ok here's an example of what I'm getting at, here's Lucy:
notice how little they actually have? yet they have her all put together.they've given her hair like unto humans and a rather smooth hairless body like humans. she's walking along daydreaming about something, notice I said walking along? well the actual scientists agree that she was an arboreal monkey. also a point of debate is her hands and feet, notice how human they are? the hands they have found are the same as other tree dwelling monkeys. the museum which houses this representation says they know the display is very inaccurate and fanciful but insist that it gives the impression they want that she is an intermediate form between the ancestor of the apes and us. some of you like quotes so here are a couple taken from this site:
http://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/lucy.html
"Stern and Sussman write in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology (60:279-313):
"In summary, the knee of the small Hadar hominid shares with other australopithecines a marked obliquity of the femoral shaft relative to the bicondylar plane, but in all other respects it falls either outside the range of modern human variation (Tardieu, 1979) or barely within it (our analysis). Since, aside from the degree of valgus, the knee of the small Hadar hominid possesses no modern trait to a pronounced degree, and since many of these traits may not serve to specify the precise nature of the bipedality that was practiced, we must agree with Tardieu that the overall structure of the knee is compatible with a significant degree of arboreal locomotion." (p.298)
The paper by Stern and Sussman also mentions that the hands and feet of Australopithecus afarensis are not at all like human hands and feet; rather, they have the long curved fingers and toes typical of arboreal primates. Notwithstanding, the St. Louis Zoo features a life-size statue of Lucy with perfectly formed human hands and feet.
Most evolutionists, including Johanson, insist that the footprints that Mary Leaky uncovered in "3 million year old" strata in Latoli were made by Australopithecus afarensis, though these prints are indistinguishable from those of modern man.
I am told that no australopithecine we know anything about could have made the Laetoli footprints, because even australopithecines which are much younger than the Laetoli footprints have clear apelike features. The only possible upright walker, A. afarensis, is known to have had a chimp foot with an opposable toe. One of the world's leading authorities on australopithecines, British anatomist, Solly Lord Zuckerman has concluded (based on specimens aged much younger than Lucy) that australopithecines do not belong in the family of man. He wrote "I myself remain totally unpersuaded. Almost always when I have tried to check the anatomical claims on which the status of Australopithecus is based, I have ended in failure." (Beyond the Ivory Tower, 1977, p. 77)
One of Zuckerman's associates in the field of anatomy Dr. Chas. Oxnard (USC) writes "Although most studies emphasize the similarity of the australopithecines to modern man, and suggest, therefore that these creatures were bipedal tool-makers at least one form of which (A. africanus--"Homo habilis," "Homo africanus") was almost directly ancestral to man, a series of multivariate statistical studies of various postcranial fragments suggests other conclusions." He further concludes, "Finally, the quite independent information from the fossil finds of more recent years seems to indicate absolutely that these australopithecines of half to 2 million years and from sites such as Olduvai and Sterkfontein are not on a human pathway." In Oxnard's opinion, australopithecines were neither like humans or apes but more like Pongo, the orangutan...even more "distant" from man, than a gorilla... "to the extent that resemblances exist with living forms they tend to be with the orangutan" (U. of Chicago Magazine, Winter, 1974, pp. 11-12)."
"Skull 1470 discovered by Leakey is supposed to be an ancestor to man, too. Did you know that Leakey and others obtained 41 potassium-argon dates for this skull, all of which they rejected because the date obtained was not "right"? Finally Leakey used an argument based on the size of pigs teeth found in the strata to get the date for skull 1470 that he thought was correct."
"The ER-1470 skull was found in l972 (in fragments) a little below a geological strata known as KBS tuff. This tuff had been dated a few years earlier at 2.6 million years so Richard Leakey assigned the skull an age of 2.9 million years. This aroused a storm of controversy as the skull had an enormous brain capacity of perhaps 825 cubic centimeters and several surprisingly modern features. After nearly a decade of debate--often acrimonious--a committee of neutral experts was assembled and used a variety of sophisticated tests which included faunal comparisons (especially fossilized teeth of both Lake Turkana and Ethiopian Afar pigs). They re-dated the tuff at 1.9 million years. (The skull fragments themselves have never been dated.) Leakey then estimated the skull's age at 2 million years. He regarded it as an example of Homo Habilis. Unfortunately the skull is too advanced for this species or this age. A new generation of scholars tends to call ER-1470 Homo Ergaster and this new species is seen as a bridge from Homo Habilis to Homo Erectus, our alleged immediate ancestor. But in some ways ER-1470 is too modern even for these species. The maturation and gender of the original owner of the skull is unknown. If ER-1470 was a female, the cranial capacity of an adult male of this species would approach 1,000 c.c, right to the edge of modern humanity. If ER-1470 was an adult male, then the small brow ridges, thin cranium and other modern features would assume greater importance and approach modern man. Thus, no matter how you slice it, ER-1470 is a problem for all concerned. It would seem that this one fossil, therefore, could be a major focus for creationist science."
as you can see by the arguments they're having about ER-1470, they really have no idea how old things are with any kind of certainty.
when talking about fossils, you have to remember that you can't connect them together, there is no DNA left and you cannot say with any kind of certainty that one fossil had children or that any of them or their descendants were any different. you know it lived, and you know it died but beyond that we really can't come up with anything more. taking fossils and placing them from small to large isn't any accurate way to date things. also the "layer" you find them in can't be accurate too many things can happen to put a body under the ground. also things don't fossilize laying on the surface, they have to be buried, which throws the layer idea to the wind. people they tell you they know but if you read what they say among themselves you begin to realize they really don't.
here's another photo of Lucy, again with the human hands and feet (did you notice hands or feet in the fossils they have?), notice what the sign says? says "one of our oldest known ancestors" they all know this isn't true but they have to indoctrinate the kiddies visiting the museun don't they.
surely you don't think this is good science?
P.S. I Googled "Lucy" to get the quotes and photos.
Hello,
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