Criticism
Critics have disputed some of Morris's claims. For instance, the following claim of Morris':
From the neck down, certain clues suggested to Johanson that Lucy (Australopithecines) walked a little more erect than today's chimps. This conclusion, based on his interpretation of the partial hip bone and a knee bone, has been hotly contested by many paleoanthropologists....elicited the following response from Jim Foley in TalkOrigins Archive:
Almost everything in this quote is a distortion (Johanson's and Lucy's names are about the only exceptions). "Certain clues suggested" doesn't mention that the whole find screamed "bipedality" to every qualified scientist who looked at it. "a little more erect", when everyone believes that Lucy was fully erect. "the partial hip bone and a knee bone", when Lucy included almost a complete pelvis and leg (taking mirror imaging into account, and excluding the foot). "has been hotly contested", when no reputable paleoanthropologist denies that Lucy was bipedal. The debates are about whether she was also arboreal, and about how similar the biomechanics of her locomotion was to that of humans. Given that we have most of Lucy's leg and pelvis, one has to wonder what sort of fossil evidence it would take to convince creationists of australopithecine bipedality.The statement of Foley's - "Lucy included almost a complete pelvis and leg" - also received criticism. The bones attributed to Lucy (Australopithecus) only did have half of a pelvis and fragmented parts of its legs.
In 1996 Morris claimed that the creationist belief that the human and dinosaur footprints were found in the Paluxy River was "at best, ambiguous" and that Duane Gish of the ICR asserted they "are" human and dinosaur tracks together. Massimo Pigliucci, citing various volumes of research wrote "there is no controversy surrounding the prints, only the creationists' stubborn refusal to bow to the evidence."
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