How can a fraud have a baby?
Knee & hip bones found far apart in depth and distance.
Assertions of common origin employed more wishful thinking than proof.
How can a fraud have a baby?
Do you have any actual evidence to back up your assertion, or was it an example of "wishful thinking"?
Not in this case. These are from a single block. Now what do you say? Forget Lucy: what exactly was this creature?
How indeed? If a specimen was a fraud, we shouldn't find any more of them. We have lots of australopithecine finds. Therefore, the claims of fakery aren't looking too good.
Are you under the impression that we have only one fossil of Australopithecus afarensis?
AL 129-1, Australopithecus afarensis
Discovered by Donald Johanson in 1973 at Hadar in Ethiopia (Johanson and Edey 1981; Johanson and Taieb 1976). Estimated age is about 3.4 million years. This find consisted of portions of both legs, including a complete right knee joint which is almost a miniature of a human knee, but apparently belongs to an adult.
Note the complete knee found. This invalidates any question about 'Lucy's' knee.
Lucy AL 288-1, "Lucy", Australopithecus afarensis
Discovered by Donald Johanson and Tom Gray in 1974 at Hadar in Ethiopia (Johanson and Edey 1981; Johanson and Taieb 1976). Its age is about 3.2 million years. Lucy was an adult female of about 25 years. About 40% of her skeleton was found, and her pelvis, femur (the upper leg bone) and tibia show her to have been bipedal. She was about 107 cm (3'6") tall (small for her species) and about 28 kg (62 lbs) in weight.
Note that the pelvis (hip) is included at the same site as the rest of the fossil. The knee was not found at the same site and was never claimed to be part of "Lucy". It has always been claimed to be a fossil of a separate specimen from "Lucy". Only creationists have claimed otherwise.
AL 333 Site, "The First Family", Australopithecus afarensis?
Discovered in 1975 by Donald Johanson's team at Hadar in Ethiopia (Johanson and Edey 1981). Its age is about 3.2 million years. This find consisted of remains of at least 13 individuals of all ages. The size of these specimens varies considerably. Scientists debate whether the specimens belong to one species, two or even three. Johanson believes they belong to a single species in which males were considerably larger than females. Others believe that the larger specimens belong to a primitive species of Homo.
"Laetoli footprints", Australopithecus afarensis?
Discovered in 1978 by Paul Abell at Laetoli in Tanzania. Estimated age is 3.7 million years. The trail consists of the fossilized footprints of two or three bipedal hominids. Their size and stride length indicate that they were about 140 cm (4'8") and 120 cm (4'0") tall. Many scientists claim that the footprints are effectively identical to those of modern humans (Tattersall 1993; Feder and Park 1989), while others claim the big toes diverged slightly (like apes) and that the toe lengths are longer than humans but shorter than in apes (Burenhult 1993). The prints are tentatively assigned to A. afarensis, because no other hominid species is known from that time, although some scientists disagree with that classification.
AL 444-2, Australopithecus afarensis
Discovered by Bill Kimbel and Yoel Rak in 1991 at Hadar in Ethiopia (Kimbel et al. 1994). Estimated age is 3 million years. This is a 70% complete skull of a large adult male, easily the most complete afarensis skull known, with a brain size of 550 cc. According to its finders, it strengthens the case that all the First Family fossils were members of the same species, because the differences between AL 444-2 and the smaller skulls in the collection are consistent with other sexually dimorphic hominoids.
Above information from here
Note the completeness of the fossil and its link to the 'family' find.
"Knee & hip bones found far apart in depth and distance.
This is where we find a fraud but it isn't a fraud by scientists but by creationists. The knee was never claimed to belong to "Lucy" but to another member of her species. The form and utility of the knee can be seen in a number of other Australopithecus afarensis fossils. According to those other finds the knee is indeed from member of "Lucy's" species. You will see here that for a time the label "Lucy" was used to signify not just that specific fossil but all Australopithecus afarensis fossils.
"Assertions of common origin employed more wishful thinking than proof.
The quantity and quality of evidence for common descent is far beyond what I suspect you have considered.