Evangelicals try to keep ancient skeleton in closet
Deep in the dusty, unlit corridors of Kenya’s national museum, locked away in a plain looking cabinet, is one of mankind’s oldest secrets.
Turkana Boy, as he is known, is the most complete skeleton of a prehistoric human ever found, hailed by scientists as one of the world’s most famous fossil finds.
But his first public display later this year is at the heart of a growing storm - one pitting scientists against Kenya’s powerful and popular evangelical Christian movement.
The debate over evolution – once largely confined to the United States – has arrived in a country known as the cradle of mankind.
“I did not evolve from Turkana Boy or anything like it,” says Bishop Boniface Adoyo, head of the country’s 35 evangelical denominations, which he claims has around 10 million followers.
“These sorts of silly views are killing our faith.”
He’s calling on his flock to boycott the exhibition and has demanded the museum relegate the fossil collection to a back room – carrying some kind of warning that evolution is not a fact.
