Lucy in the sky .... to Texas? But she ain't yo' granny.

Hope you saw the hot news today that Lucy, the famed Australopithecus afarensis fossil oft claimed as part of human ancestry, recently landed in Houston, Texas. There is such a furor about removing Lucy from her (his?) resting place in Ethiopia that several American museums have refused to show the fossil.

If you want to read a bit about Lucy, here is the link where I got the free picture:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecus_afarensis

The Houston, Texas, exhibit is described by Monica Rhor of Associated Press ("Lucy makes her debut", August 28, 2007):

After passing through the rooms devoted to Ethiopian history, visitors enter three dimly lit chambers. In the first two, the exhibit focuses on the prehistoric era and asks: What is our origin? What is our purpose?

In the third, a darkened circular room, they meet Lucy.

Her skeleton, laying flat inside a sleek glass and black case, is dusted by soft lighting. Around her, a 78-foot-long mural tells the story of 6 million years of human evolution. Near the fossil, a life-size model of what Lucy might have looked like stands encased in her own glass enclosure, observing the viewer with a half-smile.

Wow! I'm 'a thinkin' this evolution thing is really a done deal. Our origin! Our purpose! Denial is obviously only for the anti-realists. When you are finally ushered in to her very presence, she even half-smiles!

Well, the story is not all told here, I fear.

I will try to shorten it and make it quick, since I need to get to Woodco and get some cedar chips for the play yard before they close.

Here is a quote from Australopithecine authority Charles Oxnard of University of Western Australia, who says: "The genus Homo may, in fact, be so ancient as to parallel entirely the genus Australopithecus, thus denying the latter a direct place in the human lineage" (Charles E. Oxnard, "The place of the australopithecines in human evolution: grounds for doubt?" Nature 258 ( 4 December 1975):389).

Though merely a retired engineer, I think I read that paleospeak correctly to say that Lucy ain't yo' granny. Lucy is simply representative of an extinct hominid (or simian).

By the way, Martin Lubenov (Bones of Contention, Baker Book House, 1992, pp. 166-167) discusses how evolutionists try to slip afarensis Lucy's family cousin Australopithecus africanus into the human family tree. "Partridge's evidence for the recent date for africanus has not been adequately addressed by evolutionists. Since he presented his evidence twenty years ago (almost 35 years ago now. D.U.), evolutionists now feel free to ignore it. The more serious problem for africanus is that fossils identical to those of modern humans parallel the entire history of africanus. Thus africanus cannot be our ancestor. Some evolutionsists, such as Oxnard, are open enough to admit it."

So there you have it. Despite the glitzy and smooth Lucy exhibition now camping in Houston, Lucy ain't yo' granny. Neither is her cousin africanus.

I'm not sure if there is an updated edition of Lubenov's book, but it is a great read. Mine has about 30 dog-ears where I stopped reading to get all the way through it more than a decade ago. But worth it it was. Hope you can get your hands on a copy.

Oh, and by the way, there is no such thing as a "prehistoric era" referenced in the first two dimly lit exhibit chambers. God gives whatever history of the world that we need, beginning with "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1, Holy Bible). We have the history right - right from the beginning.

Respectfully submitted,

D.U.