Finally! Critical Darwinian link between monkey and man finally found

[Fiyero]

Scientists Unveil Missing Link In Evolution

The search for a direct connection between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom has taken 200 years - but it was presented to the world today at a special news conference in New York.

The discovery of the 95%-complete 'lemur monkey' - dubbed Ida - is described by experts as the "eighth wonder of the world".

Sir David Attenborough said the fossil tells us who we are and where we came from.

I owe SU and Robin apologies. Thank God I was wearing Depends.

[woot]

It's very weird that this fossil is being so hyped. We've had a 55 million year old primate (carpolestes) for a long time, and yet this 47 million year old one is getting tons and tons of press. I assume it's because the researchers think that it's more closely related to modern strepsirrhines than carpolestes was, which seems to be true, but this talk about a critical link between humans and the animal kingdom being found it really, really stupid. We have tons of fossils linking humans to apes and apes to monkeys -- are apes and monkeys not members of the animal kingdom?

By the way, this definitely has nothing to do with linking humans and monkeys, since monkeys didn't evolve until after this new fossil specimen lived.

Edit: Another by the way, I've come to expect every mainstream article about science to screw up just about everything, but this article might take the cake for the most ignorant one ever. Wtf is sky news and why don't they have science advisors?

[RobinFinderson]

I owe SU and Robin apologies. Thank God I was wearing Depends.

I accept your apology. Please don't make the mistake of disagreeing with me again.

[woot]

Now this is how you cover science. With the exception of insisting on using the phrase "missing link" which is always stupid, this article does an outstanding job of covering this find. It even presents skepticism of the term "missing link," but that shouldn't have been an issue anyway.

[Coach McGuirk]

DUDE! that looks just like my baby pictures.

[SeattleUte]

It's very weird that this fossil is being so hyped. We've had a 55 million year old primate (carpolestes) for a long time, and yet this 47 million year old one is getting tons and tons of press. I assume it's because the researchers think that it's more closely related to modern strepsirrhines than carpolestes was, which seems to be true, but this talk about a critical link between humans and the animal kingdom being found it really, really stupid. We have tons of fossils linking humans to apes and apes to monkeys -- are apes and monkeys not members of the animal kingdom?

By the way, this definitely has nothing to do with linking humans and monkeys, since monkeys didn't evolve until after this new fossil specimen lived.

Edit: Another by the way, I've come to expect every mainstream article about science to screw up just about everything, but this article might take the cake for the most ignorant one ever. Wtf is sky news and why don't they have science advisors?

Common sense and reason are pretty darn powerful. Me, I've never worried about a "missing link". In fact, I doubt evolution works that way. But that's just intuition; I'm a lawyer. Likewise, I didn't need the Book of Abraham scrolls to tell me what reason and common sense already had told me. Smoking guns are not usually the stuff of science (the B of A scrolls being a notable exception).

[RobinFinderson]

Common sense and reason are pretty darn powerful. Me, I've never worried about a "missing link". In fact, I doubt evolution works that way. But that's just intuition; I'm a lawyer. Likewise, I didn't need the Book of Abraham scrolls to tell me what reason and common sense already had told me. Smoking guns are not usually the stuff of science (the B of A scrolls being a notable exception).

Amen to common sense. I remember back in the day when I came clean with Mike that I had no testimony of the church, he wanted to try to argue about the truthfulness or historicity of this thing or that, or to try to explain that there were two ways to look at something said by Jon Krakauer in Under the Banner. I thought it was sad, for those couple years when I had no voice, how he represented me as being under Krakauer's spell, when nothing could be farther from the truth (I didn't even finish UTBOH). A man doesn't need to have ancient history explained to him by a two-bit 'scholar' to get to that place where common sense will take him for free.

[Fiyero]

I completely agree with the common sense point of view, especially the idea that the monkey came from the fish which came from the bird which came from the maggot which came from alfalfa which came from billions of years of amoebas colliding with one another. In fact I only wish I could live long enough to watch man evolve into the flying spaghetti monster. And I don't need fossils to tell me that that's where we're headed.

[SeattleUte]

I completely agree with the common sense point of view, especially the idea that the monkey came from the fish which came from the bird which came from the maggot which came from alfalfa which came from billions of years of amoebas colliding with one another. In fact I only wish I could live long enough to watch man evolve into the flying spaghetti monster. And I don't need fossils to tell me that that's where we're headed.

Are you being serious here? If not, you're just not being funny at all. Not because evolution is sacred. You might as well be cracking jokes about how atomic theory is so illogical.

[il Padrino Ute]

So, is the debate in the scientific community is over?

[SeattleUte]

So, is the debate in the scientific community is over?

Yes. There's no debate about evolution. Scientists regard evolution as proven as much as that word means anything in science. Everybody should know that.

[il Padrino Ute]

Yes. There's no debate about evolution. Scientists regard evolution as proven as much as that word means anything in science. Everybody should know that.

I meant as far as the missing link is concerned.

I suppose I should have been more specific?

[SeattleUte]

I meant as far as the missing link is concerned.

I suppose I should have been more specific?

woot can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the notion of a "missing link" is more something in the popular imagination than a real or realistic problem. Evolution happens at such a slow rate and so gradually that I doubt there is any defining moment where a dispositive "link" between primates and humans could be identified. You have to look at the whole fossil (and genetic) record and appreciate that you need to look at it three dimensionally and in the aggregate. Evidence of creatures changing through mutations and those rare ones whose mutations made them better suited to survive in their environment is everywhere. Demonstrably, creatures have changed over the past millions of years. We have for a long time been aware of near (modern) human species, our ancestors, who also resemble primates. But we are ourselves a link. Our kinship with chimpanzees is not debated.

[il Padrino Ute]

woot can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the notion of a "missing link" is more something in the popular imagination than a real or realistic problem. Evolution happens at such a slow rate and so gradually that I doubt there is any defining moment where a dispositive "link" between primates and humans could be identified. You have to look at the whole fossil (and genetic) record and appreciate that you need to look at it three dimensionally and in the aggregate. Evidence of creatures changing through mutations and those rare ones whose mutations made them better suited to survive in their environment is everywhere. Demonstrably, creatures have changed over the past millions of years. We have for a long time been aware of near (modern) human species, our ancestors, who also resemble primates. But we are ourselves a link. Our kinship with chimpanzees is not debated.

I agree with everything you say here.

I was just having some fun at Al Gore's expense.

[woot]

"Note that Darwinius masillae, and adapoids contemporary with early tarsioids, could represent a stem group from which later anthropoid primates evolved, but we are not advocating this here, nor do we consider either Darwinius or adapoids to be anthropoids."

This is how the research team termed it in the actual paper. In the popular media, they have taken a different approach completely. The associated book is called "The Link," their website is called "revealing the link," etc. It makes me want to pull my hair out. I work with one of the authors and while he's in the field right now I plan on chatting to him about how poorly this whole thing was handled, and it's not just the media's fault (although they've done a spectacularly miserable job as usual).

Anyway, regarding the term "missing link," it doesn't apply here, and it's hard to argue how it could possibly apply anywhere. Historically, the term refers to a transitional fossil linking humans to apes. This happened a very long time ago, arguably in the 19th century, but nobody can possibly deny that Lucy, the Australopithecus afarensis specimen that Don Johanson discovered in the 1970s, is a perfect transitional form linking humans with apes. hundreds more have been found since, and there is absolutely no question that humans are evolved from apes. The debate ended a very long time ago.

This new discovery is one that may or may not be the earliest individual that represents the line leading to apes, tarsiers, monkeys, and humans after the split from the lemur/loris/galago line, since right around that time is when other lines of evidence suggest this split took place. It is indeed a significant find, but I am at a total loss as to why anyone thinks "missing link" applies even a bit. At the very best, it links haplorrhines with strepsirrhines, but that wasn't ever in question.

I'm especially saddened by David Attenborough's hyperbolic boosterism, since he's somewhat of a hero for me and he's just completely wrong about why this find is significant.

Another issue with the term "missing link" is the fact that speciation doesn't form a chain, but rather a big, bushy tree. Therefore, the metaphor of which "missing link" is a part is wrong-headed from the beginning and can only lead to confusion.