KENYA:A skeleton from the cradle of humankind has set Christians against scientists as the row over Darwin's theory erupts again. Rob Crillyreports from Nairobi
Until now visitors to Kenya's national museum have had to make do with a plaster cast of its most famous specimen. The skeleton of Turkana Boy, considered the most complete early human fossil, has been locked away in a bomb-proof vault.
But its first public display - in a new gallery dedicated to Kenya's role as the cradle of humankind - has provoked a growing storm, pitching Christians against scientists in a row over evolution.
"I do not dispute that as humans we have a history but my family most certainly did not descend from the apes," said Bishop Boniface Adoyo, head of Kenya's 35 evangelical denominations.
He has been invited to view the new Human Origins gallery before it opens later this month and says he will call on his flock to demonstrate outside the museum if evolution is described as anything other than merely a theory.
"Bits of it are being disproved by scientists every day," he claimed, in an argument that echoes similar disputes in the US where creationists have developed their own theory of intelligent design as a rival to Darwin's natural selection.
"Yet it's being taught in our schools to children - a theory being taught as fact."
The National Museums of Kenya are due to re-open at the end of the month following a €7 million renovation financed by the European Union.
Its colonial-era headquarters has been destroyed, refurbished and extended to house Kenya's array of fossilised human and animal remains.
Among the exhibits will be a 200 million-year-old lizard, the fossilised skeleton of an extinct four-tusked elephant and what curators believe is the most complete record of human evolution.
This includes remains of primitive apes dating back 25 million years and evidence that primates have been walking upright for 4 million years.
The star of the show will be Turkana Boy, a 5ft 3in skeleton of a human who died at about 12 years of age some 1.5 million years ago.
It is the best preserved example of Homo erectus, the species that set out from Africa to conquer the world.
Lining up against the Kenya's growing evangelical movement is the country's most famous fossil-hunting family.
Richard Leakey, who led the team that unearthed the skeleton in the country's far north in 1984, dismissed the creationist argument.
He said: "Science is at the very foundation of our ability to deal with the new century so if we bring it down to the idea that science may be unchristian . . . well how stupid can you get?"
Much of the museum's collection is based on finds made by his palaeontologist parents in the 1920s, Louis and Mary Leakey.
Dr Leakey has his own concerns about displaying the skeleton, arguing that it would prevent access for scientists who still have a lot to learn from Turkana Boy.
But he said the evangelical movement was wrong to try to make the museum back down.
"They can't argue that these fossils don't exist. You can see them, weigh them, date them," he said.
"The only thing you can argue about is whether they have changed because of evolution or change because of something else. They are not answering that point."
The museum is doing everything it can to protect its famous charge.
Technicians are still installing the bombproof glass and CCTV designed to give Turkana Boy a safe home.
Fredrick Manthi, senior research scientist at the museum, said he had no problem reconciling evolution with his Christian faith.
The gallery, he added, was an attempt to show the world that Kenya could be considered the birthplace of humanity.
"We do not want to tell people what to believe. What we are doing is displaying the fossil record. People can make up their own minds," he said.