Was Lucy An Ape-man? by John D. Morris, Ph.D. "Lucy," consisting
of a skeleton forty percent complete, was discovered in Ethiopia
by Donald Johanson in 1974, and was dated at 3.2 million years
of age. He calculated her to have stood about 3'6" tall, and to
have weighed about 50 pounds. Certain features suggested to
Johanson that it may have walked erect, and was therefore
evolving into a human. In a recent interview, Johanson
recollects, "I happened to glance over my right shoulder . .
.and there on the surface of the ground was a little bit of an
elbow, I recognized it immediately as belonging to a human
ancestor." Lest one get the impression that Johanson is blessed
with an unusual gift of discernment, let me point out that many
in the anthropological community have yet to be so convinced.
Indeed, it is impossible to make snap judgments like this, while
a number of sophisticated studies have shown that the
austraiopithecines, in general, and "Lucy," in particular, were
not ape-human intermediates, but rathe