Was the Lucy skeleton a hoax?

Question

I grew up hearing that Lucy was a early human but then my pastor told me that some scientists proved she was just a chimpanzee. But the problem with that was that those scientists were secular ones.

So in a nutshell, evolution or creation?

Answer 1

Based on what I am reading from everyone who has posted info and their own opinions, along with quotes and articles, i think that the fossil is what the scientists say...all in all they have NOT said it IS the missing link. Just that it definitely was a different species of ape, and that it walked upright . much like humans do. None of them had any real non- disputed proof that it was indeed an early ancestor of a Human. So I have my own theory here, God created many many species...some went extinct. If the same person creates music, doesn't most of his music sound similar...if God creates animals and humans, wont at least some of them be similar? And who knows....maybe God created types of evolving/adapting. And some fossils believed to be apes could be deformed humans, like we have today. But i think humans are separate from the apes and other animals, if anything, chosen to be the species that takes care of the land and the animals. No matter how close our DNA puts us with them.

Answer 2

Evolution.  Scientists have proven that the Lucy skeleton is real, and can be traced back through Homo Sapien species.  In fact, Africa a few months ago, had discovered a slightly older skeleton than Lucy.

Answer 3

No, because if it was someone would have made up more info about evolution, and there is hardly any now.

Answer 4

The pastor "told you" that "some scientists" etc. etc. Makes you wonder just what else he's said. Next time ask him for multiple sources and where to find the facts. That do your own research to check them.

"Lucy", formally know as AL288-1, (cataloged as: "Afar location, find #288-1") is the remains of  an Australopithecus afarenis. ("Southern ape of Afar") She was found in 1974. Don Johanson's team found the remains. Her name came from the fact that the song "Lucy in the Sky" was playing the evening that the team brought the remains in. Lucy was found in the Afar triangle of Ethiopia, near the town of Hadar. She is considered the most complete skeleton found from that time.

By the way, it's interesting how the claim of "most complete" was made.

There are 206 bones in the hominid body. If you count the paired bones (two arms, two legs, etc.) as one, then you have the 120 bones of a "half skeleton." Lucy is described as 20 percent of a whole or 28 percent of a half skeleton. Alan Walker found Nariokome Boy a Homo erectus skeleton. This had 67 bones, 33 percent of a whole and 40 percent of a half skeleton. curious, Walker asked Don Johanson, Lucy's discoverer, how he arrived at her percentages. Johanson stated he had discounted the 106 bones of the hands and feet (they are only rarely found) this gave the percentages that are quoted. By that computation, Nariokome Boy is 66 percent complete.

Lucy stood some 3.5 feet tall and lived 3.0 to 3.5 million years ago. She is the most complete skeleton found from that period. Brain capacity, a suggestive means of determining intelligence, is thought to have been 410cc. The modern human brain averages 1400 cc. The species is thought to have gone extinct some 2.5 million years ago.

What makes Lucy important is that her ability to walk on two feet rather then on four feet or having to use a "knuckle walk." The term for walking on two feet is bipedalisim, and Lucy's remains showed that it was well established. Due to the completeness of the remains, Lucy's overall body proportions could be established. This gave critical information about what the hominids looked like and how early they had adopted walking on two feet. Lucy walked slightly bowlegged and based on the curved toes and pelvis shape, appear to still be spending time in trees. The shape of the pelvis appeared to show that her young would have had an easier time being born. They didn't have to turn and twist as do human children today do.

The term "Australopithecus" means "southern ape." The genus includes, afarenis, boisei, robustus and Prometheus

Answer 5

I don't know either way., whether its a hoax or not. people believed Piltdown man for years. there were scientific papers and such written on it.  

I have always found it interesting that  those who found "lucy" had been searching  the area for many years. If I remember correctly. The people who funded the search were about to stop funding the search. The day before there funding was to the cut off . They found lucy. The find was so fantastic that the researchers  were funded for about the next 20 years.

Answer 6

Lucy is a real fossil.  She was an Australopithecus afarensis and there have been several of them found.  It is not certain that she was an ancestor of modern humans because it is quite likely that we don't have fossils of all the hominids.  It is very likely she was at least a close relative.  She was probably very much like an upright walking chimpanzee and she was most likely only a few million years removed from the common ancestors with chimps.  It isn't really that surprising she would be more like them than us in brain size and perhaps other ways.

Answer 7

Evolation

Answer 8

Religious fundies certainly hope so.

You gonna go with them?

Answer 9

Uh, your pastor?

Is your pastor a trained evolutionary biologist? ... Didn't think so; he wouldn't have said such a silly thing to you if he were.

No, Lucy wasn't "just a chimp."

Here's a link to a resource on human evolution; knock yourself out:

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/bein...

Here's a general evolution link:

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/

On matters of theology, listen to your pastor. On matters of medicine, listen to your doctor. On matters of science, listen to the scientists.

Answer 10

The Lucy skeleton was not a hoax, it's good evidence of evolution

I've never heard of scientists proving she was really a chimpanzee, but I can imagine your pastor would say that or believe that because he probably doesn't believe the theory of evolution.

The Lucy case is well documented and there have been other hominid fossils found in various places of the world that are similar to hers, so she was not just an anomaly or a skeletally deformed ape. The skeletal structure appears somewhat like those of chimps or other great apes, but there are significant differences- you'd have to read up a little bit on skeletal structure to understand it more. In any case, Lucy's fossils and the fossils of other hominids show a clear  developmental middle ground between chimps and modern human.

Here are some sources you might want to check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_(Austr...

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

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

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

Answer 11

Lucy is REAL, plain and simple (others have posted great links to read about her).  

If your religion is one that looks badly upon the subject of evolution, I wouldn't take a pastor/priest's word as the absolute truth.   Study into BOTH views, and decide for yourself.

Answer 12

Lucy is a real skeletal remains of a female hominid, Australopithecus afarensis . Lucy is the nickname for a remarkably complete (40% intact) hominin skeleton found by Donald Johanson at Hadar, Eth., in 1974 and dated to 3.2 million years ago. The specimen is usually classified as Australopithecus afarensis and suggests — by having long arms, short legs, an apelike chest and jaw, and a small brain but a relatively humanlike pelvis — that bipedal locomotion preceded the development of a larger (more humanlike) brain in hominin evolution. Lucy stood about 3 ft 7 in. (109 cm) tall and weighed about 60 lbs (27 kg). See also Hadar remains; Laetoli footprints; Sterkfontein.

Answer 13

Evolution.   God can create chimps and humans.  What's your pastor's issue with that?

Answer 14

I am a Christian but pro-evolution and one of the many reasons for that stance is  the constant use of propaganda and outright lies by creationists. Your pastor is not a trained scientist is he? Do not bleive the fossils are hoaxes brigade.

Study geology and stratigraphy and make up your own mind!

Genesis is a book of myths and legends not a science or history text book!

Answer 15

Hi Kagnomi,

‘Lucy’ is the popular name given to the famous fossil skeleton found in 1974 in Ethiopia by American anthropologist Donald Johanson. To many people, Lucy is regarded as a certain link between ape-like creatures and man—thus supposedly proving evolution. But is Lucy really a pre-human ancestor?

According to Richard Leakey, who along with Johanson is probably the best-known fossil-anthropologist in the world, Lucy’s skull is so incomplete that most of it is ‘imagination made of plaster of paris’.1 Leakey even said in 1983 that no firm conclusion could be drawn about what species Lucy belonged to.

In reinforcement of the fact that Lucy is not a creature ‘in between’ ape and man, Dr Charles Oxnard, Professor of Anatomy and Human Biology at the University of Western Australia, said in 1987 of the australopithecines (the group to which Lucy is said to have belonged):

    Ã¢Â€Â˜The various australopithecines are, indeed, more different from both African apes and humans in most features than these latter are from each other. Part of the basis of this acceptance has been the fact that even opposing investigators have found these large differences as they too, used techniques and research designs that were less biased by prior notions as to what the fossils might have been’.2

Oxnard’s firm conclusion? ‘The australopithecines are unique.’3

Neither Lucy nor any other australopithecine is therefore intermediate between humans and African apes. Nor are they similar enough to humans to be any sort of ancestor of ours.

Lucy and the australopithecines show nothing about human evolution, and should not be promoted as having any sort of ‘missing link’ status. The creationist alternative, that humans, apes and other creatures were created that way in the beginning, remains the only explanation consistent with all the evidence.

EDIT: With quotes from an evolutionist-

Australopithecus (‘southern ape’) is the name given to a number of fossils found in Africa. These are claimed by evolutionists to be the closest to the alleged common ancestor of apes and humans. However, Dr Fred Spoor has done CAT scans of the inner ear region of some of these skulls. These show that their semi-circular canals, which determine balance and ability to walk upright, ‘resemble those of the extant great apes’.6

The most well known australopithecine is ‘Lucy’, a 40% complete skeleton found by Donald Johanson in Ethiopia in 1974 and called Australopithecus afarensis.7 Casts of Lucy’s bones have been imaginatively restored in museums worldwide to look like an apewoman, e.g. with ape-like face and head, but human-like body, hands and feet. However, the original Lucy fossil did not include the upper jaw, nor most of the skull, nor hand and foot bones! Several other specimens of A. afarensis do have the long curved fingers and toes of tree-dwellers, as well as the restricted wrist anatomy of knuckle-walking chimpanzees and gorillas.8,9,10 Dr Marvin Lubenow quotes the evolutionists Matt Cartmill (Duke University), David Pilbeam (Harvard University) and the late Glynn Isaac (Harvard University):

‘The australopithecines are rapidly sinking back to the status of peculiarly specialized apes … .’11