Everyone knows about Lucy, the fossil of a species now known as Australopithecus afarensis, found in 1974, whose skeleton suggests she could walk upright. Numerous other fossils of that species have been found since Lucy, but that one gets all the press. The usual creationist websites deny the evolutionary significance of Lucy, including the Discoveroids — see Discovery Institute: Casey Luskin and Lucy. Also, Rev. Rives Debunks Lucy.
Creationists don’t like Lucy — or any other human ancestors. That’s certainly true of Answers in Genesis (AIG), the creationist ministry of Ken Ham (ol’ Hambo) — the Australian entrepreneur who has become the ayatollah of Appalachia. The latest from ol’ Hambo himself is Lucy Was a Tree Climber After All. Here are some excerpts — with no bold font added by us, because Hambo has made that unnecessary:
The poster child of human evolution is the well-known Australopithecus afarensis fossil named Lucy, found in Ethiopia in 1974. Evolutionists believe she walked on two legs and therefore represents bipedality in one of our supposed ancestors. Well, according to a new study, Lucy was a tree climber. (By the way, while evolutionary beliefs continue to “evolve,” the Bible stays the same and continues to be confirmed by science over and over again.) [Bold font in Hambo’s original text.]
The new study to which Hambo refers is Human ancestor ‘Lucy’ was a tree climber, new evidence suggests in Science Daily. You can read it online without a subscription. Two excerpts should be enough:
Exactly how much time Lucy spent in the trees is difficult to determine, the research team says, but another recent study suggests Lucy died from a fall out of a tall tree. This new study adds to evidence that she may have nested in trees at night to avoid predators, the authors say. An eight-hour slumber would mean she spent one-third of her time up in the trees, and if she also occasionally foraged there, the total percentage of time spent above ground would be even greater.
“It may seem unique from our perspective that early hominins like Lucy combined walking on the ground on two legs with a significant amount of tree climbing,” says Kappelman [John Kappelman, professor of anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin], “but Lucy didn’t know she was ‘unique’ — she moved on the ground and climbed in trees, nesting and foraging there, until her life was likely cut short by a fall — probably out of a tree.”
It’s not surprising that an ape-like ancestor of humans could climb trees as well as walk. That’s what one would expect of a transitional species. But Hambo doesn’t believe in transitional species. He says:
Apparently special CT scans of Lucy’s limbs showed evidence of tree-climbing behavior: [quote from the Science Daily article]. Secularists are finally catching up with our high-tech Creation Museum exhibit by saying that Lucy was a tree climber! [Bold font in Hambo’s original text.]
BWAHAHAHAHAHA! After that he tells us:
Creationists have been saying for years that Lucy wasn’t some kind of human ancestor. She’s just part of the great variety God built into the ape kind. The more scientists learn about Lucy, the more apparent it becomes that she’s just an ape. [Bold font in Hambo’s original text.]
Hambo finishes by recommending an earlier AIG article, and he also invites you to see his Lucy exhibit at the Creation Museum. That’s the whole post.
Well, dear reader, Darwin’s in big trouble now. Lucy could climb trees and walk. It looks like Hambo was right all along.
Copyright © 2016. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.