Afarensis is a 3.5-2.8 million year old hominin from the Kada Hadar member of the Hadar formation in the Middle Awash, Ethiopia. He is approximately 41 inches tall, weighs approximately 60 pounds and has a cranial capacity of a whopping 410 cc (approximately). Afarensis is currently considered to be transitional between apes and humans and displays some traits of both. Since he spends a lot of time on the couch watching monster movies, some observers question whether he is an obligate biped (although no one has observed him climbing a tree). He also has a blog called 
Nick Matzke has an interesting post over at the Panda's Thumb. Seems Casey is trying to frame the Altenberg meeting in ways congenial to ID. The problem is Massimo Pigluicci has addressed this here, here, and here. All sixteen participants have a statement about the meeting. As Nick mentions, Luskin ties himself up in knots that would make a pretzel proud trying to reconcile what Pigluicci has to say with the Discovery Institute party line. I have summarized Luskin's response below the fold. Check out Nick's more indepth rebutal.
Luskins rebutal:
Comments
The outcome was quite predictable. While the Altenberg crew are highly respected evolutionary types, Mazur has been cluelessly hyping this story as if we're witnessing the historical pivotal blow to evolution. Surprise, surprise, it didn't quite work out that way, and now her buddies at the DI have got to cover for her.
Posted by: ngong | July 18, 2008 3:18 AM
Please immediately cease and desist from publishing my picture. That photo was taken for personal use only, and not to be publicly disseminated. The picture is to be published only in the seminal ID work, "Pussies Of The Discovery Institute".
KTHNXBAI
Posted by: Casey Luskit | July 18, 2008 8:22 AM