Lucy the missing link? (Australopithecines)

Recent comments of this blog claim Lucy (or Australopithecines) to be a valid representation of a missing link between man and animal evolution. But is this really so? (please note, all quotes here are from evolutionary scientists) 

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.
Adrienne Zihlman, "Pygmy chimps, people, and the pundits," New Scientist, 15 November 1984, p. 39

Whats the most important thing about Lucy?

From the person who discovered Lucy:

Donald Johanson, the discoverer of Lucy near Hadar, Ethiopia, reflects on the significance of walking upright:

‘In 1973, when I was barely out of graduate school, I found a humanlike knee joint that proved beyond doubt that our ancestors walked erect close to three and a half million years ago—long before they developed the big brains that had once been thought to be the hallmark of humanity.’

Which one of the following is right?

Richard Dawkins says that Lucy “walked upright on her hind legs, as we do... on two feet which were pretty much like ours although its brain was the size of a chimpanzee's” (pp. 188-9 The greatest show on earth: the evidence for evolution).

Dr Fred Spoor (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/cdb/research/spoor), Professor of evolutionary anatomy at university college London, UK, (and joint editor of the journal of Human Evolution) performed a CAT scan of australopithecine inner ear canals, the organs of posture and balance. The results showed that they did not walk habitually upright (Spoor F, Wood B and Zonneveld F (1994) Implications of early hominid labyrinthine morphology for the evolution of human bipedal locomotion. Nature 369:645 648.).

A conflict of information?

In 'Evidence that humans evolved from a knuckle-walking ancestor, Nature 404(6776):382, 2000 by Brian G. Richmond (& David S. Strait)

(http://departments.columbian.gwu.edu/anthropology/people/182),

In an interview, Richmond stated that after they analyzed the wrist characteristics of living knuckle-walkers, he and Strait walked across the hall to check plaster casts at the National Museum of Natural History: ‘I walked over to the cabinet, pulled out Lucy, and—shazam!—she had the morphology that was classic for knuckle walkers .’

Former professor of Anatomy and biological sciences at the University of Southern California, now professor of Human anatomy and Human Biology, university of Western Australia – Dr Charles Oxnard (full biography here: http://www.uwa.edu.au/people/charles.oxnard)

In 'The Order of Man', 1984 (Yale University Press, New Haven). Charles Oxnard said:

“It is now recognized widely that the australopithecines are not structurally closely similar to humans, that they must have been living at least in part in arboreal (tree) environments, and that many of the later specimens were contemporaneous (living at the same time) or almost so with the earlier members of the genus Homo”

Sounds a bit like more contradictions in one of the highest regarded missing links between man and animal evolution. How can you trust these claims? What conclusion can you reach about this?...........

"ADIEU, LUCY"

Scientific findings have shown that evolutionist hypotheses regarding "Lucy," the best-known specimen of the class Australopithecus, are quite groundless. In its February 1999 issue, the famous French magazine Science et Vie admitted this under the headline "Adieu, Lucy" and agreed that Australopithecus couldnot be regarded as an ancestor of man.

  Isabelle Bourdial, "Adieu Lucy," Science et Vie, May 1999, No. 980, pp. 52-62.

 

quote from the magazine:-

"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 examine St W573 are different from the normal theories regarding mankind's ancestors 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." 

What exactly is Lucy?

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

("Pygmy chimps, people, and the pundits," New Scientist, 15 November 1984, p. 39)

"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."
source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/science/2001-03-21-skull.htm

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 now accept the need for Lucy to be removed from the human family tree.

The nail on the coffin?

Donald Johanson (the guy who discovered Lucy) and T. D. White, issued the following statement in Science magazine:

Fossils of Australopithecus have been studied in painstaking detail: their manner of walking, the structure of their ear, pattern of tooth development, their long and powerful forearms, short hind limbs, structure of their feet, small sized brains, and very ape- like skulls, jaws, and faces. These prove that Australopithecus was an ape and no way related to man. Donald Johanson himself, the discoverer of Lucy, later concluded that Australophitecus africanus (Lucy) was not related to humans at all.

 source: D. Johanson - T. D. White, Science, 203:321, 1979, 207:1104, 1980 - Nicholas Comninellis, Creative Defense, Evidence Against Evolution, Master Books, 2001, s. 187-188

Does the story end there? No, further to comments below this article, it is clear that Donald Johanson has changed his position regarding Lucy due to some more recent discoveries. These I will look at in the next article on the subject. (link to follow)

----------------------------------------------------------

something more for you to read as a footnote regarding scientists who have abandoned evolution as a theory:

http://theevolutioncrisis.org.uk/ - an interesting website - scientists who have left the theory of evolution alone because of lack of evidence for the theory. Something for you to research while I continue compiling this website.