Does evidence of transitional forms exist ? (Hominid and other)

Except that they said that Lucy wasn't a knuckle walker. You can't base a conclusion about an animal's gate on a single piece of evidence. There are knuckle-walking adaptations in the forearm. The rest of the animal is adapted for a form of bipedalism.Your conjecture about the toe is pointless. We have the footprints - we know the shape of the australopithecine foot.

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Erm - are you confused? You seem to be dividing Lucy from other Australopithecines. Lucy was an Australopithecine.

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When did I deny that? There are many varieties of australopiths (Australopithecus africanus, afarensis etc). Lucy is australopith afarensis.

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A quick search on Google reveals the reasons Australopithecines, including Lucy, are considered to be bipedal. I'm not a hominid evolution expert, so I'd rather leave it to those who are.

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A quick search on Google with the word "Aliens" also yields thousands of results and reasons to believe why they exist. That doesn't prove anything without valid evidence, now does it?Regards,
Ahmad

The aliens articles Google will find you do not refer to peer-reviewed material.I am glad you understand that Lucy is an Australopithecine. Some of your phrasing implied you didn't: "I don't recall mentioning anything about the quadripedality of Lucy but australopithecines(AUST). "

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1. Lucy is an Australopithecus afarensis, an AUST if you wish.

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Right. So?

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'Stooped gait'? You mean stooped posture? Cite please. Or check this out.

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"The Australopithecines were long-armed short-legged knuckle-walkers, similar to existing African apes" (Richard Leakey, Science News of 1971 (100:357) )Latimer's reconstruction of the vertebral column of australopiths is still a reconstruction. Need O remind you much of the errors that happen in reconstruction, very often made to fit biased errors. Boyce Rensberger, writing in Science in 1981 states:Unfortunately, the vast majority of artist's conceptions are based more on imagination than on evidence. But a handful of expert natural-history artists begin with the fossil bones of a hominid and work from there. Much of the reconstruction, however, is guesswork. Bones say nothing about the fleshy parts of the nose, lips, or ears. Artists must create something between an ape and a human being; the older the specimen is said to be, the more apelike they make it.... Hairiness is a matter of pure conjecture. The guesswork approach often leads to errors.There were many similar reconstructions as Latimer's. One is by artist John Gurche who said in reference to his work on Australopithecus afarensis in the March, 1996, issue of National Geographic, "I wanted to get a human soul into this apelike face, to indicate something about where he was headed."

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Where did Johanson say that? Cite source please.

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Say what? That Australopithecus was bipedal? Are you denying that? Please be clear.Regards,
Ahmad

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Except that they said that Lucy wasn't a knuckle walker. You can't base a conclusion about an animal's gate on a single piece of evidence. There are knuckle-walking adaptations in the forearm. The rest of the animal is adapted for a form of bipedalism.

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What features are you talking about? All quadripedal apes have the morphology of the knuckle-walker. Lucy has it too. Then why do you make an exception for her?

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Your conjecture about the toe is pointless. We have the footprints - we know the shape of the australopithecine foot.

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What footprints? The deceptive Lateoli footprints?Regards,
Ahmad

You have evidence that they are deceptive and not australopithicene?

Ahmad,Our irreducible complexity conversation continues herePE------------------
It's good to have an open mind, but not so open that your brains
fall out. - Bertrand Russell

Laetoli footprints resembled exactly the size of a modern foot of the Homo Sapiens. The Australopithecus foot was an ape's foot, with an opposing thumb, and long curved toes just right for climbing in trees, but most unlike a human's foot. I will leave it up to you to make the conclusion Regards,
Ahmad

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Secondly, multivariate analysis show that that the fossil australopithecine pelvis is not intermediate between the pelves of ape and Man but is in fact uniquely different from the pelves of both living forms (J.T. Robinson, Nature, Vol. 205, p. 121). And besides naturalist Alberto Angela who worked with Johanson at Hadar, wrote that the reconstruction of Lucy’s pelvis was based on supposition."

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This is Lucy, image captured from Harun Yahya's website:
Check its pelvis. Is it "uniquely different"? Looks different to the chimp pelvis, isnt it?:

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Thirdly, multivariate analysis (done by Oxnard) also show that the big toe of the so-called the "human-like" foot actually sticks out as in chimpanzees. There is no evidence that their foot resembled the foot of humans.

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OH 8 (Homo habilis) foot. Oh, I forgot, it's supposed to be Australopithecus habilis.

Anyone got a picture of Homo sapiens foot bones? Maybe it's different from OH 8.

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Now you tell me: Does it make sense to say that Lucy (an australopith) had two separate ways of moving on the ground (bipedalism and knuckle-walking)??

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No, it doesn't make sense at all. Lucy does not do knuckle-walking. I might speculate that she moves like a large gibbon (Hylobates), brachiating on the trees and walking with her legs (not supported by her arms) on the ground.(to admins: sorry for the image-heavy post!)

Ahmad, I've done a lot of searching for information on A. afarensis' feet. I've come to the conclusion we don't actually have any fossils of them. So I would be interested to know how this 'multivariate analysis' was done that indicated the foot was like that of a chimpanzee.However, Australopithecus Afarensis - Modern Human Origins lists the following features that indicate A. afarensis was bipedal:

*The gluteal tuberosity (attachment locus for the gluteus maximus) is mostly on the back of the shaft like other hominids, rather than on its side like African apes (where it acts as an adductor).
*The femoral neck is long relative to the size of the shaft, a consequence of lateral iliac flare.
*The femoral neck is anterior-posteriorly flattened, making it relatively tall, thus, resistant to bending stresses during one-legged support.
*The bone thickness on the anterior neck surface is expanded, a response to muscle forces during toe-off and the force transmitted when the leg comes to the ground at the end of its swing.
*The neck-shaft angle is low.

Your move.

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Check its pelvis. Is it "uniquely different"? Looks different to the chimp pelvis, isnt it?

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I see it and let me tell you that her pelvis was reconstructed by Owen Lovejoy. In the first place, we must remember the words of Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin, Similar anatomy does not always indicate evolutionary relationship.(Origins Reconsidered, p. 79). In other words, fossilized skeletal structure can often be a difficult tool in determining species and its relationship to other species. It is particularly difficult to determine the species of the remains when those remains are crushed into tiny bits and bent out of shape. This was the state of Lucy’s pelvis when she was discovered. The innominate (the three bones that make up the hip) were smashed into about forty pieces!! Lovejoy spent six months bending and pasting Lucy’s bones until they resembled a human pelvis. The accuracy of Lovejoy’s work was immediately called into question by his own colleagues. Naturalist Alberto Angela who worked with Johanson at Hadar (as I quoted before), wrote that the reconstruction of Lucy’s pelvis was based on supposition.(The Extraordinary Story of Human Origins p.62). Even Lovejoy could not mutilate the evidence enough to enlarge the birth canal. It would not have been physically possible for Lucy to give birth to a large brained child. Giving birth to such a child would eventually be necessary if Australopithecus afarensis were going to mutate into the next evolutionary stage. Johanson explains this dilemma as...the sacrum (tail bone) had to narrow throughout human evolution while another of our adaptive landmarks, larger brains, evolved. Lucy’s wider sacrum (tail bone) and shallower pelvis gave her a smaller, kidney-shaped birth canal, compared to that of modern humans.("Ancestors" page 66)In other words, Lucy could only have given birth to an ape!!

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OH 8 (Homo habilis) foot. Oh, I forgot, it's supposed to be Australopithecus habilis.

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The site from which you got the image from makes this statement:"Some researchers suggest that Australopithecus afarensis was fully bipedal, whilst others postulate that the more recent Homo habilis (based on the foot assemblage OH 8) still retained certain arboreal adaptations."So that foot pic shows signs of arboreal adaptations, i.e, climbing up trees and swinging from one tree to another. Sounds like tarzan? Nah, just another ape.

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No, it doesn't make sense at all. Lucy does not do knuckle-walking.

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Then why the knucle-walking characeristics and adaptations recently found by Richmond and Strait? Surely they muct contributed to their function, i.e, knuckle-walking.

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I might speculate that she moves like a large gibbon (Hylobates), brachiating on the trees and walking with her legs (not supported by her arms) on the ground.

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Interesting. Taking in account that these gibbons are nothing but anthropoid apes, I migh agree with you . Yes the gibbons walk with their hind legs but they do usually raise their arms for balance. Nonetheless, its an interesting speculation. Also note that gibbons don't have the knuckle-walking characteristics as the aforementioned Lucy.Regards,
Ahmad

The australopith brain is the same size as a chimp's brain, so it's no problem for Lucy if she ever gave birth to anyone. Anyway, the character that puts australopiths near to humans is, after all, their erect posture, which implies bipedalism. Check the Lucy fossil again, this time with a ruler. Measure the length of her arm and compare it to her leg. Done that? Then try to get the measurements of a chimp's arms and legs. Lucy's arm is shorter than her feet. Knuckle-walking apes have long arms and short legs. Should Lucy try to knuckle-walk she'd make a ridiculous posture, because her legs are longer than her arms while her face would point downward.Anyway, about the pelvis, here's an interesting article. The author is a creationist, yet he checked the data for himself (admirable guy) and conclude that Lovejoy did not bend the evidence for evolution. Angelfire - error 404'The deformation of the original Lucy pelvis that was corrected by Lovejoy on the reconstruction affects the way the rear part of the pelvic blade articulates with the sacrum, which is also preserved in Lucy's skeleton, and is the bone at the base of the spinal column that joins the left and right blades of the pelvis. In its present state, the articulation between these two bones is crushed such that the back part of the pelvic blade is pushed backwards almost 90 to the front part, creating a completely artificial angle to this anatomical region (it is artifical whether one uses an ape or a human pelvis as a comparison - no ape, monkey or even dog pelvis has such an angle of the blade). What Lovejoy did was to cut the displaced pieces from a series of plaster casts and re-assemble them to remove the distortion. The re-assembly was conducted very carefully. Fortunately the deformation left most of the edges of the displaced fragments intact, so the reconstruction proceeded by matching and refitting the edges of the broken pieces... much as one reassembles a picture by fitting together the pieces of a jig-saw puzzle.'

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'The resulting reconstruction was not a product of anyone's imagination or preconceived idea, as suggested by Parker's text, but was the simple result of a geoemetrical restoration of the bone's natural anatomical contours, and thus of its contact with the sacrum.'Anyway, there are other australopith pelvises besides Lucy's. Again from the same guy:
Angelfire - error 404See the data for yourself. Anyway, thanks for reminding me the possibility of Lovejoy bending the data. It made me searching and checking my own position. As I have checked, he's not cheating. And it's still consistent with the idea of australopiths being bipedal.About the foot (OH 8): Arboreal adaptations? You mean a hand-like foot like those of chimps? I supplied the picture, now you tell me where the arboreal adaptations are. And you still owe us that multivariate analysis. Show us Oxnard's data. (HINT: Creationist sites usually don't have them).

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Then why the knucle-walking characeristics and adaptations recently found by Richmond and Strait? Surely they muct contributed to their function, i.e, knuckle-walking.

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Retention of ancestral characters? A knuckle-walking wrist does not obstruct a bipedal walker. If it does not get in the way, then natural selection wouldn't weed it out immediately.

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Ahmad, I've done a lot of searching for information on A. afarensis' feet. I've come to the conclusion we don't actually have any fossils of them. So I would be interested to know how this 'multivariate analysis' was done that indicated the foot was like that of a chimpanzee.

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Actally, we do have foot fossils (as I know) of afarensis. You can refer to C.E. Oxnard, in Fossils, Sex and Teeth New Perspectives on Human Evolution, University of Washington Press, Seattle and London, p. 227, 1987. Oxnard had previously concluded much the same about Australopithecus africanus, Nature 258:389—395, 1975.

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However, Australopithecus Afarensis - Modern Human Origins lists the following features that indicate A. afarensis was bipedal:

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The points are interesting but none of them validly prove afarensis to be bipedal. They are all relating to the proximal femur which has more resemblance to humans. Even the pygmy chimpanzees have all the mentioned points as Lucy does. But I hear no one saying that the pygmy chimpanzee walks full-time on two legs. Yes it does walk on two legs but temporarily. It runs on all its four. Same is the case with Lucy.

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Your move.

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Here are some of the key points about afarensis I collected from here to prove my point:

• General anatomy of Lucy's shoulder blade was characterized as "virtually identical to that of a great ape and had a probability less than 0.001 of coming from the population represented by our modern human sample" (Susman et al, 1984, pp 120-121)
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• Lucy's shoulder blade has a shoulder joint which points upwards (Oxnard 1984, p334-i; Stern and Susman 1983, p284) This would allow "use of the upper limb in elevated positions as would be common during climbing behavior" (Stern and Sussman, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 60:279-313 1983, p284).
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• Afarensis wrist bones are apelike. "Thus we may conclude that A. afarensis possessed large and mechanically advantageous wrist flexors, as might be useful in an arboreal setting" (Stern and Susman, 1983, p282).
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• Afarensis metacarpals [the bones in the palm of the hand] "have large heads and bases relative to their parallel sided and somewhat curved shafts an overall pattern shared by chimpanzees". This "might be interpreted as evidence of developed grasping capabilities to be used in suspensory behavior" (Stern and Susman 1983, pp 282-3).
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• The finger bones are even more curved than in chimpanzees and are morphologically chimpanzee-like. (Stern and Susman 1983, pp 282-4; Susman et al 1984 p. 117; Marzke 1983, p 198).
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• Afarensis humerus (upper arm bone) has features that are "most likely related to some form of arboreal locomotion" (Oxnard 1984, p.334-1; see also Senut 1981, p.282).
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• One of the long bones in the forearm, the ulna, resembles that of the pygmy chimpanzee (Feldsman 1982b, p.187).
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• Vertebrae show points of attachment for shoulder and back muscles "massive relative to their size in modern humans" (Cook et al 1983, p.86) These would be very useful for arboreal activity (Oxnard 1984, p 334-i).
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• "Recently Schmid (1983) has reconstructed the A.L. 288-1 rib cage as being chimpanzee-like" Susman et al 1984, p 131).
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• Blades of hip oriented as in chimpanzee (Stern and Susman 1983, p.292.) Features of afarensis hip therefore "enable proficient climbing" (Stern and Susman 1983, p. 290).
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• In 1987, Dr. Charles Oxnard (University of Western Australia) did a computer analysis of australopithecines such as Lucy is classed as. He concluded that they are not ancestral to humans at all, but are instead an extinct form of arboreal ape. (Oxnard, Charles, Fossils, Teeth and Sex: New Perspectives on Human Evolution, University of Washington Press, 1987.)

Ofcourse just like Strait, Stern and Susman, after describing Lucy's arboreal characteristics persist, for the sake of evolution, saying Lucy was bipedal. They practice picking morphological traits that agree with their favored hypothesis and forgetting about the ones that do not agree or even contradict the hypothesis of the day. Nonetheless, the latent truth seems to be that Lucy was an extinct ape species... not a "missing-link" nor man's ancestor.Regards,
Ahmad

Assala Moalaikum brother Primanda,

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The australopith brain is the same size as a chimp's brain, so it's no problem for Lucy if she ever gave birth to anyone. Anyway, the character that puts australopiths near to humans is, after all, their erect posture, which implies bipedalism. Check the Lucy fossil again, this time with a ruler. Measure the length of her arm and compare it to her leg. Done that? Then try to get the measurements of a chimp's arms and legs. Lucy's arm is shorter than her feet. Knuckle-walking apes have long arms and short legs. Should Lucy try to knuckle-walk she'd make a ridiculous posture, because her legs are longer than her arms while her face would point downward.

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Now now brother, don't go onto mere observation of the skeleton. Its a diagrammatic representation. Give me a source (valid) where it shows that Lucy's arm was is shorter than her legs. As I know, its the opposite. Like habilis, lucy too has her arms longer than her legs. She is an ape.

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See the data for yourself. Anyway, thanks for reminding me the possibility of Lovejoy bending the data. It made me searching and checking my own position. As I have checked, he's not cheating. And it's still consistent with the idea of australopiths being bipedal.

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But he did deceive us. I checked the sites.. interesting. Lucy's pelvis was crushed into pieces. I think this site gives a little description that proves my point. The passage explains how forensic pathology does not support Lovejoy's claim:"I spoke with two pathologists at the USC Medical Center about the characteristics of broken bones. One was a friend whom I had been trying to reach with the gospel for years and who knew my wife well, having taught her pathology for a year. He was a senior pathologist who recently committed suicide. I didn't want them to withhold any critical information concerning bone damage, so I asked them if there was any known way to make bones deformable and conformable. They said there wasn't. I asked them if there was any way to compress a bone so that it would change its configuration and look like it was not broken (similar to Lovejoy's claim). My friend said that this could happen but the microfractures would be detectable. Lovejoy did not seem to have tried to see if this was the case. In order for his theory to have any credibility, he must present evidence of compression, which he has not done. He simply made an assumption and continued with his explanation."Go through the website for more evidence. In the second place, Lovejoy’s reconstruction of Lucy’s pelvis must be reconsidered in light of the work done by Peter Schmid. Schmid, a paleontologist at the Anthropological Institute in Zurich, was sent a cast of Lucy’s skeleton and asked to reassemble it for a display. What Schmid found was not what he expected. His reconstruction of Lucy did not resemble the Owen Lovejoy model. Schmid describes what he concluded as he put Lucy’s remains together:"When I started to put the skeleton together, I expected it to look human. Everyone had talked about Lucy as being very modern, very human, so I was surprised by what I saw. I noticed that the ribs were more round in cross-section, more like what you see in apes. Human ribs are flatter in cross-section. But the shape of the rib cage itself was the biggest surprise of all. The human rib cage is barrel shaped, and I just couldn’t get Lucy’s ribs to fit this kind of shape. But I could get them to make a conical shaped rib cage, like what you see in apes." (Leakey and Lewin, Origins Reconsidered, pp. 193-194.)Once again the evolutionists had made an assumption which the facts did not support. If one aspect of Lovejoy’s Lucy model did not add up, would it not be reasonable to assume that he might have made a mistake (intentional or unintentional) in piecing together another aspect of her anatomy, namely her pelvis?

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About the foot (OH 8): Arboreal adaptations? You mean a hand-like foot like those of chimps? I supplied the picture, now you tell me where the arboreal adaptations are. And you still owe us that multivariate analysis. Show us Oxnard's data. (HINT: Creationist sites usually don't have them).

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Right. This is the reference, "Kidd, R.S., P. O'Higgins, and C.E. Oxnard 1996. The OH8 foot: a reappraisal of the functional morphology of the hindfoot utilizing a multivariate approach. Journal of Human Evolution 31:269-291."Couldn't find a link, sorry.

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Retention of ancestral characters? A knuckle-walking wrist does not obstruct a bipedal walker. If it does not get in the way, then natural selection wouldn't weed it out immediately.

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But on what basis can you make that claim? There is absolutely no evidence to claim that Lucy evolved from knuckle-walking ancestors and this possessed these knuckle-walking characteristics. If you make such a claim.. you have to show exactly when did this miraculous transformation from quadripedality to bipedality take place. Did she just walk upright from the momnet she was born?? And besides, when examined in terms of mechanics, it is seen that quadropedalism is more "superior" than bipedalim. A living being able to move on all fours can run faster and has more chance to survive. Bipedal stride is both harder and slower. Therefore, a thesis claiming that bipedalism evolved out of quadropedalism cannot be explained by natural selection which is based on the argument of survival of the fittest, now can it?Even if we admit the evolutionary argument, we must assent to the idea that man’s first ancestor split off from the apes and started to walk on its two feet in an upright posture. Yet, since bipedalism is a disadvantage rather than an advantage, natural selection would eliminate this "ancestor of man". This is one of the biggest contradictions within evolution itself, as I see it. As a result of this inconsistency, the French L’Express magazine published several articles stating that apes were superior to men in terms of evolution, so they could have evolved from them. Think about it.Regards,
Ahmad[This message has been edited by Ahmad, 12-02-2002][This message has been edited by Ahmad, 12-02-2002]

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Originally posted by Ahmad:

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Here are some of the key points about afarensis I collected from here to prove my point:

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General anatomy of Lucy's shoulder blade ...

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Lucy's shoulder blade has a shoulder joint which points upwards...

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Afarensis wrist bones are apelike...

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Afarensis metacarpals [the bones in the palm of the hand]...

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The finger bones...

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Afarensis humerus (upper arm bone)...

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One of the long bones in the forearm...

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Vertebrae show points of attachment for shoulder and back muscles ...

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"Recently ... (1983) ...

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Hi Ahmad -
All but 3 of your references are to arm or upper body traits, which surprised me, as the lower spine, pelvis and legs are more relevant to the question of gait, aren't they?I am out of my field, such as it is, here. As a biochemist, 15 to 20 year old references seem rather old. Have you any more recent ones?[This message has been edited by Chavalon, 12-02-2002]