Lucy - fact or fraud?

This has circulated quite a bit, and is at least as old as Gish's "Evolution, the fossils say no!". The knee in question was found some distance away and has never in any way been associated with the fossil Lucy outside of generally considered to be the same species. The knee was found the year before and was used as evidence that a biped of unknown affinity live ~3 mya in that region. The knee was found in 1973, Lucy (determined to be from a single individual) and some associated teeth and jaws from other inviduals in 1974, and hundreds of fossils representing as many as 13 individuals the following year ("The First Family"). Also very similar fossils were discovered at another locality in Tanzania along with footprints.At some point in time (and I cannot pinpoint the guilty party) all of the fossils lumped under the name of Australopithecus afarensis started being reported in creationist literature as a single find (as if evolutionists discovered what they believed to be a single fossil called Lucy). By claiming that evolutionists claimed there was only one individual it became easy to discredit. How could Lucy be one individual if her knew was found hundreds of meters away? How could footprints show she walked upright if those prints were in a different country? And so on. Classic strawman!

---

Doctor Bashir: "Of all the stories you told me, which were true and which weren't?"
Elim Garak: "My dear Doctor, they're all true"
Doctor Bashir: "Even the lies?"
Elim Garak: "Especially the lies"

I apologize in advance for replying to an OT post, but happened to be reviewing stuff for my Human Evolution class this semester and ran across one of 'pop's supposed sources You are referring to: Spoor F, Wood B, and Zonneveld F (1994) Implications of Early Hominid Labyrinthine Morphology for Evolution of Human Bipedal Locomotion, Nature 369: 645-648.As I have the paper in front of me, and I know you must have read it (unless you just c&p from another creationist website, weren't you banned for that?). So I want to hear your opinion on what the authors believe to be a switch from facualtive versus obligate bipedalism. What changes in the anterior and posterior labyrinthine canals do you think are relevant to the question of australopithecines being apes instead of human? Your cite. I have the others as well. Just picked this one because it is fun.To return to the topic, Lucy is an absolutely remarkeble find. To claim fraud is ridiculous. We have ~40% of a skeleton of a very old hominid. Plus representatives of many more of her conspecifics.

---

Doctor Bashir: "Of all the stories you told me, which were true and which weren't?"
Elim Garak: "My dear Doctor, they're all true"
Doctor Bashir: "Even the lies?"
Elim Garak: "Especially the lies"