Lucy Complete

One of the most “famous” of all the ape/human ancestors, “Lucy”!
Is she a missing link?  What does the actual evidence support?

The “star” of the show, ‘Lucy!’
A while back a friend of mine posted information that I use in my talk on human evolution on his Facebook page.  Well, it certainly lit up my page!   We had LOTS of visitors come, some friendly and some . . . well, not so friendly.  (I’m trying to be gracious.)
You just can’t believe the number of “haters” there are in the world.  It just blows my mind but the experience served as a reminder for me that just because I disagree with someone doesn’t mean that they’re deserving of the “Wrath of Khan.”
When folks get wound up about what  I teach all I can do is share the sources that I use and let them do more research for themselves to see if what I’ve said is true or not. 
Please allow me to lay the ground rules before I go any further.  In this article we’re going to check out the actual evidence to see if it supports what we see depicted in  museums, television programs, movies and magazines.
What I’ll do is show the photographs and/or video of the actual evidence that was found for Lucy and I won’t use any  “Christian” sources.  We will only use video clips  and/or images from secular sources to back up what is being claimed.
Even though I am a creationist, I believe that it’s important that we show that we don’t have to use “Christian” or “creationist” materials to back up our position.
As adults who are solid in our faith we should be teaching a generation “how” to apply their faith in the world that we live in.   When we do this, amazing things happen.  It’s so much fun to watch someone who has been trained to apply the Bible in their everyday life because they can turn the world into a classroom!  They can then go into any zoo, museum or aquarium and turn it into a “creationist” facility!
So, let me give you some of the information that I use when given the opportunity to share about our supposed evolutionary ancestor, Lucy.  If you’re struggling with whether the evidence has “proven” that human evolution has occurred, I pray this will challenge you to think!
UPRIGHT WALKING FEMALE ANCESTOR TO HUMANS?
Whenever we go to museums or see pictures of Lucy in articles ‘she’ is depicted as an upright-walking, apelike ancestor, essentially a missing link between man and ape.

Lucy and her husband out for a stroll!
My first thought when I see this depiction is this has to be a “missing link!”  I mean look at it.  From the neck up, that’s not a very attractive woman, that’s an ape.
But, from the neck down?  Well, that’s a woman.  The only problem was that when she had a bad hair day, it was all over her body and that’s not good for a lady!
WAS SHE EVEN A SHE?

When you do any research you will always see Lucy reconstructed as a ‘she’.  However, in the March, 1996 edition of  Discover Magazine you’ll find an article entitled, “Ludwig in the Sky With Diamonds.”   Here it was revealed that two German scientists discovered that Lucy wasn’t a ‘she’, but was a ‘he’! 
These scientist even suggested that we rename the iconic fossil and one of the names that they suggested was ‘Lucifer’.  Hmmm! 
Pretty ironic, but completely  accurate seeing that this set of bones has been used more to cause people to doubt the existence of God than probably any other fossil.
To keep things easy and since most people have been taught that this set of bones belonged to a female we’ll call her “Lucy” throughout the article.
It’s important to note that Lucy is a single specimen within the Australopithecus afarensis kind.  Yes, there have been other bones found that have been classified within the Australopithecus afarensis, but Lucy is a single individual within that species.  You can see the fossil evidence below.

My goal in this article is to show you that the claims of Lucy being a “missing link” are not supported by the  actual ‘observational’ evidence.  The truth is that in order to support the claim that Lucy is a “missing link” there is a LOT of  speculation that must be used.
WHAT ABOUT HER SKULL?
Let’s start with a simple example.  Take a look at the actual fossil evidence  for Lucy to the left.  Please notice how much of the actual skull was discovered.
Can you see that there are only 7 bone fragments, that’s it!  
 
WHAT ABOUT THE RECONSTRUCTION?
Now, let’s go into the museum and take a look at the reconstruction of those 7 pieces and see how they are being shown to the masses.

So, the question is:
DOES THE EVIDENCE SUPPORT THIS RECONSTRUCTION?
I believe that there is a lot of bias required to get the above reconstruction and that the reconstruction isn’t supported from just 7 scraps of bone.  Please allow me show you from a secular source that the interpretation isn’t consistent with what was found.

In 1994 PBS released a documentary entitled, “In Search of Human Origins.”   In this documentary the man who discovered Lucy, Dr. Don Johanson, and his team share what the evidence for Lucy supposedly supports.  
One of the team members, Bill Kimbel, tells us:
“The world has been waiting for a complete skull of Lucy’s species for a long, long time. And it’s going to take a great deal of work to assemble it, to see what the brain size might be, what the relationships might be between the various components of the skull, but even already, we can see that as we assemble larger pieces from smaller pieces, joining them together, we’re beginning to get a fairly impressive picture of a species that has a very ape-like face with big protruding brow ridges, very ape-like.”  (Highlight mine!)
Did you notice that he said her skull was not just “ape-like”, but that it was “very ape-like” in appearance?  Please look at a reconstruction of Lucy from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.  

Now, take a look at an ape and you tell me if the reconstruction above fits with what Bill Kimbell said about it and what the actual, physical evidence supports.

What can you see just from these two photo’s?  

1.  The eyebrow ridges on reconstructions of Lucy are never depicted “very apelike” as Bill Kimbell said they were!  We’ll talk more about that later.
2. How about, the teeth?  Did the Lucy fossil have teeth like a chimp or like a human?

The answer is . . . we don’t know because none of the canine teeth were found for Lucy.  Please take a look at the actual evidence that was found again. 

Do you see any canine teeth?  No!  There are a few teeth on the lower jaw, but no canines.  If this is the actual evidence, how can they know that she had smaller canine teeth?  Depicting smaller canines on the museum reconstruction is not because of the physical evidence for Lucy.  It is because of a belief that “she” is an evolutionary ancestor to humans that this reconstruction is shown in this manner.
WHAT ABOUT HER HANDS AND FEET, WERE THEY HUMANLIKE?
Remember, the best way to deal with these issues is to show the actual fossil evidence and let it speak for itself.  So, let’s just show the evidence again.

We can knock this out pretty easily.  Do you see any hand or foot bones for Lucy?  The answer is, “No!”  and that’s because they didn’t find any from the specimen called Lucy.  But they did find some hand and foot bones from her “relatives!”  Hang on, we’ll get to that.
Now, please notice the reconstructions below.

Do you notice that Lucy’s hands are depicted the same as a human hand.  Does the empirical evidence support that reconstruction?  Again the answer is an emphatic “No!”
How do they know that “she” had human hands when they have no hand bones?
But, wait!  They did find the hand bones from the relatives.  That being the case, the question is:
DID THE ACTUAL EVIDENCE FOUND FROM LUCY’S COUSINS SUPPORT THE HUMAN HAND/FEET RECONSTRUCTION?

That’s an excellent question, so let’s see if we can’t give an excellent answer!
If you were to answer that question based on what you see in text books and in museums, you’d have to say they looked human.  Seriously, take a look at her to the left in the London Museum of Natural History.
Come on, why’s she doing the pledge of allegiance in London?  I know, it’s with the wrong hand, but hey, this was before we had the Pledge of Allegiance.
Or the St. Louis reconstruction the you saw above where “Lucy” has her hand on her chin as if she’s thinking about, “What to make for dinner?”
Or, if you really want to see someone who has put a lot of time and effort into imagining what “Lucy” looked like, you can go to Japan where you will see something that blew me away.
In full disclosure, I had to Photoshop the dress on “Lucy” because they show her totally naked walking down the dirt path, with lunch in her hand of course.  You can tell from what

I’ve not covered up she has a totally human physique including the human hands and human feet AND no hair on her body!
By the way, how do they know how much hair something had on its body from just the bones?  Seriously, you can KNOW that from just the bones?  No, the evidence does not support that.
Do you notice how different each of these four reconstructions are?  The reason they are so different is because everyone is guessing at what she looked like.
A while back I was blessed to be able and take over 150 young folks through the David Koch Hall of Human Origins exhibit at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.. 
I lectured these young men and women for almost 3 hours on the various supposed ancestors and what the actual evidence was.  We then we took off for the museum.  Lucy was a star attraction, and yes, she was depicted with human hands and human feet.  
Remember, this is supposed to be the latest and greatest and most up-to-datest exhibit in the world and it’s inaccurate.
These are just a few of the thousands of false reconstructions that we see in  museums, TV shows, magazine articles, etc.?  Christians, as well as non-christians, need to know the truth.
So let’s quit “guessing” and take a look at what the actual evidence supports because believe me, all of the movies and reconstructions that we see around us can be quite deceiving if you don’t know what the actual evidence is.
Here’s the truth?  Below is a chart comparing the curvature of the fingers between, Bonobo (type of chimpanzee), Chimpanzee, Gorilla, Human and AL333 (australopithecine specimen).  The further to the right the dark line is, the more curved the finger. 
Please notice that the circle with the dot inside are Lucy’s “cousins.”  It shows that their fingers were just as curved, if not more curved than a chimpanzee.  Hmmm, that’s not good!

(J. Stern & R. Susman, 1983, Am. J. Phys. Anthropology 60:279-212)
Allow me to give you one more source  showing that Australopithecine hand bones are NOT human.  Please pay attention to the write-up below the picture.

“Description
“This cast of an Australopithecus afarensis hand shows the characteristic long, curved finger bones. These are more like the hands of living apes than they are modern human hands. The cross section of the finger bones is also squarish, indicating either a partly arboreal lifestyle or that this is a primitive feature retained after they moved into a more terrestrial lifestyle.” reference: australianmuseum.net.au
Anything jump out at you??  How about the line,
“These are more like the hands of living apes than they are modern human hands.”
If that’s true, why do we always see human hands on the Lucy reconstructions?
HOW ABOUT THE FEET?
The exact same thing is true when it comes to the toes of Lucy.  Take a look at the picture below to see how Lucy’s foot was depicted at the St. Louis Zoo exhibit entitled the Living World.

Do you notice that Lucy’s feet are are shown to be exactly the same as a human’s.  Seriously, a little “Nair” would solve the rest of the problem, but that is a human foot!
I ask again, does the empirical evidence support that reconstruction?  The answer is, “No!”  How do they know that “she” had human feet when they have no foot bones?
What’s the truth?  Let’s go back to the secular sources and see what we can find.  Please notice the chart below clearly shows that the toes of Lucy’s “cousins” was actually more curved than a chimpanzee.

(J. Stern & R. Susman, 1983, Am. J. Phys. Anthropology 60:279-212)
So, who truly is lying? Me, for pointing out the false claims, or the myriad of other reconstructions and depictions with false information?
I know that there are still those that will not agree, (Because I’ve already heard from many of them.) so I’ll give one more secular source on this issue to support the fact that Lucy did NOT have human hands and human feet.  Ian Tattersall is not a creationist.  In his book, “Extinct Humans” he writes the following:

Did you catch that last part?  “In keeping with Lucy having had long and strongly curved finger and toe bones, as do chimpanzees and orangutans”!
I rest my case.  If you see human hands and human feet on Lucy, you are being lied to!
WHAT ABOUT LUCY’S KNEE?
Every year we see headlines bolding declaring the the “missing link” has been found, only for it to disappear a few months later.  But not Lucy, she’s been with us for quite a long time now so it must be a “link”.
Previously I mentioned the NOVA television program, “In Search of Human Origins” with Dr. Don Johanson.  In there he made the following statement,
“The hours passed. No one thought of sleep, we had so much to do. Then we looked at the knee. It was modern, human-like, just like the one I’d found the previous year.”!
That is HUGE!  If you are to become famous in the world of paleontology you don’t find “human” bones or “monkey” bones.  You need to find the supposed common ancestor between apes and humans to really make it big.
One easy way to determine if you’ve found a “missing link” is to find something that walks like a human, yet looks like an ape!
In order to walk upright on two legs, as most humans do unless their back is acting up, our knee has to be shaped in a very specific way.  It just won’t work any other way.

http://www.umass.edu/locomotion/pdfs/jhe-2015.pdf
Apes, on the other hand, are “knuckle draggers” walking on both their hand and feet.  Certainly some apes can walk upright, but typically not for long periods of time and their gait is very different from a humans and that’s because it’s not their typical it’s not their normal mode of transportation the same way that it is for us.
According to Dr. Johanson, the case is closed.  Lucy had a knee like a human, so therefore “she” walked upright, like a human so therefore “she’s” a missing link!
Well, let’s take a look at this claim and we’ll do it by looking at a website that is as anti-creationist as you will ever find.  Below is a graphic from a page talking about various claims concerning ‘Lucy’ that “creationists” make.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC003.html
Please focus on the “Response” section above.  It reads,
“The skeleton called Lucy does not have an intact knee.” 
I say again, this is NOT a Christian/Creationist group and they say very clearly that the Lucy fossil does NOT contain an intact knee.
So, if Lucy doesn’t have an intact knee, which by the way you can see for yourself from the picture of the fossil evidence that was found, then how do you know that it was shaped like a human?  You don’t!
WHAT ABOUT LUCY’S HIP’S?
Now we get into information that sends some people over the edge.  First of all, tempers flare and blood pressure goes up when people talk about the topic of creation/evolution, period.  But, when you start talking about Lucy’s hips, it heats up even quicker!
Let me quote from the “In Search of Human Origins” transcript:

DON JOHANSON:  “We needed Owen Lovejoy’s expertise again, because the evidence wasn’t quite adding up. The knee looked human, but the shape of her hip didn’t. Superficially, her hip resembled a chimpanzee’s, which meant that Lucy couldn’t possibly have walked like a modern human. But Lovejoy noticed something odd about the way the bones had been fossilized.”
Please notice that Dr. Johanson states very clearly that the hip, “resembled a chimpanzee’s.”  Yes, he does say, “superficially” as well.  But even superficially resembling a chimps is still a problem. 
He continues,
“which meant that she couldn’t possibly have walked like a modern human.”
I told you, even a superficial resemblance has major implications.
So, what happened for her hips to have changed from being shaped like a “human” to begin with, which is what is necessary for Lucy to have been an evolutionary ancestor to humans, to being shaped, albeit superficially,to a chimp.

Let me continue to quote from the transcript please:
OWEN LOVEJOY: “When I put the two parts of the pelvis together that we had, this part of the pelvis has pressed so hard and so completely into this one, that it caused it to be broken into a series of individual pieces, which were then fused together in later fossilization.”
 
According to Dr. Johanson Lucy’s hip bones were broken after she died and then were “fused” back together changing them from human shaped to chimpanzee shaped.
I may not have a PhD, but I’m pretty sure that when you die your fusing days are done and the decay process sets in!
How about this, how were the bones broken so that they could fuse back in a different shape anyway?  I’ll let Dr. Johanson tell you himself:
DON JOHANSON: “After Lucy died, some of her bones lying in the mud must have been crushed or broken, perhaps by animals browsing at the lake shore.”

As you can see from the image above in the program they actually show a deer stepping on the human shaped hips of  Lucy, crushing them.  They then supposedly fused back together, but this time they were curved like a chimp this time. 
Again, I may not have a PhD, but I’ve got to point out that if an animal dies by the lake shore, it won’t lay there for a long period of time for the flesh to rot off so the deer can step on its hips!
IF it did lay there for a long period of time scavengers would have scattered the bones all over the place.  You wouldn’t find the specimen articulated as Lucy were supposed to have been when they found her.
Dr. Lovejoy continues:
OWEN LOVEJOY: “This has caused the two bones in fact to fit together so well that they’re in an anatomically impossible position.”
This one always intrigues me.  The bones fit together “so well” they they were in an “anatomically impossible position.”  What does that mean?
Well, that means that because her hips were curved like a chimp, then she couldn’t have walked upright like a human making her an evolutionary ancestor.  And because scientists “KNOW” that she was an apelike ancestor and scientists “KNOW” she walked upright the chimp shaped hips just cannot be accurate.  That’s why they are “anatomically impossible.”
How do scientists “KNOW” she walked upright and she was nothing more than another ape?
Put it like this, do you think maybe if Lucy had hips curved like a . . . chimp, and hands like a . . . chimp, and feet like a chimp . . . and a skull like a chimp . . . she was, possibly, maybe, I know it’s a long-shot, call me crazy but I’m going out on a limb, but maybe, a chimp?
Let me continue to quote please:
DON JOHANSON: “The perfect fit was an illusion that made Lucy’s hip bones seems to flair out like a chimps. But all was not lost.”
The “perfect fit” showed that Lucy’s hips flared “out like a chimp.” So much for her being an evolutionary ancestor then.  But wait, there’s hope.  Dr. Johanson told us, “All was not lost.”
May I please play an audio, yes, I wrote audio, clip of what was done to solve the problem of Lucy having had hips not fitting the evolutionary paradigm.  I’ll show the video in a second.  You really don’t need to watch it though, listening is powerful enough.
Listen to this please!
Just having audio isn’t enough.  Now, let me share the video with you.  Remember, this is from NOVA, “In Search of Human Origins” with Don Johanson.  This is not a Christian making this up to mock them!!
Please watch for yourself here.

I concede to the haters, you win!  It’s obvious that Lucy had hips like a human . . . after they used a grinder to take out the parts that didn’t fit with their paradigm.
You are free to believe that this was an apelike ancestor.  That’s one of the great things about America, no one is forcing you to believe a specific thing.
That’s the great thing about our God as well.  He will not force you to believe in Him.  You have the freedom to decide what you will do with what He’s shown us and He’s done for us.  There are consequences to the decisions we make though.  It’s just our job to give an answer for the reason of the hope that is within us with meekness and fear and let folks know of the consequences for rejecting the love that He so freely showed to us.
All I say is that if a Christian or Creationist showed this type of a video and used it to justify their faith we’d be openly mocked and ridiculed.  I don’t show this to mock or ridicule.  Just to help folks make an informed decision as to whom they will follow.  God’s Word or Man’s opinion.
WHAT ABOUT LUCY’S EYE’S!
This is a point that I told you earlier on that we’d come back to.  Well, we’re back to it.
For those of you who like it short, sweet and to the point.  This is for you because this is the easiest to deal with. 
Let’s just remember what was actually found and that should take care of it.  Please take a look at Lucy’s skull again.

Now, take a look at the reconstruction below:

Now let me ask you 2 simple questions:  
  1.  Do apes have whites around their eye’s?
          a.  The answer is, “No!”  See for yourself.

  2.  “Did they find any fossilized eyeballs?”  
We’re being lied to!  ‘Nuff said!
WHAT’S THE BOTTOM LINE, IS SHE AN ANCESTOR OR NOT?
That’s about as “rubber meets the road” as it gets so let’s answer the question.  
On this issue I’m going to do something you may not expect.  Instead of me telling you if Lucy  was or wasn’t our evolutionary ancestor, how about I let those that believe in evolution answer that question instead.  
First, here’s an article from “The Jerusalem Post”:

I think you can read the headlines, but just in case I’ll blow them up for you. 
“Israeli researchers: ‘Lucy’ is not direct ancestor of humans.”
Here’s another piece of evidence.  It’s the phylogenetic tree depicting how apes and humans evolved from a common ancestor.  Take a look:

Notice anything interesting?  Can you see Australopithecus afarensis, Lucy?  She’s no longer the common ancestor between apes and humans.  
Can you see what the new ancestor is?  Yes, that’s a skinny line, which means there’s no evidence with a question mark on either side which means they don’t have a clue!
As a matter of fact it’s even worse than that.  When you look at the bold lines on the chart that is what the actual evidence supports.
When you look at the skinny lines there is NO evidence for that, it’s just based on a believe.  If you get rid of the skinny lines and questions marks the actual fossil evidence supports that fact that one thing, stayed one thing and never changed from or into anything else.  That my friend is consistent with the Word of God and NOT slow gradual processes.
If that’s not enough, let me give you one last piece of evidence that is irrefutable.  
A while back Lucy’s actual bones were brought to the United States and put on display in a variety of museums.  This was unprecedented.
While at the Houston Museum of Natural Science I heard of  people who drove 7 hours one way with their children just to visit these bones.

The exhibit was called, “Lucy’s Legacy: The Hidden Treasures of Ethiopia.”
In conjunction with the tour they produced many materials talking about the importance of this exhibit and to help further understanding about Lucy and her importance. 
To you left you see the cover of the “Teacher’s Curriculum Guide” of which I was able to obtain a copy of so that I could see what is being taught by the secular scientists themselves.
What I found actually shocked me.  I know it shouldn’t have, but I was totally unprepared for what I read in this Study Guide that those who disagree with us prepared. 
From the “ifest 2008, Out of Africa: The Three Journeys” publication, page 20:
“For many years, Lucy was thought to be a direct human ancestor, but we now see her as belonging to a separate group of hominids from those which became our species, Homo sapiens.”
So, according to the publication that was produced by the people who were showing Lucy’s bones to tens of thousands of people, she’s no longer thought to be an ancestor to Homo sapiens.
I rest my case!
If you’d like to see the transcript from the NOVA program “In Search of Human Origins” with Dr. Don Johanson for yourself, just go here.  
If you find material that should be there, let us know because we’ll add it.  If you find incorrect material, let us know, we’ll fix it.  You may contact us at info@rforh.com of on our Facebook page.  Just look for Reasons for Hope.
Please keep in mind that just because you don’t like what is written, it doesn’t make the information incorrect.  We really hope this helps!
We’ll add more as time goes on.  By the way, here are a few more articles that will give you more information on Lucy that you may like to read :
1.  “Farewell to Lucy” by Dr. David Menton.  I love this guy!
2.  “Making Man Out of Monkey’s“ by Dr. David Menton.   Did I say I really love this guy!
3. “Did Lucy Walk Upright?” by Michael Oard
4.  “Lucy Had  a Spring in Her Step”  This is a great News to Note article.
Remember, don’t be deceived by the big claims.  Investigate, study for yourself to find out the truth, deBunk the misinformation and most of all, Stay bold!
 
Carl Kerby
President + Founder
Reasons for Hope*                                                                                                                  *Jesus