Lucy’s Legacy

I went to see the “Lucy’s Legacy” exhibit in New York. It was, to say the least, fascinating especially since the fossil Ida was also there.

I didn’t know Ida was part of the exhibit so I’m bending over this display case thinking that I was looking at a replica. Then it began to dawn on me that I was looking at the real thing.

I can now say with absolute certainty that the fossils exist. They are certainly real. As to whether they are what they are purported to be, I can only accept the scientific consensus.

The key of course is the age. Lucy has been dated to around 3.2 million years. This date has been arrived at through both Argon-Argon and Paleomagnetic dating. The results have been published, peer reviewed, and accepted by the scientific community.

Then we have the question of the significance of the fossil.

The critical conclusion from Lucy is that she walked upright while still possessing a modest brain size. That conclusion pretty much settled a major scientific argument as to which evolved first, walking upright or a large brain.

Creationists of course can’t afford to accept either the age or the conclusion that Lucy walked upright and is in the evolutionary line that ultimately led to modern humans. Either of those two conclusions pretty much destroys biblical literalism and inerrancy which destroys the foundation of Evangelical Christianity.

So they pretty much wail and moan claiming everything from Lucy is a hoax to quote mining to making flat out untrue assertions.

If you assume everything said by a creationist is a misinterpretation, a distortion or flat out wrong, you’ll be on pretty safe ground.

Here’s the bottom line. The overwhelming consensus in the scientific community, based upon the research, the published papers and exhaustive peer reviews by the most intelligent and highly educated people in the world, is that Lucy is precisely what she is claimed to be, a human ancestor that walked upright on the Ethiopian plane some 3.2 million years ago.

Stick that in your Genesis and chew on it.