Ida-our oldest relative

[basics]

Been away a couple of days, computer and daughter problems, meaning it broke and when it was working she was on it and wouldn't come off, and lo and behold on the Tele came this report. The missing link has been found. Now I am here, back again, not one posting to gloat. Why not?

For twenty odd years this link has been in the hands of scientists yet in this year of Darwin it is now convenient to present it as something that is what the evolutionist has been searching for but not ever found, the missing link. Note Attenborough says, " The link they would have said until now is missing, is no longer missing."

For the benefit of Orko and his peers the man admits that there was no visible missing link, but now that they have this, well that's another question. For all the millions of bones discovered and resting in museums there never was one that suggested it was what is now being suggested and Attenborough being deperate has jumped on the bandwagon.

Yet, Dr Henry Gee, of the journal Nature, claims the use of " missing link " is misleading. Indeed Dr Chris Beard of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History says, " I would be absolutely dumbfounded if it turns out to be a potential ancestor to humans."

But Attenborough is a man who can pick up a piece of flint and tell us that sometime ago the bearer of this was carving out utensils just as though he was actually there, so he should know. And here lies the problem, it is that no-one was there, and to suppose anything is just suggestion plus a little imagination with the weight of celebrity added.

So, there is no missing link, never has been, until this example quite conveniently is wheeled out as one. I mean for 47 million years this monkey has lain dead in a pit filled with water, throughout all the turbulence of the earth's ever changing features without a bone out of place and the eyes are just like human ones, although from a magnifying glass I see none, perhaps because there aren't any.

Franzen, one of the researchers says, " She belongs to the group from which higher primates and human beings developed but my impression is she is not on the direct line." So, the cat's out of the bag, she is not a link to humans at all, not in his opinion. Attenborough's wasting his time, quite apart from what other experts say, one of it's researchers says it is not the link.

Therefore in my humble opinion, Attenborough admits that there was no missing link until this one, and this one, in the words of one of it's researchers says it is not a link to man, meaning that there is still no missing link. Transitional no, then missing link no. 47 million years of age, no. Just another dead animal that man clings to in the hope that God's making can be trashed.

[black-dragon]

Ah yes, because basics knows better than the scientific community....Shouldn't this be in the Athanaeum?

[Pious Agnost]

Why bother.
It'll just become a religious topic anyway .

Sorry Basics, I don't buy it

[S.L.I.G]

Why bother.
It'll just become a religious topic anyway .

Sorry Basics, I don't buy it

Well, you don't really have to buy anything, hes stating facts. Scientists said out right that this creature they found is not a direct ancestor. It is not the missing link, period....

[basics]

black-dragon,

Nothing to do with basics. I quoted the most leading celebrity for evolution who said by his words that up until now there weren't any links and now that he wants one in this skeleton I quoted what three others had to say about it. Are they not scientists and experts?

[black-dragon]

Posting links to the articles would have been a wise choice. Christians are notorious for quote mining.

[Visna]

I don't quite see what the whole fuzz is about. There is not even general consensus on how exactly human evolution occurred. So before Ida is heralded as THE common ancestor, perhaps it would be good to sort out that agreement first?

And basics, are you aware of the odds of finding bones from our "common ancestor", if indeed one has ever existed in the first place?

[vizi]

I don't quite see what the whole fuzz is about. There is not even general consensus on how exactly human evolution occurred. So before Ida is heralded as THE common ancestor, perhaps it would be good to sort out that agreement first?

And basics, are you aware of the odds of finding bones from our "common ancestor", if indeed one has ever existed in the first place?

whole fuzz? You mean fuss right? The fuzz is the police, cops, etc.

As for Ida, and being the common ancestor or missing link, who knows. I thought it was just some sensationalism about a really old mammal fossil.

As for how human evolution occurred, as far as I am concerned we evolved from aliens.

Edit: And Pannonius, wasn't it something like 6000 years ago? Or some nonsense.

[Visna]

whole fuzz? You mean fuss right? The fuzz is the police, cops, etc.

As for Ida, and being the common ancestor or missing link, who knows. I thought it was just some sensationalism about a really old mammal fossil.

As for how human evolution occurred, as far as I am concerned we evolved from aliens.

Edit: And Pannonius, wasn't it something like 6000 years ago? Or some nonsense.

Ah yeah, fuss. Damn language...

[Gromovnik]

Edit: And Pannonius, wasn't it something like 6000 years ago? Or some nonsense.

That's wat Xenu want's you to think...

[Portuguese Rebel]

Posting links to the articles would have been a wise choice. Christians are notorious for quote mining.

Oh yeah...

like this one:

Yet, Dr Henry Gee, of the journal Nature, claims the use of " missing link " is misleading.

Of course it is misleading because missing link is not a scientific term and is only basically used in informal conversation. There are no "missing links" at all. In fact every living being that managed to leave offspring is a "missing link". The term is quite old and refered to the impossibility of finding every single "in between" form among two different species.

Therefore in my humble opinion, Attenborough admits that there was no missing link until this one, and this one, in the words of one of it's researchers says it is not a link to man, meaning that there is still no missing link. Transitional no, then missing link no. 47 million years of age, no. Just another dead animal that man clings to in the hope that God's making can be trashed.

Well, if your source of scientific information is a guy who spent his life making films for TV then i can understand your problem with it. What would you consider a "missing link"? Do you know that in Biology we don't even consider that to be a problem at all?

Given that the speciation process occurs more frequently in very small populations it is almost statistically impossible to have all the steps recorded. If by missing link you understand something like half-ape, half-human then, first i must say that apes are modern species too, so there is no reason for something like that to show up.

What we have is common ancestors for apes and humans. And then, in the hominid familly tree the various kinds that evolved into what we are today. And for the record, our gender has something like 2 million years. Nobody, except an ignorant or a sensasionalist TV guy would ever claim something with 47 millions years to be a "missing link" (sic) for mankind itself.

What this animal Ida is, indeed, is a representative of an evolutionary state from the general mammal tree to the primates. Primates means humans, great apes and monkeys. It is the oldest primate like being in record. Meaning that primates have a branch that goes back at least 47 million years. That's all. It links prosimians to primates.

Of course you fundies bought all the pappers which had "missing link found" all over them. They sold pappers, they went happy, and you fundies got another strawman to beat upon.

So that you may continue to froth from the mouth i leave you with the description of Ida's similarities to prosimians and primates:

Ida was found to lack two key anatomical features found in lemurs: a grooming claw on the second digit of the foot, and a fused row of teeth in the middle of her lower jaw known as a toothcomb. She has nails rather than the claw typical of non-anthropoid primates such as lemurs, and her teeth are similar to those of monkeys. Her forward facing eyes are like ours – which would have enabled her fields of vision to overlap, allowing 3D vision and an ability to judge distance.

The fossil’s hands show a humanlike opposable thumb, researchers said. Like all primates, Ida has five fingers on each hand. Ida would have also had flexible arms, which would have allowed her to use both hands for tasks that cannot be done with one – like grabbing a piece of fruit. Like us, Ida also has quite short arms and legs, according to researchers.

So, no worries here. What you should be worrying about if you want that bad that the fairytale of Adam and Eve to be true, are all the Homo gender specimens we have and the Australopithecus. Unless you want to bury your head in the sand!

[basics]

Portugese Rebel,

I think that you are the one whose head is in the sand, of time of course. The thing was all over the TV news items as well as the papers with the obvious object of making the impossible come about so that our kids are brought to believe that rubbish. Why even you couldn't establish what it is, rather the opposite, what it is not assuming that the lemur is the nearest thing to it.

And that is exactly what this theory brings about. All is assumption and there has been plenty of that yet according to the experts not one transitional is in existence and three are quoted as saying that Ida is not one either. Now I ask you is it wrong of me to use science, that is the word of scientists, to defunct the theory wherever it raises it's head? I mean what better than to turn to the very men and women you use to make the thing plausible.

[black-dragon]

is it wrong of me to use science, that is the word of scientists, to defunct the theory wherever it raises it's head?

Well when you take bits and pieces of what they said and present it as justifying what you have to say, when in actual fact they weren't saying anything like that...I'd say yes. Interestingly enough you still haven't posted links to the articles you've quoted. Hmmm....

But what do I know? Perhaps my rejection of God has robbed me of any morale integrity

[LSJ]

Like PR said, the animal is not a "missing link". It is important because it is possibly in a transition between prosimians and simians.

It is not supposed to show how monkeys became humans - the good scientists are not even claiming that the animal is related to humans. It may be in the same order, but that does not imply that the animal was part of the evolutionary chain of humanity.

[The Count(er)]

Now I ask you is it wrong of me to use science,

Of course not, we encourage it every time you bring up this topic, we just wish you would finally take our advice.

[IrishHitman]

The thing was all over the TV news items as well as the papers with the obvious object of making the impossible come about so that our kids are brought to believe that rubbish.

I could say the same thing about your particular brand of Christianity.

[Gromovnik]

This is obviously a hoax. God created Earth 2 weeks ago.

[Curtis13]

This is obviously a hoax. God created Earth 2 weeks ago.

Funniest thing I've read all night.

[Phier]

I'm going to do something stupid.

I'm going to explain a bit of how evolution works.

Its stupid because its going to be a waste of time and I should be heading for bed.

First there are no missing links. Missing links are a popular press term, not a scientific one. There is no missing human link, evolution doesn't work that way, in a discrete bundle.

Secondly let me draw something using the powers of MSpaint.



The line starts at 1,000,000 year ago, and ends at today.

Now lets pretend the red lines are every 5,000 years and perfectly to scale. I said PRETEND.

Now we kidnap some guy and go back in time 5,000 years. That guy is able to breed with a female from that time period, he is 'human' she is 'human'. Now lets kidnap a different guy and go back another 5,000 years. This guy is able to breed with the 10,000 years in the past females, they are 'human' too. So now at 10,000 years lets kidnap another guy and go back another 5,000 years. Again they can breed.

We keep doing this every 5,000 years. We kidnap a new male and go back 5,000 years. Each one can breed in that past time period. Finally we get back 1 million years, and each 5,000 year kidnap victim was able to breed in an unbroken chain. If we took someone from today though and went back 1,000,000 years they would not be able to breed, we would be a different species, even though we can go back in that unbroken chain.

Now lets look at missing 'links'.



Now lets look at this over sized image.

Lets say we have fossils from each blue line, going all the way 1 million back. EACH one of those would be a 'missing link' to the press, but they are no more a missing link than your dead great great grandfather is. They are just points on that continuous line. At no point does the species change from parent to child, we just agree that at certain points on the line there are different species.

Now lets pretend we discover fossils on the green lines. Those are now 'missing links'. Every time we find a fossil from a time period we had no fossils its now a new 'missing link'.

If you go back 47 million years, we may well have an Ida LIKE ancestor, something akin to a proto-lemur primate, and it would be our umpteenthmillions grandparent, all in an unbroken line.

Some of them went on to be lemurs, some went on to be chimps, some went on to be human, all evolving in an unbroken chain on the way.

The moral of the story?
At some point, your relatives were all furries.

[gambit]

I was under the impression that instead of being the missing link, Ida links old monkeys to even older monkeys or some such nonsense.

Either way It still solidifies my belief in evolution.

Down with religion and all that.