Written by Isaac Manly, MD

Jan 01, 2003 at 12:00 AM

Paleontologists continue to search for the elusive primate which they faithfully believe evolved into man. They are now enamored with the australopithecines. The first specimen, found in southern Africa in 1924, was named Australopithecus, or southern ape.

The major living players in the game of seeking the hidden gorilla who might have fathered us all have probably been Donald Johanson and Richard E.F. Leakey, son of Louis and Mary Leakey.

In 1973 Johanson discovered in Ethiopia the knee joint of a small primate which he claimed to be outright an ancient hominid, intermediate between ape and man. The knee joint later proved to have no special significance regarding upright walking, but he eventually gathered about 40 percent of the skeleton which was of a female 3 1/2 feet tall. He called his doll "lucy," "human," "child," and "First Family," suggesting human status, wrote a book called Lucy1, and considerable sums of money and equipment became available. In the site where "Lucy" had been found a nearly complete skull was finally discovered which was clearly apelike.

Richard Leakey never attended college, had no special scientific education, and generally relied on others to evaluate his specimens. Leakey and Roger Lewin have also written a book titled Origins in which they unscientifically theorize: "The secret of human evolution is extreme adaptability, and the simple physical change that made this possible was the liberation of the hands from the basic function of locomotion."2 So this was how the human brain was developed!

Most of the biology textbooks that are used to teach your children claim that humans evolved from apes. Where is their science? How DNA mutated to produce our brain is never described in textbooks, and DNA is never even mentioned once in Leakey's book.

Dr. Charles E. Oxnard, previous Professor of Anatomy at the University of Southern California Medical School and Director of Graduate Studies, and now at the University of Western Australia, Perth, after multivariant studies of several anatomical regions of Australopithecus, concluded that they are uniquely different from both man and other extant primates.3 Lord Solly Zuckerman, famous British anatomist, agrees with Dr. Oxnard's conclusions.4

Yet, you would hardly suspect this lack of evidence by reading contemporary writing, whether pop-up books for children or academic compilations. I can assure the reader the American Kennel Club would not certify an ancestor of your dog based on evidence such as paleontologists present.)

• 1. Donald Johanson and M.A. Edey, Lucy, the Beginning of Mankind (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981).
• 2. Richard E. Leakey and Roger Lewin, Origins (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1977), p. 38.
• 3. C.E. Oxnard, The Order of Man (New haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1984), p. 332.
• 4. Lord Solly Zuckerman, Beyond the Ivory Tower (New York: Taplinger Publishing Company, 1970).