Missing link found
Scientists say they found the missing link. Obviously, it was put there 6,000 years ago by God.
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
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May 20th, 2009 at 9:33 am
That should be 5400 years ago according to the last creationist with whom I argued.
Among the many wonderfully amusing details in this story is that the priceless (but eventually just very high-priced) fossil was coated in lucite and hung on the amateur collector’s wall for 20 years, without him realizing the unique nature of the find.
May 20th, 2009 at 9:33 am
They find the missing link all the time.
But this time they REALLY mean it!
May 20th, 2009 at 9:49 am
The “missing link” from 47 million years ago? Do you even know what you are talking about? This is not “the missing link”, which would be the human ancestor branch from primates. This is a proto primate.
Science fail + bigotry.
May 20th, 2009 at 10:34 am
I’m 36 and it seems to me the missing link has been discovered every other year or so for my entire life, and many times that missing link has been as little as three or four bones that are /assumed/ to all come from the same individual. Color me unimpressed.
It’s a neat fossil and an interesting find, but “missing link” it ain’t.
May 20th, 2009 at 10:46 am
Hypnagogue +1
Here are a few clues from the linked article:
“We’re not dealing with our grand, grand, grandmother, but perhaps with our grand, grand, grand aunt,” Franzen said.
Meaning, they know that this is not a direct ancestor.
The unveiling of the fossil came as part of a carefully-orchestrated publicity campaign unusual for scientific discoveries.
But I’m sure they mean well.
May 20th, 2009 at 10:50 am
So, missing link does not equal transitional fossil?
May 20th, 2009 at 11:18 am
I seem to remember from my Zoology course in college that there are an awful lot of missing links on the phylogenetic tree*. There’s plenty of room for each of these announced discoveries to be one of them!
*Very much “and then a miracle occurs” type of stuff, as in “And then legs spontaneously develop!”
May 20th, 2009 at 11:20 am
I’m skeptical of a PR-oriented “scientist” who finds fossils hanging on walls in people’s homes.
May 20th, 2009 at 11:58 am
Kinda like people who suddenly discover they have Rembrandts and Picassos and Honus Wagner rookie cards and such in their attics.
May 20th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
So, missing link does not equal transitional fossil?
Yes, they found a missing link, but not the missing link. The headline writers know that using the words “missing link” will be interpreted in the casual readers mind as the fossil that shows a link between man and other apes.
Personally, I don’t care what they find or how excited they are. I just want them to be honest.
May 20th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
but any link tends to indicate evolution.
May 20th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
but any link tends to indicate evolution.
I disagree. I think it indicates a connection, but if one were to put forth a “template” theory of design then this fossil is no more proof of evolution than chocolate chip cookies are evidence of the evolutionary history of oatmeal raisin cookies.
May 20th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
I had better go say a prayer to Darwin right now!
You want to actually do some science and impress me, show me the missing link between democrats with their herd/collectivist mentality and the(old school) republicans’ individualism that gave the weaker in the herd a fighting chance.
May 20th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
in my book, the dc socialists are just that – Socialists. Far Beyond a herd/collectivist mentatlity. They just want to be at the top of the food chain and make everyone underneath them the food.
CHANGE WE DON’T NEED AND CAN’T BELIEVE IN!
May 20th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Great apes weren’t demeaning enough; now it’s raccoons.
If the Germans wish to trace their ancestry from this creature, why not let them? It sure lets the Twelve Tribes off the hook. My own family claims a dollop of marsh-rabbit and Toussaint snapping turtle.
The evolutionary psychology boys (and I do mean “boys”) claim that, unlike the culturally superior Cro-Magnons, Neanderthal women and men hunted together. As a matter of religion, I am uninterested in any evolutionary chain which does not link us to these couples. In the long run, science will prove me right. In these year ports, “my girlfriend’s blind” is a GPS waypoint, not a plea for pity.
May 20th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Great find (47 million years old and 95% complete) but a very poorly written story. I really wish reporters and other writers had some knowledge about what they write, and I really, REALLY wish they’d quit using the dumb term “missing link”. A few more comments here.
May 20th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
kbiel Said:
“We’re not dealing with our grand, grand, grandmother, but perhaps with our grand, grand, grand aunt,” Franzen said.
Meaning, they know that this is not a direct ancestor.
Kbeil:
If you had taken the time to do further reading, you might have found that the scientists said this animal was an immature female when she died; she was not developed enough to have reproduced.
If her sisters had reproduced, then they would be the ‘great grandmothers’ and she would be the ‘grand-aunt’
Although I agree with others that disputed her title as THE missing link, she certainly has the ability to teach all of us more about that time in our history (since she is so well preserved). and learning something new is a GOOD thing – right??
And whether you believe in evolution or creationism, aren’t all of earth’s creatures related to each other, sharing a common ancestor?
May 20th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Raisin-oatmeal cookie batter is evidence of raisin-oatmeal cookie evolution…
May 20th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Raisin-oatmeal cookie batter is evidence of raisin-oatmeal cookie evolution…
…and cookie batter would be an embryo. If they’d found an egg or somehow-preserved fetus, we could extrapolate that it would have grown into an adult. While study of a chocolate chip cookie from 1900 might tell us a lot about cookies and help us know which came first, it doesn’t actually lend much if any support to the theory of evolution.
I’m not opposed to the possibility of evolution, but I’m not convinced by the theory and don’t see how its truth or falsity is of very much use to science. If we replace the X-axis of “time” with “degree of variation from Least Common Denominator,” I don’t know that the field of biology will collapse and become a wasteland void of knowledge.
May 20th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Can anyone explain why this isn’t just another extinct animal?
May 20th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
I have been scratching my head in watching the response of one Mr Christian himself, answering to a greater father has had a little twist-about on that issue. Are you kidding me? Bush was elected TWICE because of the Christian right. He totally snubbed Al Gore on the global warming, in essence snubbing science itself. Now he has moved the Bible from his desk to his bookshelf next to the Dan Brown books? Quite a backslider:
http://www.socoolaz.com/article/World_News/World_News/Scientific_Missing_Link_Found_Bush_Family_Celebrate_in_Texas/30261