Darwinius masillae - The 47 Million year old Lemur - Story Update

The 47 million-year-old specimen has now been officially unveiled, and while many media outlets are stumbling over themselves with phrases like "missing link" and "holy grail," it's clearly a very impressive find.

"Discovered two years ago, the exquisitely preserved specimen is not a direct ancestor of monkeys and humans, but hints at what such an ancestor might have looked like.

According to researchers, 'The specimen has an unusual history: it was privately collected and sold in two parts, with only the lesser part previously known. The second part, which has just come to light, shows the skeleton to be the most complete primate known in the fossil record.'

The scientific article describing the find was published yesterday in the peer-reviewed, open-access journal PLoS ONE. Google's home page is also celebrating the find with a unique image."

Science blogger Brian Switek offers some criticism of the academic paper and the media swarm, saying, "I would have hoped that this fossil would receive the care and attention it deserves, but for now it looks like a cash cow for the History Channel. Indeed, this association may not have only presented overblown claims to the public, but hindered good science, as well."

SOURCE

So there we have it. Everyone ranting about this fossil being absolute proof is perpetuating BS.

Case Closed.

I had a feeling that something like this would happen to this "Holy Grail" of evolutionism. It's not surprising to me either. I actually said to my wife last night that I bet that this got blown out of proportion because mainstream thought is so sure about evolution--but the "meat", if one will, has never been definitively found/proven. That coupled with this year being 200 years since Darwin's theory, made people jump the gun to finally say, "see! It's been proven!!!" I guess one could say that evolutionists are getting tired of running on faith?

Hope my thought makes sense!

Blown out of proportion is an understatement this fossil is basically nothing more than a link between smaller mammals and apes not apes and man. This whole thing makes me wanna smack the media and history channel. This isnt a missing link its just another fossil. . .

If we truly did evolve the way Darwin postulates, what made our form of "monkey" more inteligent than the others still around? We can all agree that the other monkey types in this world are as not as advanced as we are and we can also agree that the other monkey types have been around a lot longer and have gone through less change.

I think the truth is a little bit of evolution, mixed in with some creationism.

Seems to make more sense at lease. Wouldn't this planet have evolved at least ONE other carbon based life form to the level of intelligence that the human race is at?

Originally posted by GeechQuestInfo
If we truly did evolve the way Darwin postulates, what made our form of "monkey" more inteligent than the others still around? We can all agree that the other monkey types in this world are as not as advanced as we are and we can also agree that the other monkey types have been around a lot longer and have gone through less change.

I think the truth is a little bit of evolution, mixed in with some creationism.

Seems to make more sense at lease. Wouldn't this planet have evolved at least ONE other carbon based life form to the level of intelligence that the human race is at?

well yes it did they were called neanderthals homo sapian most likely bread them into extinction. So to say no other life form made it to our level is correct but not because it didnt happen but because homosapien prevented it

Sorry if I don't understand or sound lost but aren't homo sapiens and neanderthals still part of the same "homo" genus? To stretch back to Neanderthals your're only stretching back only 600,000 years ago. Still 47 million years short of said missing link fossil.

I'm asking where were humans prior to the pre-homo genus period? What caused that flip?

Science says the flip to the homo genus of this species occured roughly 2 million years ago, so if this said fossil is truly the missing link than what happened during the other 45 million years?

My best guess would be some sort of creationism.

Look at the world we live in today.

We as the humans take animals today and are constantly cross breeding and genetically manipulating animals for a multitude of reasons. WE AS HUMANS are taking the evolutionairy cycle of the fauna on this planet, and manipulating them a little bit to have them evolve the way we would like.

That my friends is what CREATIONISM is in it's purest form. So during that 45 million year period, who was speeding up our evolution?

[edit on 20-5-2009 by GeechQuestInfo]