Shadow Wraith

At the message board for my local newspaper's website, there have been several drawn out discussions between evolutionists like myself and several creationists (all young-Earthers). One of them who goes by the name "johnboy" asked me this question about Lucy:
Does anyone have info on this?

Also, is anyone interested in helping to try to shut up the creationists, or it the simple act of debating them a futile effort? I'm beginning to find it a waste of my time, and I think Richard Dawkins' advice in his article "Why I won't debate creationists" is sounding better all the time.

WinAce

I do believe female apes have distinguishing characteristics from male ones all over the skeleton, but I haven't seen this one before. Do a search on TalkOrigins.

Also, if your ISP's forum is accessible to the public, do send me the dumbest posts by the cretos and links, please

theyeti

According to the following site...

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/lucy.html

...they found 40% of her skeleton. It's more than enough to determine her sex, age, species, and numerous other characteristics. Other info at that page and its links will help.

Heh heh. You're not going to change their minds no matter how much evidence you throw at them; just accept that right now. While you will occasionally find an open-minded creationist who's willing to look at the evidence (these people don't stay creationists for very long), most of them are set in their ways and will not budge no matter what. If you're going to debate them, do it for the lurkers and the handful of fence-sitters. Those are the people who might benefit. At best you can only show your YEC friends that their arguments are not as good as they thought, but even that doesn't matter. They'll still keep using the shoddiest ones anyway, long after they've been decisively refuted.

theyeti

DrLao

I believe the reason Lucy is suspected to be female is because of her size. She is much smaller than other adult members of her species.

Dr.GH

Ah, dear old "Disgusta." I taught at MCG in the '80s. I even posted occasionally on the Chronicle's BB. If you go over to "Cafe Natural" on a Friday PM, there might be a group of folks in the back tables (past the bar). If the place is still open, and if the folks are still meeting there, you might have some fun meeting like minded people. Or, give Les Pollard a call over at Paine College and find out where the Friday group is meeting these days (Say Hi from Gary.)

The Lucy information should be available at :

http://www.becominghuman.org/

http://www.modernhumanorigins.com/

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/

http://www.asu.edu/clas/iho/

Or Johanson and Edey's book "Lucy"

The "Lucy" skeleton itself has the left inominate and femer, and the sacrum which easily establish these to be from a female who was bipedal, and the nearly intact mandible which provides an age guidline. Note that the third molar is fully erupted, but there is little wear (plate 13, and 14 "Lucy"). There are many additional bones of this skeleton, but they don't add more information as to sex or age. The one lumbar vertebra also indicates an erect posture.

There are of course many other A. afarensis fossils which confirm the diagnosis of the Lucy skeleton.

Godless Dave

I thought the shape of the pelvis had a lot do with determining the sex of a skeleton.

RufusAtticus

The sacrum is part of the pelvis.

DrLao

In humans, yes. But not so much in Lucy. From the book Reconstructing Human Origins by Glenn C. Conroy, he says in a footnote that with the exception of the length of the iliopectineal line, all other features of Lucy's pelvis are more typical of males. And he cites Tague, R. G., Lovejoy, C.O. 1986. "The obstetric pelvis of A.L. 288-1 (Lucy). J. Hum. Evol. 15:237-255.

Dr.GH

Interesting. Thanks for the reference Dr. Lao. Without a scale, or comparitive material, it is difficult to tell from a photo, but the "lucy" sacrum does look a bit wide to me. None of the photos I have seen are from the proper viewpoints to determine sex of the "lucy" individual from the innominate.

Valentine Pontifex

There was a researcher in the mid-90s that published the suggestion that Lucy was male, but that is not taken very seriously. There was an article published to refute it. Its PubMed entry is here. Some people might be able to read the article their if they have an university account. Otherwise go to the library or pay the publisher online access.