Page 184 - The Transitional Form Dilemma

THE TRANSITIONAL-FORM DILEMMA

John Mastropaolo, regarded as one of the world’s most eminent
authorities on fossil science, studied the toes for himself, comparing
kadabba’s toes with those of humans, chimpanzees and baboons.
Mastropaolo compared anatomical criteria from a mathematical per-
spective and arrived at very different conclusions. The toe did not re-
semble chimpanzee or baboon toes, and the resemblance between it and
human toes was insufficient. His conclusions were announced on
August 27, 2002, at a conference in San Diego held by the American
Physiological Society. The final part of the article said that its identifica-

tion as a bipedal evolutionary ancestor was purely speculative:
Accordingly, the objective ancestry analyses for fossil bones assert that the con-
clusions of Haile-Salassie and Robinson were farfetched speculations. 176
In conclusion, as stated in Nature, the Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba
fossil resembles a chimpanzee and has nothing to do with the origins of
mankind.