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Index to Creationist Claims,  edited by Mark Isaak,    Copyright © 2005
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Claim CC003:

The knee of the "Lucy" fossil (the most complete Australopithecus afarensis fossil) was found over a mile away from the rest of the skeleton, so it cannot be used as evidence that Lucy walked upright. That evolutionists have never admitted this fact in print shows their dishonesty.

Source:

Willis, Tom. 1987. "'Lucy' goes to college," Bible-Science Newsletter (Oct.), 1-3.
Morris, John D. 1989. Was 'Lucy' an ape-man? Back to Genesis 11b (Nov.). http://web.archive.org/web/20041011063219/http://www.icr.org/pubs/btg-b/btg-011b.htm

Response:

  1. The claim is false. The skeleton called Lucy does not have an intact knee. A different, isolated knee fossil was found two to three kilometers away (Johanson and Edey 1981). Confusion over the two fossils apparently led to the false claim.

  2. Far from indicating evolutionist dishonesty, this claim shows how creationists fail to check their claims (Lippard 1999).

Links:

Lippard, Jim, 1999. Lucy's knee joint : A case study in creationists' willingness to admit their errors. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/knee-joint.html

References:

  1. Johanson, Donald C. and Maitland A. Edey, 1981. Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind. New York: Simon and Schuster.
  2. Lippard, Jim, 1999. (See above)
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created 2001-2-18, modified 2003-8-1