Page 172 - The Transitional Form Dilemma

THE TRANSITIONAL-FORM DILEMMA

Lucy’s gait was not a transition towards that of human beings:
There is general agreement that Lucy’s gait is not properly understood, and
that it was not something simply transitional to ours. 149

University of California professor of anthropology Adrienne
Zihlman states that Lucy’s fossil remains match up remarkably well
with the bones of a pygmy chimp. 150
In an article in New Scientist, Dr. Jeremy Cherfas says the following
about Lucy’s skull:
Lucy, alike Australopithecus afarensis, had a skull very like a chimpanzee’s,
and a brain to match. 151

The French magazine Science et Vie gave Lucy a cover story in its
May 1999 edition. The article titled “Adieu Lucy” (“Farewell to Lucy”)
wrote that apes of the Australopithecus genus needed to be removed
from the human family tree. In this article, based on the finding of a new
Australopithecus fossil, St W573, the following statements appeared:
A new theory states that the genus Australopithecus is not the root of the
human race. . . . The results arrived at by the only woman authorized to exam-
ine St W573 are different from the normal theories regarding mankind’s ances-
tors This destroys the hominid family tree. Large primates, considered the
ancestors of man, have been removed from the equation of this family tree. . . .
Australopithecus and Homo (human) species do not appear on the same
branch. Man’s direct ancestors are still waiting to be discovered. 152
Another article by Tim Friend in USA Today made the following

comment about Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis), who is portrayed as a
direct ancestor of Man:
Lucy’s scientific name is Australopithecus afarensis. She looked very similar to
a modern bonobo chimpanzee, with a small brain, a protruding face and large
molar teeth. But Lucy has been losing favor over the past 10 years as the direct
ancestor of the genus Homo. Lucy has ape-like features not found in supposed
descendants. 153
The article also devotes some space to the views of Smithsonian
Museum of Natural History’s “Origin of Man” program head Richard
Potts, according to which Potts and a great many other evolutionists

170