What do you think of the Laetoli footprints?

Question

was Lucy the fossil of a exinct ape with legs pointed in like a trapeeze artist a tree dweller or a land walker. The skeleton superficially looks like a tree dweller, unless broken and put together by some unknwon process

and in contemparary rock with Lucy footprints of a totally human footprint walking for 75 feet with a 'diminutive creature' matching the bug guys stride step for step as only a kid would do

was Lucy an ape contemporary with man, or what
do we go where the evidence leads or where we prefer reality to be

interestingly the Laetoli footprints are dated with a Potassium argon method to 3.5 million years... unfortunately in the last decade it was discovered that volancic rock is full of argon and the argon dating methods are in disrepute

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2006/0130mexican_footprints.aspTuttle's comments
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v15/i4/hominid.asp

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2005/0722lucy.asp

Answer 1

The prints, say experts on hominid body structure, are strikingly different from those of a chimpanzee, and in fact are hardly distinguishable from those of modern humans. The only known hominid fossils of that age in that location are those of Lucy and her kind, the small-brained but upright-walking hominids classified as Australopithecus afarensis. Some analysts have noted that the smaller of the two clearest trails bears telltale signs that suggest whoever left the prints was burdened on one side -- perhaps a female carrying an infant on her hip. While the detailed interpretation of the prints remains a matter of debate, they remain an extraordinary and fascinating fossil find, preserving a moment in prehistoric time.

Answer 2

1. "Lucy" was an Australopithecine, not an ape.
2. Your superficial look at the bones is less useful than the careful studies of those bones by scientists.
3. Calling the Laetoli footprints "totally human" is simply wrong.

"In short, there is a wide range of opinions about the nature of the footprints and whether A. afarensis could have made them. Most creationists usually cite only Tuttle, whose conclusions they find most convenient. The most honest conclusion, for now, is to admit that although no-one can be entirely sure what made the Laetoli footprints, it seems quite likely that they belonged to australopithecines."
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/a_anomaly.html

Your comment about K-Ar dating probably refers to Steven Austin's dating of a lava flow from Mt. Saint Helens. Austin's work doesn't invalidate K-Ar dating, because he misused the process.

" 1. Austin sent his samples to a laboratory that clearly states that their equipment cannot accurately measure samples less than two million years old. All of the measured ages but one fall well under the stated limit of accuracy, so the method applied to them is obviously inapplicable. Since Austin misused the measurement technique, he should expect inaccurate results, but the fault is his, not the technique's. Experimental error is a possible explanation for the older date.

2. Austin's samples were not homogeneous, as he himself admitted. Any xenocrysts in the samples would make the samples appear older (because the xenocrysts themselves would be old). A K-Ar analysis of impure fractions of the sample, as Austin's were, is meaningless. "
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD013_1.html

JMB