joint enabled suspensory behavior and her hands, wrists, and arms were powerfully prehensile. And so you ask, what makes Lucy such a great missing link? Angles of bones in the (reconstructed) hip joint and knee joint suggest that Lucy spent part of her time walking upright. That is as strong as the evidence gets that she was related to humans. Virtually no anatomists will support Johanson's claim that Lucy was a habitual upright walker, yet this is what most textbooks boast.

There is one more piece of evidence that has been used to argue that Lucy was an upright walker: the Laotoli footprints. In strata comparable in age to those from which Lucy came are a set of very well defined fossil footprints. Remarkably, anatomists are unanimously agreed that the footprints are indistinguishable from those made by modern man on a beach. Rather than admit this as evidence that man and Lucy lived side-by-side in the past, it is claimed that an ape like Lucy must have made the footprints because "we all know" that man hadn't evolved yet. This, despite the fact that it is almost inconceivable that an austro-lopithocine foot could have done it! It is only by circular reasoning that this can be admitted as evidence for human evolution yet this is exactly what is being done in our public schools today.

If you want to know why Lucy is hailed the greatest of missing links it is because she is the best the evolutionist can come up with! There can be no other explanation. It is a credit to an educational establishment that banks on the ignorance of taxpayers that Lucy remains a "missing link."

* At the time of publication, William A. Hoesch, M.S. geology, was an ICR Research Assistant in Geology.

Cite this article: Hoesch, W. A. 2006. I Love Lucy? Acts & Facts. 35 (7).

The Latest
NEWS
A ''40 million year old'' 100% European Gnat
Finding well-preserved creatures in amber1 is a landfall for creation scientists, much like the numerous discoveries of soft dinosaur tissue...

CREATION PODCAST
The Undeniable Power of Narrative | The Creation Podcast: Episode...
Science is objective. At least, that’s what we’re told. But there are inherent issues with this statement that can cause...

NEWS
Paintbrush of the Creator
Who doesn’t enjoy the amazing color patterns of butterflies?1,2 Such beautiful designs and construction do not reflect blind naturalistic...

NEWS
November 2024 ICR Wallpaper
"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 NKJV) ICR...

NEWS
Reformation Day, October 31
Five hundred years ago in Wittenberg, Germany, an unusual scholar changed the course of human history using pen and hammer. Dr. Martin Luther protested...

ACTS & FACTS
Creation Kids: Owls
by Sydney Walters and Susan Windsor* You're never too young to be a creation scientist and explore our Creator's world. Kids, discover...

ACTS & FACTS
RNA Hoops: When Circular Reasoning Makes Sense
If the regulatory picture of the genome were not complicated enough, over the past decade scientists have discovered another level of Darwinian-defying...

ACTS & FACTS
Gunnison National Forest: Adaptable Aspens and Warped Rocks
Gunnison National Forest’s 1.67-millionplus acres showcase stunning views of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. The Continental Divide forms its eastern...

ACTS & FACTS
Applying the Theory of Biological Design to Optimal Owl Flight
by Randy J. Guliuzza, P.E., M.D., and Aaron T. Guliuzza, P.E.*   If the greatest writers had been well-versed in fields of science,...

ACTS & FACTS
The Jaw-Dropping Design in Hawaii's State Fish
Hawaiians call their state fish the humuhumunukunukuapua’a, or humuhumu for short, and snorkelers marvel at its wild paint job as it flits...