TalkOrigins calls them transitional fossils
If it doesn't imply a specific relationship why put the chimp in A? If it were just a mug book why not put the chimp next to modern human and keep chronological consistency?
The chart you posted shows the latest thinking. In other words, VBS is wrong that no one denies Australopithecus to be an ancestor of man.
Why don't creationists ever know the answers to their questions? You asked me and I told you. Post 200.
Now I'll answer my own question. Creationists don't know any answers because they think ignorance is wisdom. It keeps "the controversy" alive if they never learn anything.
If it doesn't imply a specific relationship why put the chimp in A? If it were just a mug book why not put the chimp next to modern human and keep chronological consistency?
The chart you posted [#205] shows the latest thinking. In other words, VBS is wrong that no one denies Australopithecus to be an ancestor of man.
You make a lot of points, so I'll try to deal with them one by one.
I'm not sure what you mean by "TalkOrigins calls them transitional fossils." While all fossils are transitional between something and something else, the term as usually used in the context of these crania would mean as transitional between ape and human. Many of these crania are transitional, but I don't think Neanderthal is considered by most authorities as transitional on the human line, and some of the others surely are not. Not sure if this answers the question you posed or not.
The original responses on this thread were generated by the photograph of many fossil crania, with modern chimp on one end and modern human on the other for comparison. It is a collection of crania, and the position of each shows a general progression from ape-like to human-like. That does not mean any adjacent crania are related in any specific way. That is the purpose of the subsequent chart (post #205).
If you check the chart it does show Australopithecus as an ancestor of man.
One of the controversies in paleoanthropology is what to call various fossils. Some might prefer to call Australopithecus species Homo but this is a matter of classification and does not change the line of descent.
I have not studies the fine details for some years, but from what I remember, Australopithecus is in the line of descent. The fact that some are shown as dead-enders in the chart is immaterial--so are Neanderthal, P. robustus and P. boisie.
As a comparator. The common ancestor we share with chimps is thought to morphologically be more similar to modern chimps than to modern humans. Since we do not as yet have a fossil of that common ancestor a chimp is placed to allow us to see the similarity and the connection between humans and our nearest extant relative, the chimp.