Claim CC080:

Australopithecus was fully ape, closer to chimp. World-renowned anatomists and evolutionists Solly Zuckerman and Charles Oxnard have shown that Australopithecus did not walk upright in a human manner.

Source:

Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1985. Life--How Did It Get Here? Brooklyn, NY, pp. 93-94.
Yahya, Harun, 2003. Darwinism Refuted, The origin of man. http://www.darwinismrefuted.com/origin_of_man_02.html

Response:

  1. Australopithecus africanus and robustus are far more humanlike than apelike. A. afarensis falls somewhere between human and ape, perhaps more on the side of ape. A. ramidus is even more apelike.

    The claims that africanus and robustus are fully ape are based on old and discredited accounts from just a couple of papers. Oxnard himself considered Australopithecus to be a human ancestor (Groves 1999). The vastly greater evidence that those species are fully bipedal and had other humanlike traits is either ignored, distorted, or baselessly dismissed by creationists (Foley 1997).

Links:

Foley, Jim. 1997. Creationist arguments: Australopithecines. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/a_piths.html

References:

  1. Foley, J. 1997. (see above)
  2. Groves, Colin. 1999. Getting desperate. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/desperate_cg.html
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created 2003-5-10, modified 2003-10-6