Fossil human footprints challenge established theories: Non-ape feet

_{Denyse O'Leary

September 2, 2017

Human evolution, Intelligent Design}

Share: Facebook; Twitter; LinkedIn; Flipboard; Print; Email

human tracks, 5.7 mya/ *Andrzej Boczarowski*

Newly discovered human-like footprints from Crete may put the established narrative of early human evolution to the test. The footprints are approximately 5.7 million years old and were made at a time when previous research puts our ancestors in Africa—with ape-like feet.

Ever since the discovery of fossils of Australopithecus in South and East Africa during the middle years of the 20th century, the origin of the human lineage has been thought to lie in Africa. More recent fossil discoveries in the same region, including the iconic 3.7 million year old Laetoli footprints from Tanzania which show human-like feet and upright locomotion, have cemented the idea that hominins (early members of the human lineage) not only originated in Africa but remained isolated there for several million years before dispersing to Europe and Asia. The discovery of approximately 5.7 million year old human-like footprints from Crete, published online this week by an international team of researchers, overthrows this simple picture and suggests a more complex reality.

Human feet have a very distinctive shape, different from all other land animals. The combination of a long sole, five short forward-pointing toes without claws, and a hallux (“big toe”) that is larger than the other toes, is unique. The feet of our closest relatives, the great apes, look more like a human hand with a thumb-like hallux that sticks out to the side. The Laetoli footprints, thought to have been made by Australopithecus, are quite similar to those of modern humans except that the heel is narrower and the sole lacks a proper arch. By contrast, the 4.4 million year old Ardipithecus ramidus from Ethiopia, the oldest hominin known from reasonably complete fossils, has an ape-like foot. The researchers who described Ardipithecus argued that it is a direct ancestor of later hominins, implying that a human-like foot had not yet evolved at that time.Paper. (public access) – Gerard D. Gierlińskia et al. Possible hominin footprints from the late Miocene (c. 5.7 Ma) of Crete? Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, 2017 DOI: 10.1016/j.pgeola.2017.07.006More.

Some of us don’t think this is a time for established theories.

😉 😉 Just wait till they discover the female paleolithic fashion shoe industry… 😉 😉

See also: New Scientist: Evolution “more baffling than we thought” We all smack our heads together here, like … whodathunkit?

Hey, it’s Saturday, so:

And no, I did not tell you to watch it. The time you wasted was your own. – O’Leary for News

Comments

There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of Lucy but perhaps the one most overlooked is the fact that there is good reason to believe that Lucy may not even be one individual or even one species. Her bones were not found together. They were scattered across a hillside. "There are some reasons for skepticism over whether the bones of “Lucy” represent a single individual, or even a single species. In a video playing at the exhibit, Lucy’s discoverer Donald Johanson admitted that when he found the fossil, the bones were scattered across a hillside, where he “looked up the slope and there were other bones sticking out.” Johanson’s written account explains further how the bones were not found together: “[S]ince the fossil wasn’t found in situ, it could have come from anywhere above. There’s no matrix on any of the bones we’ve found either. All you can do is make probability statements.” Tim White, quoted in Donald Johanson and James Shreeve, Lucy’s Child: The Discovery of a Human Ancestor (New York: Early Man Publishing, 1989), 163. https://evolutionnews.org/2012/08/later_hominins_/#fn66Florabama_{September 8, 2017
September
09
Sep
8
08
2017
12:38 PM
12
12
38
PM
PDT}

Lucy was a tree dweller -- "Other comparisons carried out in the study suggest that even when Lucy walked upright, she may have done so less efficiently than modern humans, limiting her ability to walk long distances on the ground, Ruff says. In addition, all of her limb bones were found to be very strong relative to her body size, indicating that she had exceptionally strong muscles, more like those of modern chimpanzees than modern humans." https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161130144004.htm Early Hominem Lucy was a tree climber -- New Scientist https://www.newscientist.com/article/2114719-early-hominin-lucy-had-powerful-arms-from-years-of-tree-climbing/ PLoS One "However, we found that A.L. 288–1 also exhibits morphological features that imply substantial differences in locomotor behavior from that in modern humans or early Homo. Lucy’s femoral/humeral diaphyseal strength proportion indicates greater muscular loading of her upper limb relative to her lower limb than is characteristic of either modern humans or Homo erectus, and more similar to that of chimpanzees." Lucy may have been a gorilla. PNAS “The presence of the morphology [gorilla mandible] in both the latter and Au. afarensis and its absence in modern humans cast doubt on the role of Au. afarensis as a modern human ancestor.” As found, without the tampering, Lucy was a tree dwelling chimp of some kind. The attempts to make her a definitive example of a bipedal human ancestor reveals the paucity of evidence for human evolution and the desperate lengths to which evolutionists will go to craft the narrative regardless of the damage to the scientific method. In Lucy, you have one skeleton [talk about a small sample size] with no pelvis, multiple missing vertebra, and one single scapula that was "chimp like" as found, arms, fingers and hands that are "chimp like" that scans prove her bones were formed by tree dwelling. Yeah, the fact that evolutionists are not skeptical of Lucy at all speaks volumes about the mind of an evolutionist. The supposedly unscientific creationists find themselves as the only arbiters of the scientific method. As I said, "cult like" is a pretty apt description of the evolutionary mentality as it relates to the unquestioned acceptance of the incredible.Florabama_{September 8, 2017
September
09
Sep
8
08
2017
03:20 AM
3
03
20
AM
PDT}

Did the analysis of Lucy's vertebrae include the one that turned out to come from a baboon? On what basis was it reclassified and was it originally mixed together with Lucy's other bones? Was the wrist-locking adaptation specifically for *A.afarensis* to be able to walk on their knuckles used or not used?
Sometimes orangutans are very slightly knock-kneed, but nothing like humans and afarensis, when it’s there at all. I don’t know about spider monkeys.
Look up the vulgus angles for humans, orang-utans, spider monkeys, and A.afarensis. What do the data tell you? -QQuerius_{September 7, 2017
September
09
Sep
7
07
2017
11:21 PM
11
11
21
PM
PDT}

Florabama,
ou asked me to look at the “other end” of the hip — the one not reconstructed to make it look human? There’s a slight problem with that as there is no “other end” of the hip or other hip at all. Perhaps you didn’t understand how fragmented Lucy really is since all the artist renderings make her look so complete.
I've held casts of the fossils. Most of the other end is missing, but there's just enough there to see how the femur fits in.
The leg bones are completely fragmented
We have a femur, which is what I've talked about. There are also bipedalism adaptations seen in the partial tibia found.
You spoke of her lower back, but her actual fossil spine is incomplete missing several vertebra in the lower back. How do you determine the lower back posture without a lower back?
I didn't say anything about her lower back. Most of the spine is missing, but because of the way the spine curves, every vertebrate is slightly different, and gives an indication of the way it curves - what we have matches humans, not apes (and further afarensis finds further confirm this).
In short, what the evidence says without tampering, is that Lucy is the fossil of an extinct chimp.
It's astonishing to me that anyone could look at the Lucy fossil and still say that, but ok. I've read Icons of Evolution.goodusername_{September 6, 2017
September
09
Sep
6
06
2017
09:52 PM
9
09
52
PM
PDT}

Good @ 17, yes let's look at Lucy the fossil. Here she is: https://goo.gl/images/G3ce2c You asked me to look at the "other end" of the hip -- the one not reconstructed to make it look human? There's a slight problem with that as there is no "other end" of the hip or other hip at all. Perhaps you didn't understand how fragmented Lucy really is since all the artist renderings make her look so complete. There is no birth canal so any compassion to a full hip chimp or human is impossible. The leg bones are completely fragmented and reconstructions to give her longer legs to match the stride of the human footprints at Laetoli, must assume bone length that is not present in the fossils. Reconstructions give her leg length not warranted by the fossil just like Lovejoy gave her a human like scapula not warranted by the evidence. You spoke of her lower back, but her actual fossil spine is incomplete missing several vertebra in the lower back. How do you determine the lower back posture without a lower back? There's no way to make a definitive call on how Lucy's spine looked or lower back while she was alive since we don't have a complete spine and none of the lower back. What few vertebra we have would mean she was very short -- about three feet tall -- about the size of a small chimp. In short, what the evidence says without tampering, is that Lucy is the fossil of an extinct chimp. Anything else is just wishful thinking. It's fine if you want to believe this. People believe in Big Foot, UFOs and the Loch Ness Monster, but the truth is that you've gone way beyond what the evidence warrants, and you are clueless to this fact because evolutionists are not critical thinkers. You want it to be true so you suspend credulity, when the evolutionary evidence is put to the test it fails every time. You really owe it to yourself to read Icons of Evolution. The greatest most iconic pieces of evolutionary evidence don't add up to much at all. The devotion to evolution and the actual evidence for evolution are on opposite ends of the spectrum. It is an amazing phenomenon.Florabama_{September 6, 2017
September
09
Sep
6
06
2017
09:14 PM
9
09
14
PM
PDT}

Querius, So you’re actually going to cling to Lucy being a quadruped because of wrist bones and her semicircular canals? Btw, even Spoor doesn’t question that Lucy was bipedal. You may want to note, however, that A. africanus has similar semicircular canals to A. afarensis – but has human-like wrists that don’t lock. So now what? ;-) There does seem to be a certain pattern of certain features of the semicircular canals and method of locomotion, but there are many exceptions, and so the relationship between the canals and locomotion is actually disputed. It’s hardly a tell-tale sign, as even Spoor acknowledges: “It is concluded that any link between the characteristic dimensions of the human canals and locomotion will be more complex than a simple association with the broad categories of quadrupedal vs. bipedal behavior.” - Spoor https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9881527 And if you want to say that because of the difference in semicircular canals between afarensis and humans means that they aren’t related to us, then to be consistent you’ll have to remove Neanderthals from the family tree as well. Spoor found that Neanderthal canals were surprisingly different from ours and quite primitive. In fact, many use that as an argument for categorizing them as a separate species. The results actually lead Spoor to wonder if their locomotion is perhaps different from ours, but as that seems a little far fetched, he also suggests that perhaps climate or skull anatomy might be affecting the anatomy of the canals. Sometimes orangutans are very slightly knock-kneed, but nothing like humans and afarensis, when it's there at all. I don't know about spider monkeys.goodusername_{September 6, 2017
September
09
Sep
6
06
2017
07:29 PM
7
07
29
PM
PDT}

goodusername, You forgot to read this part:
Lucy’s semicircular canals are consistent with those found in apes, indicating that A.afarensis was not as bipedally competent as humans, but did have a positive vulgus angle (knock kneed) as also found in humans, orang-utans, and spider monkeys. It should also be noted that A.afarensis had wrists capable of locking for knuckle walking.
Newsflash. orang-utans and spider monkeys are not considered primarily bipedal. Then you wrote
Lucy’s lower body would make it impossible for her to walk like an ape, and if she tried she’d have a very sore back and neck. But I doubt you’re going to trust me if you won’t trust your own eyes.
Let me guess. The A.afarensis ability to lock its wrists for knuckle walking is a "vestigial" feature and thus can be ignored, right? -QQuerius_{September 6, 2017
September
09
Sep
6
06
2017
05:42 PM
5
05
42
PM
PDT}

Florabama, Forget Lovejoy’s reconstruction – I’m asking you to actually use your own two eyes and actually look at the fossils. Tell me what you think looks chimp-like about them. Where the hip meets the sacrum is highly damaged – but - we have the sacrum itself. You don’t have to trust anyone’s reconstruction. Again, just look at it. At the other end of the hip, you can see the angle that the femur goes into the hip – it bends inward. This is for bipedality so that we don’t waddle like a chimp. It’s very different from apes, and it’s human-like. This change in angle in the hip affects the femur as well, which points inwards, instead of being straight up and down as in chimps – the neck of the femur lengthens in humans, and the angle of the other end of the femur changes to adjust for the attachment to the knee and tibia, which is straight up and down. Again, all human-like in Lucy. So both bones that connect to the hip are dramatically different in chimps and humans – and in the case of Lucy they are both indistinguishable from humans. This is all in addition, again, to the curvature of the spine and location of the foramen magnum which has adapted in Lucy for bipedality. Lucy’s lower body would make it impossible for her to walk like an ape, and if she tried she’d have a very sore back and neck. But I doubt you’re going to trust me if you won’t trust your own eyes. And, no, the Laetoli footprints are not perfectly human, and the new prints found are less human still, but they both are obviously of a bipedal hominid.goodusername_{September 6, 2017
September
09
Sep
6
06
2017
09:24 AM
9
09
24
AM
PDT}

good @ 15. Lucy's hip did not "point toward bipedality," any more than any chimp's hips do. They only "pointed" toward bipedality after Lovejoy took power tools to it and changed the way it actually pointed to make it fit the narrative. In a court of law, this is called "evidence tampering" and will get you put in jail. Had there been other AA hips to look at and compare, this would have been acceptable, but there were not. Lucy is it and she only has one. The fact that you and Sev et al, except this as "science" is what is most disturbing and represents a very common phenomenon among evolutionists that is very cult like. It reminds me of the Mormons I talk to who recite the story of Joseph Smith digging up golden plates in upstate New York and reading them with giant glasses. Mormons suspend all credulity to believe in their religion. Most rank and file evolutionists do exactly the same thing. But back to the OP, now we have footprints that predate Lucy by nearly 3 million years. The evolutionary fiction writers will be burning the midnight oil to rewrite the human evolutionary narrative now. Not to mention that 2017 has not been a good year for the narrative. "five previously “undisputable facts” of human evolution turned out to be nothing but bogus claims this year." Laetoli necessitated that Lucy walk upright. Laetoli are perfect human footprints, and now, if this holds up, we have human footprints that predate human feet. Let that sink in my friend. "With an age of 5.7 million years, these footprints are 2.5 million years older than the iconic Lucy fossil and even 1.3 million years older than Ardi." Better call in the evolutionary story tellers and tell them they're not leaving until you have a new story. Your old one is bunk. https://evolutionnews.org/2017/09/fossil-footprints-from-crete-deepen-controversy-on-human-origins/Florabama_{September 6, 2017
September
09
Sep
6
06
2017
06:39 AM
6
06
39
AM
PDT}

Florabama, While there are chimp-like features with Lucy, all of the bones and features that are involved in locomotion all point towards bipedality: the location of the foramen magnum, the curvature of the spine, the angle of where the femur meets the knee, the elongated neck of the femur, etc, etc. And while there are subtle ways in which the pelvis shows chimpanzee-like features, it’s unquestionably much more human-like than chimpanzee-like and shows all the adaptations for bipedalism. You can look at pictures of Lucy’s pelvis yourself (the original unreconstructed) and compare it to chimps and humans. Note the sacrum, for instance – it’s very narrow and long in apes and very wide and short in humans, this is to allow the angle of the ilium to be right for walking. The shape and size of Lucy’s sacrum is actually what you’d expect of a human and dramatically different from a chimp. (The part of the hip that Lovejoy reconstructed, btw, was where the ilium and sacrum meet – the angle looked somewhat chimp-like, but that didn’t make any sense given the rest of the pelvis – it had also obviously been badly crushed into pieces with the pieces fused together but quite distorted from what it was like originally, and, in fact, in an impossible anatomical position. You ask how we know it was broken – well, that's easy, if you look closely you can actually see the individual shards. I’ve seen high res images before, but I’m having trouble finding good ones atm, but this gives some indication, it highlights where the fractures are: https://whyevolutionistrue.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/screen-shot-2016-08-30-at-9-24-20-am.png )goodusername_{September 5, 2017
September
09
Sep
5
05
2017
10:39 PM
10
10
39
PM
PDT}

Florabama@13, Exactly. So now Lovejoy has manufactured an arguably bipedal skeleton that also walked on its knuckles and swung from trees. I'm surprised that somebody hasn't also found a Pliocene unicycle to complete his monster. But this is not a problem since evolutionists can rationalize anything at all. Hmmm, I wonder whether there was any soft tissue in these relatively young bones. -QQuerius_{September 5, 2017
September
09
Sep
5
05
2017
09:51 PM
9
09
51
PM
PDT}

No where in your entire article does it explain how Lovejoy could possibly know the shape of Lucy's one and only hip. What he had was one chimp like hip. The only one in existence. Nothing to compare to. No possible way to know. The only Austra A in existence was chimp like. He simple reconstructed the chimp hip to be human to fit the narrative, and you suspend all credulity and accept it as exibit one. If you don't understand how a reasonable person could find this "evidence" questionable, as I said, that says it all about you.Florabama_{September 5, 2017
September
09
Sep
5
05
2017
06:53 PM
6
06
53
PM
PDT}

Florabama @ Florabama
[So how do you know this, Owen?]
Instead of jeering, why not ask the man himself? Or, better still, read his story in his own words Querius @ 11
You’re certainly misrepresenting the criticism of Dr. Lovejoy’s methods.
Am I? Instead of relying on Christian apologetics, see above.Seversky_{September 5, 2017
September
09
Sep
5
05
2017
06:16 PM
6
06
16
PM
PDT}

Seversky, You're certainly misrepresenting the criticism of Dr. Lovejoy's methods. Let's look at what little data is available regarding Lucy and A.afarensis in general. The morphology of the long, curved finger bones, curved toe bones, and ape-like scapula of A.afarensis strongly indicate arboreal adaptation. The skull and overall size of Lucy—a little over a meter—is somewhat similar to that of a bonobo. The hyoid bone is consistent with those of apes. Most dental features are also consistent with those of apes, the exceptions being smaller canines, and the Y-pattern back molars. Lucy’s semicircular canals are consistent with those found in apes, indicating that A.afarensis was not as bipedally competent as humans, but did have a positive vulgus angle (knock kneed) as also found in humans, orang-utans, and spider monkeys. It should also be noted that A.afarensis had wrists capable of locking for knuckle walking. Aside from the both horrifying and hilarious Dremel segment in the Nova documentary (no one claimed the grinding of the damaged ileum was done on the actual fossil), Lovejoy’s reconstruction of the angle of Lucy’s ileum to resemble that of a human is completely speculative and made to fit. His reconstruction of the damaged iliac crest was incidental by comparison. Other reconstructions of Lucy’s damaged ileum are certainly possible (see Schmid). A big problem surfaces with the feet of A.afarensis, which Mary Leakey needed to be nearly identical with modern human feet to connect A.afarensis with the 3.66 million year old Laetoli footprints found 800+ miles away from where Lucy was found. And now there’s the complications of the discovery of 5.7 million year old human-like footprints found in Trachilos, Crete. I’ve read that comparison studies between the sets are now underway. For more information, see http://www.apologeticspress.org/ApPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=541&article=61 -QQuerius_{September 4, 2017
September
09
Sep
4
04
2017
09:56 PM
9
09
56
PM
PDT}

Here is the transcript from NOVA with my comments in brackets: “The ape that stood up, it was a revolutionary idea. We needed Owen Lovejoy's expertise again, because the evidence wasn't quite adding up." [hmmm! Why wasn't the evidence adding up?] "The knee looked human, but the shape of her hip didn't." [What did it look like?] "Superficially, her hip resembled a chimpanzee's,..." [oh, I see. Thank Darwin it only "superficially" look like a chimp. So what did the shape of the hip mean for Lucy?] "...which meant that Lucy couldn't possibly have walked like a modern human." [Couldn't possibly? You mean not at all? Zilch, Zip, Nada? How interesting! So "couldn't possibly means that Lucy could not possibly have walked upright, then? Which means she could not possible have been a human ancestor since we have the Laetoli footprints that predate Lucy, correct? Correct, but never fear the evidence when it stands in the way of the evolutionary narrative] "But Lovejoy noticed something odd about the way the bones had been fossilized." 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." [So how do you know this, Owen?] "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." [Must have? Why must they have been crushed or broken? Because you needed them to "must have" been to fit the narrative?] "OWEN LOVEJOY: This has caused the two bones in fact to fit together so well that they're in an anatomically impossible position." [They fit so well? So they fit so well, they didn't fit the evolutionary narrative? That put them in an anatomically impossible position? Wait you already said they resembled a chimps hip, so when you say anatomically impossible, you mean impossible to fit your narrative?] "DON JOHANSON: The perfect fit was an allusion that made Lucy's hip bones seems to flair out like a chimps." [so they did look like a chimps -- but that was not what you wanted them to look like] "But all was not lost." [Oh thank God. Wait! Thank Saint Charles. I was worried that all was lost but Lucy can be saved -- all it takes is electricity and a Dremel tool] [Lovejoy decided he could restore the pelvis to its natural shape.] [So, riddle me this, Owen: how did you know what "natural shape" of Lucy's hip?] "He didn't want to tamper with the original, so he made a copy in plaster." [Apparently the only proper science in the whole process. Which means Lucy's one hip still looks chimp like but who needs the real thing when you've got an artist like Lovejoy] "He cut the damaged pieces out..." [Again, how did he know they were damaged? Oh wait I remember. Because they fit together so perfectly and resembled a chimp. Can't have that] "... and put them back together the way they were before Lucy died." [This really should be a Saturday Night Live skit. This is hilarious material. If Creationists jumped on this as ridiculous bunk, and evolutionists defend it to this day as perfectly demonstrated in this very thread, that only proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Creationists are the only one's who actually care about science. So, Seversky et al, how does Lovejoy know what Lucy's hip looked like BEFORE SHE DIED SOME 3 MILLION YEARS AGO? Enquiring minds and all, but wait if you thought that was funny, the best is yet to come...] "It was a tricky job...." [Audience howls with laughter. This was so funny and so ridiculously over the top stupid, that I have often wondered if the writer was not in fact a very cunning creationist. If evolutionists are really so dumb as to accept this pseudo-bumpkas as science, then creationism is safe for all time, but wait, unbelievably, it gets better]. "but after taking the kink out of the pelvis, it all fit together perfectly, like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. As a result, the angle of the hip looks nothing like a chimps, but a lot like ours. Anatomically at least, Lucy could stand like a human." [Hahahahahahahahahaha -- POOF! See how easy this evolution stuff is? Need a human like hip? Just call, "Evidence R Us" and we'll make you one from scratch just like Grampa Piltdown used to make. Yeah, if you're not skeptical of this crap, Seversky et al, then that says everything about you and what passes for evidence in your world, but I think we all knew that already].Florabama_{September 4, 2017
September
09
Sep
4
04
2017
09:00 PM
9
09
00
PM
PDT}

My previous comment on this topic disappeared so I have re-written it and this time kept a screenshot and copy, just in case. Florabama @ 5
Personally, I have always been extremely sceptical especially of the Australopithecines. Film of Lovejoy taking a dremel tool to Lucy’s hip to make it more human destroyed any credibility of human evolutionary scientists for me.
Unsurprisingly, this is just another creationist misrepresentation
There are several implications being suggested here: First, that the discoverer’s didn’t think Lucy student upright originally and then reconstructed her hip to make it appear like she did; second, that the reconstruction changed the nature of the original and was done fraudulently; third, that the only evidence for Lucy’s bipedalism comes from her hip; and finally, that the original bone was actually altered, thereby destroying any evidence of its original orientation.

So what’s the real story behind the reconstruction? First, Lovejoy was not hiding anything with the reconstruction; the fact that creationists were unaware of the reconstruction until the In Search of Human Origins episode just demonstrates how little they read the primary literature regarding human origins. Lovejoy described the Lucy pelvis reconstruction in detail in an American Journal of Physical Anthropology issue in 1979 and at a professional meeting that same year (a full 15 years before creationists would pull a few comments out of a public television show and spin a conspiracy around it). No one in the paleoanthropology community (or the greater public at large) was kept in the dark about the reconstruction – it was certainly common knowledge for anyone with any interest in the subject. Second, reconstructing fossil fragments is a standard practice among those of us who study ancient bones. Bones fragment, get pushed together, become fossilized in place and must be pieced together to restore their original orientation (by the way, this is the same technique used by forensic anthropologists to reconstruct an individual’s identity – creationists don’t seem to have a problem with bone fragments being “reconstructed” to identify a murder victim). Further, creationists misrepresent what Lovejoy actually did. He did not “reshape the bone…in a vain attempt to make her more human”. He (and every other anatomist who looked at the fossils) realized the bone had been fossilized in an “anatomically impossible position” (emphasis added). The documentary noted this, Lovejoy described this at professional meetings and in professional publications, and others have noted it. The only people who seem to ignore this fact are the creationists who are more interested in weaving a Darwinist conspiracy theory than understanding the nature of paleontological research. Lovejoy simply cut the broken parts out and re-fit them into the position they occupied at the time Lucy was alive. Third, Lovejoy did not alter the original fossil, although creationists make it appear that he destroyed the original in an effort to hide the evidence of the alteration. He made a cast and altered it – the original is still available for anyone to review it. Again, this is common practice – no one messes with the original fossil. (Interestingly, no one has professionally challenged Lovejoy’s reconstruction – even those paleoanthropologists who disagree with Lovejoy’s interpretation of the pelvis have not questioned the reconstruction).
They may be few in number but there are enough members of the ID/C community with respectable scientific credentials that it would not be unreasonable to hope that at least one would have spoken out against this sort of misrepresentation in the interests of academic integrity. Sadly, I'm unaware of any.Seversky_{September 4, 2017
September
09
Sep
4
04
2017
12:26 PM
12
12
26
PM
PDT}

Film of Lovejoy taking a dremel tool to Lucy’s hip to make it more human destroyed any credibility of human evolutionary scientists for me.
You realize it was just a cast of the hip to test an idea, and not Lucy's actual hip, right?goodusername_{September 4, 2017
September
09
Sep
4
04
2017
09:24 AM
9
09
24
AM
PDT}

Conspiracy theories are the last refuge of the crank.Seversky_{September 4, 2017
September
09
Sep
4
04
2017
07:05 AM
7
07
05
AM
PDT}

Surprised there's not more discussion on this as it creates huge problems for the entire human evolutionary narrative. Personally, I have always been extremely sceptical especially of the Australopithecines. Film of Lovejoy taking a dremel tool to Lucy's hip to make it more human destroyed any credibility of human evolutionary scientists for me. I have since become a complete cynic when it comes to attaching the word "scientist" to anything "evolution," as evolution is much more religion than science. Of course they had to make Lucy walk upright because another set of human footprints (Laetoli) made it necessary. Now Laetoli has been pushed back several million years completely rewriting the accepted story. Pretty significant I'd say.Florabama_{September 4, 2017
September
09
Sep
4
04
2017
06:27 AM
6
06
27
AM
PDT}

Dean_from_Ohio,
Whatever advantages a good user name may bestow, they do not appear to include an understanding of human nature or a grasp of why this website exists.
My understanding of human nature is that people tend to like fame and fortune. And that people enter the science field one day hoping to make a major discovery. The discovery you’re talking about would probably be the biggest one in history.
What was your response to the discovery of soft tissue in Triceratops horn found in Montana?
I hadn’t heard about that discovery because by then such findings were pretty common and no longer that newsworthy by 2013. I only heard about it once he was fired. But my response to similar findings from the early 1990s to the early 2000s (such as Schweitzer’s) was excitement and hope that it would stand against peer review.
More to the point, what was the response of the scientists in the field, and the discoverer’s own colleagues?
If you’re referring to the firing, I believe that was wrong and I’m glad he won the lawsuit. I doubt that the firing was over the discovery of soft tissue though (as mentioned, it was pretty well accepted long by then that such tissue could be found. If he was actually fired for that, his University colleagues were WAY out of the loop.) I think it’s more likely that he was fired for things he was saying to his colleagues regarding the finding, in other words, his religious beliefs, which is wrong. (Although the university claims he wasn’t fired and that they merely didn’t renew his temp contract.)
How much fame and money came to him after he published his results?
The publication of the results probably didn’t gain him much fame and fortune (as such findings were becoming commonplace) although Mary Schweitzer has gained quite a bit of both and is one of the most famous and respected scientists in her field.goodusername_{September 3, 2017
September
09
Sep
3
03
2017
05:57 PM
5
05
57
PM
PDT}

If someone discovered a combined fossil of a T-Rex that was covered instantly by sediment in the act of eating a human, the first response of the majority of scientists would be to destroy the fossil and deny that it had ever existed.
Yes, the natural response for most people upon discovering something that would make them famous and a lot of money would of course be to destroy it. This is especially true of scientists - who enters a field of science wanting to discover something new?goodusername_{September 2, 2017
September
09
Sep
2
02
2017
08:03 PM
8
08
03
PM
PDT}

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Leave a Reply