Reconstructing Lucy’s Pelvis: Another Creationist Canard Exposed

In a previous post I talked about how creationists misuse White and Suwa’s paper on the foot of Australopithecus afarensis to cast doubt on the species bipedal ability. Another area creationists like to focus on is the pelvis. David Menton, for example, has spent quite a lot of time trying to cast doubt on the reconstruction of the AL-288-1 pelvis. Specifically, he claims that Lovejoy reconstructed the pelvis to fit his own biased preconceptions. G. P. Jellison examines this claim in an excellent piece called Creationist Claims About the Reconstruction of the “Lucy” Pelvis. As Jellison points out, contrary to creationist claims, the fossil itself was not cut up or damaged in any way, rather Lovejoy used casts. This raises another point, while you may be able to obtain casts of Lovejoy’s reconstruction, you can also find casts of the Al-288-1 in all its damaged glory. When I was at the University of Tennessee the cast we had was of the latter, rather than the former, and the damage was quite obvious. Anyway, check out Jellison’s article – especially because Jellison corresponded with both Lovejoy and Johanson for the piece (why didn’t I think of that?)