Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

You may or may not have heard, but the Houston Museum of Natural Science is the first stop on Lucy's first tour of North America. This is only the third time "she's" ever been displayed--the other two times were in Ethiopia where she was found. Many people are not happy that she's been removed from her African home to be paraded around the US, but I am more than excited about it, and I can't wait to go see her. So a couple of days ago, I picked up Audrey from school and she was recounting a conversation she had with Braden (more about him in a subsequent post) in which she was telling him about the things she likes at the HMNS. "I was telling him that I like the skeletons of the woolly mammoth and the pterodactyl the best because I like the kind of scary things. Scary and ancient are the kinds of things I like." At that moment, without thinking I said, "Yeah, we need to go there soon because Lucy is going to be there." Her--"who's Lucy?" Me in my head--"how do you explain the concept of an early hominid to a six year old whose only frame of reference is a very literal understanding of the biblical story of The Creation?"

When I was about seven or eight years old, I remember my best friend's dad used to always like to talk to me about human evolution. They had some books about (ironically) Lucy, and he loved to tease me, in a good hearted sort of way about weather or not man evolved from monkeys. Back then, I was a strict Creationist, since I hadn't learned anything about evolution up until then. I don't really remember when I even was taught about evolution, but I don't ever remember thinking that it didn't jibe with my religious convictions. There was never a question of whether or not evolution has and continues to occur, because the evidence in the fossil record is pretty compelling. The organisms that are represented came from somewhere, and it just isn't coincidence that they show a pattern of change, right up to the flora and fauna found living today. I guess I've just never understood the point of view that evolution goes against the story of the creation found in Genesis. Or even more implausible, that the evolution of other animals occured, but somehow humans didn't evolve from earlier hominids.

I'm not saying that I have all the answers--it does put the story of the Creation in a precarious place. I can't explain how Adam and Eve were the first people. Some have hypothesized that earlier hominids didn't have spirits or something, and I don't know about that. I do believe that Adam and Eve are the parents of the human family, but I don't know what came before, or how the human family arrived at that point in time.

"Lucy is a skeleton that's millions of years old that was found in Africa. She was kind of like a human, but she lived a long time before humans were on the earth," I said. "Cool," was her reply. When we got home she ran to tell Parker "Parky, we're going to go see a skeleton at the Natural Science Museum that's millions of years old that was kind of like a human but not a human. Cool, huh?" Then later that night she came up to me and said, "what did they talk like if they weren't really like people?" The wheels had been turning.

I'm sure she will have a lot more questions after we actually go see Lucy. I'll keep you posted.