Lucy Fossil Soon to Visit America

She’s one of the most famous—and oldest—prophets of evolution, according to many: Lucy, an Australopithecus afarensi discovered in Ethiopia in 1974 who may be coming to a museum near you if you live in the United States (see our previous coverage in They Love Lucy).

This Wednesday, the U.S. State Department approved a U.S. tour for the allegedly 3.2-million-year-old Lucy.

This Wednesday, the U.S. State Department approved a U.S. tour for the allegedly 3.2-million-year-old Lucy, who is hailed by evolutionists as the “earliest known hominid” and, according to (U.S.) National Natural History Museum spokesman Randall Kremer, “one of the most important specimens relating to human origins in the world.”

Perhaps it’s a surprise, then, that Kremer speaks on behalf of Smithsonian scientists who feel that Lucy is “too valuable for the stresses of travel” and should stay in her Ethiopian home. For that reason, Lucy won’t visit the National Natural History Museum; she will, however, be on display at the Houston Museum of Natural Science from August 31, 2007, through April 20, 2008, in addition to other, as-yet-unannounced tour stops (possibly Washington, Denver, and Chicago).

The most intriguing quotation in the AP story comes from Dick Van Tuerenhout, curator of anthropology at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Referring to his museum’s upcoming display of Lucy, he explained,

“If you are able to showcase an original fossil, then you have a story, then you have a point of attraction that will bring in the most number of people, and then you can tell them that story.”

Although AiG’s Creation Museum near Cincinnati, Ohio, is home to a replica of Lucy, not the real thing, we certainly have a story to tell and plenty of exhibits—fossils and otherwise—that should attract any visitor who wants to hear “the other side” of the Lucy story!

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