Huh? I thought the whole missing link idea was outmoded?
The idea of a “missing link” is not so much outmoded as never been moded.
Ah, my bad. I should have checked in GD as well before posting. :smack:
Any source that claims that a single recently-discovered fossil “finally confirms Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution” can be discounted as being about a century out of date in the first place.
It’s still hopelessly moded in journalistic circles.
Alas, this is true.
http://scienceblogs.com/laelaps/2009/05/a_discovery_that_will_change_e.php
http://scienceblogs.com/laelaps/2009/05/this_says_it_all_really.php
Journalistic circles are about one step above 4chan when it comes to science reporting. :rolleyes:
It’s a significant find, but its significance is being presented in a wildly simplistic and sensationalist style in the tabloid link. The “missing link” language is, of course hokum predicated on hokum, as is the woefully late announcement that Darwin’s Theory of Evolution has been confirmed," but it’s still interesting in that it represents not a link between humans and monkeys (which is not a claim made by evolutionary theory), but a link between lemurs and primates.
Sadly, that article is quoting the researchers with the most egregious lines about what this find means.
That’s from Sir David Attenborough. Ugh. He should know better.
Very branch of the human line? No, that happened somewhere in Chimpanzee. This is a transition between lemurs and monkeys, way before humans were anywhere around.
There’s a lot of sensationalist nonsense that I can’t quite pin down on the scientists being overly enthusiastic on what the find means and the writer misunderstanding what they are saying. But David Attenborough sure didn’t help.
Actually, Darwin pretty well confirmed his own theory of evolution by natural selection (or as he often referred to it “Descent with Modification”) by the extensive research he did with various species (decades long in the case of barnacles). Everything since in terms of phylogenetics has just served to further confirm natural selection. The piece Darwin was missing was not empirical support but the method of heredity, i.e. genes and gametes.
Stranger