Evaluating the Quality of Evidence for Lucy

People expect scientists to evaluate data according to logic, but that seems to be happening less. Indeed, critical thinking is shunned by people and what can be called stupidification is taking its place. People "think" with their emotions and parrot what people they admire have said.

In my workplace, I have seen certain workers playing videos of people pontificating that they are victims of Conservatives. (Interesting how these "oppressed" people ignore the fact that they have public platforms for their views.) Lucy's evolutionary transitional form status is an example of poor critical thinking.

Modified from a public domain image at Wikimedia Commons

Let's first consider medical science. In 2001, I was having chest pains. A doctor said that if he were a betting man, he's bet that my problem was anxiety. Although educated, it was his opinion based on incomplete evidence; there was a problem that was resolved with an angioplasty and stent. In 2023, I had triple-bypass open-heart surgery. The need for this was logically derived through the accumulated data of various tests including a heart catheter. No guessing, no Darwinism.

In some ways, medical science often used not empirical data and testing, but the opinions of experts. Similarly, the same thing happens with evolution. Certain medical views of experts were removed because of better thinking and methods, but people suspend critical thinking regarding icons of evolution like Australopithecus afarensis. Those people have their evolutionary biases confirmed while they listen to consensus and expert opinions — except that experts are not in agreement, and the evidence is actually an absurd mixture of bits and pieces. Again, a great deal of effort is expended on a "link" that is 404 to deny the work of the Creator.

In November of 1974, Donald Johanson found the widely scattered and incomplete bone fragments that later became known as Lucy in the Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, Africa. Johanson claimed that Lucy was a specimen of Australopithecus afarensis and a close ancestor of modern humans. Despite well-demonstrated objections to the evidence of Johansen and his followers, many people continue to virtually worship Lucy as a kind of goddess—or to venerate her as a sort of Eve, the mother of us all. How should creationists respond?

To read the entire article, see "Lucy—A Look at Evidence Quality for This 'Evolutionary Icon'." Also take a look-see at "Some Evolutionists Dissatisfied with Museum Reconstructions."