Another final missing link...again

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15 comments:

AIGBusted said...

I wrote about this fossil today. Do know Ida (the fossil's nickname) has her own website?

http://www.revealingthelink.com

Fascinating videos and info!!

Anonymous said...

Thanks AIG, for easy linkage click here.

Anonymous said...

Here's a link to the book by Colin Tudge describing the full story of Ida.

Here's a Synopsis:

The astonishing new discovery that could change everything...

For more than a century, scientists have raced to unravel the human family tree and have grappled with its complications. Now, with an astonishing new discovery, everything we thought we knew about primate origins could change. Lying inside a high-security vault, deep within the heart of one of the world’s leading natural history museums, is the scientific find of a lifetime – a perfectly fossilized early primate, older than the previously most famous primate fossil, Lucy, by an astonishing forty-four million years.

A secret until now, the fossil - "Ida" to the researchers who have painstakingly verified her provenance – is the most complete early primate fossil ever found. 47 million years old, Ida rewrites what we’ve assumed about the earliest primate origins. So much of what we understand about evolution comes from partial fossils and even single bones, but Ida’s fossilization offers much more than that, from a haunting "skin shadow" to her stomach contents. And, remarkably, knowledge of her discovery and existence almost never saw the light of day.

With exclusive access to the first scientists to study her, the award-winning science writer Colin Tudge tells the history of Ida and her place in the world. The Link offers a wide-ranging investigation into Ida and our earliest origins – and the magnificent, cutting-edge scientific detective story that followed her discovery. At the same time, it opens a stunningly evocative window into our past and changes what we know about the evolution of primates and, ultimately, ourselves.

Jeff said...

In other news, creationists argue, "But it's just a monkey!"

danielg said...

Do you know how many times evolutionary believers have announced the fossil that will be the savior of the evolutionary farce? The true missing link?

And guess how many of them have receded into obscurity after the hopeful, faithful rejoice over the supposed proofs that turn out to be entirely simian or human?

You are right when you say again, and it won't be the last time such religious hype will announce a new evidence, only to be downgraded to nothing.

Remember Lucy, tiktalik, not to mention the various pigs teeth and hoaxes of the past. I'd not rest my faith on such overhyped evidence. Another one to bite the dust, so to speak, if you ask me.

Jason Long said...

right on cue

Anonymous said...

Hi all,
for further reading on this and other articles related to to this field of study,
here is another link from sciencedaily.comin fact at sciencedaily.com you can set up an rss feed reader to get the latest news in a lot of different catagories of science.
here's the rss feed for anthropology
http://www.sciencedaily.com/rss/fossils_ruins/
anthropology.xml (join this to the line above at the slash)
or try this RSS link to Anthropology, hopefully it will work.

Anonymous said...

danielg,
impossible precision is not required for a argument to be considered "true enough" to work with.

Lord Knows, Christians skirt their evidential responsibility and get on happily with life don't they?

The real test is how consistent it is with established knowledge.

AIGBusted said...

It has come to my attention that there is some real scientific controversey over whether this fossil belonged to the primate group anncestral to anthropoid monkeys (and consequently humans), so we can't claim anything about this fossil being our ancestor (at least not yet). Furthermore, Answers in Genesis posted something on their site which I tear to shreds here:


http://aigbusted.blogspot.com/2009/05/more-bullshit-from-answers-in-genesis.html

Anonymous said...

thanks aigbusted,
It has come to my attention that there is some real scientific controversey over whether this fossil belonged to the primate group anncestral to anthropoid monkeys (and consequently humans), so we can't claim anything about this fossil being our ancestor (at least not yet).
there's the beauty in building Quality Knowledge;
Cross-checking your information.

Its just a process that should happen to everything from missing links, to utility bills, to human origins, to whether Jesus was God or not.

I say again,
The real test is how consistent it is with established knowledge.

Anthony said...

danielg said: Do you know how many times evolutionary believers have announced the fossil that will be the savior of the evolutionary farce? The true missing link?Daniel, evolution is not a "farce" despite Hank Hanegraaff's book title. I do understand where you are coming from as I thought the same thing for over 20 years of my life when I was a creationist. Daniel, if you would do some objective investigation, and I do mean objective, you would discover how overwhelming the evidence for evolution really is, so much so that scientists no longer question the fact of evolution, only the various mechanisms. There are even a number of evangelical Christian scholars who have written in defense of evolution because of the evidence.

As far as the "missing links" go this is really media hype which I really hate. Scientists haven't been looking for "missing links" for some time, rather, they see mountains of evidence for various "transitional features" in the fossil record and Ida (and yes even Tiktaalik) is no different. Whether this fossil lives up to all of the hype doesn't change the fact that evolution has occurred and will continue to do so.

Theological Discourse said...

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/519/1?rss=1/

whoopsie, you should change your title to 'another evolutionary hoax, again.'

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't expect palentologists to accept this finding without first looking at it. To be honest, I initially wondered why such a finding was not first published in a peer reviewed journal, since that's the usual protocol. We'll see.

Anthony said...

TD, your comments are just simply childish. No one has called this fossil a "hoax" and notice that it is evolutionary scientists that are disputing the nature of the find. I personally wondered what all of the hoopla was about anyway. It appears more than likely that we have a lot of grand standing so someone can make a name for themselves (although I could be wrong). This fossil does not make or break the theory of evolution.

Jeff said...

I think PZ Myers wrote a good post about the significance of this fossil. It's a significant find, but not worth the incredible amount of hype that the media has made about it:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/05/darwinius_masillae.php