"Missing Link/8th Wonder of the World"

[keyser28146]

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Missing-Link-Scientists-In-New-York-Unveil-Fossil-Of-Lemur-Monkey-Hailed-As-Mans-Earliest-Ancestor/Article/200905315284582?lpos=World_News_Carousel_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15284582_Missing_Link%3A_Scientists_In_New_York_Unveil_Fossil_Of_Lemur_Monkey_Hailed_As_Mans_Earliest_Ancestor

Ok. This seems very stupid to me. What am I missing?

For the past 70 years, you are deemed as an ignorant superstitious weirdo for believing in a religious faith among the world at large and scientific community. Evolution has been deemed fact to the point it is taught as the method of the world's creation. Why the outburst of joy here?

If you already have the world hell bent on explaining your theory, it's accepted, and taught worldwide, how does finding an extinct mammal that lived 47 million years ago bolster the case? I would think the modern day Chimpanzee would be about 100,000,000 TIMES more effective in being a "missing link" than an animal that seems to be a cross between a monkey and a lemur.

I could see the joy if we currently had NO APES on the planet and we found fossilized apes and chimps, but to me personally this seems like much ado about nothing.

I just don't get this one. At all. I mean if you found this on Mars, then YES! I would get it and believe absolutely in the tenants of evolution as a means of creation... but that's not what we have here.


A personal sidenote for clarity.
I don't want this to get into a creationism vs evolutionism vs whatever thing. Personally, I'm a Christian, and don't really give a shit how we got here, because Christianity doesn't really have a creation story in the true sense... it's seen as a completion of the Judaic faith. I believe we are created by God, no matter what your view of God is, and if God created us through Natural Selection, direct creationism, literal speaking into existence, an actual garden of eden, mud blobs with evolution, a petri dish with complete evolution, etc; it's inconsequential to my faith, which is only concerned with the teachings of Christ and the death and resurrection that in my eyes proves his divinity. I don't care what your religious beliefs are. I'm not threatened by them or scared of "oh NO! Evolution is real!!! Jesus must have not really been who he said!?!?" because it's illogical for it to have the least impact on it. Treating people well and always bringing the truth are more important than which machination was used to bring us into existence... in gaming terms, it's like sitting around staring at your DVD disc trying to see the 1's and 0's the laser scored into the disc instead of just throwing the game in and playing it.

So what does the discovery mean? Am I alone in thinking it's stupid and illogical? Again I don't claim to know how we got here, I just don't care and couldn't care less. I'm more concerned with where we are going as a society, and how I live my own life personally.

It just seems to me to be so far down the ladder of "proof" that it seems on par with me going outside in my backyard and pulling out an arrowhead and saying "this proves aliens were here!".

What am I missing?

[RaTix]

Question. If you could care less about it, then why post about it?

Personally I find it interesting. It's not so much about proving Darwin as it is solving a puzzle. Yes many people take evolution as fact, but what would science be without some facts to back that up. Using your gaming analogy, it's like playing Tomb Raider or old RE and finally figuring out where the fuck to place the talisman.

With her human-like nails instead of claws, and opposable big toes, she is placed at the very root of human evolution when early primates first developed features that would eventually develop into our own.

Another important discovery is the shape of the talus bone in her foot, which humans still have in their feet millions of lifetimes later.

And remember, for just as many Darwin nuts that are out there that will scream that this or other finds prove evolution, there are just as many religious nuts that will point out things to disprove evolution.

To be honest I am not sure what you don't understand or find wrong with the article. You say you don't want this to turn into a creationism vs evolution thing, but wtf are you saying. That this proves nothing and to leave your religious beliefs alone? That you already take evolution as fact but this proves nothing, Or that you just don't care either way. In which case, again, why post about it then. I am just unclear as to your views on the subject you presented.

[Reaver]

To me it's just another mammal never found like a mammoth or sabretooth, but I don't really care about that kind of stuff, but about the religious statement,

That's a very touchy subject and I know everybody has there own opinion so I won't drive down that road.

If you ask me, It looks like a liger and king kong fucked, and if they had a baby, that what it would look like.

[TheRealHanSolo]

You know we are all just aliens who were put here by the Lord Xenu. lol

[keyser28146]

@Ratix.

"Question. If you could care less about it, then why post about it?"

Because of the intensity of the article and the several places where it has shown up. If it's big news and looks to become a touchstone, isn't it appropriate to discuss it? If the demilitarization of the GPS satellite system confused me, as one who used maps frequently, would it be be strange to post a message that said "can someone explain to me why this is a big deal if cartographers have already mapped with great detail the area in which I drive?"

"To be honest I am not sure what you don't understand or find wrong with the article. You say you don't want this to turn into a creationism vs evolution thing, but wtf are you saying. That this proves nothing and to leave your religious beliefs alone? That you already take evolution as fact but this proves nothing, Or that you just don't care either way. In which case, again, why post about it then. I am just unclear as to your views on the subject you presented."

I don't have a view of this, I don't see anything wrong, I'm saying I don't see the significance. It's lost on me. I get the part that you quoted about pieces to a puzzle... but is a bone in a foot REALLY so amazing as a discovery compared to a chimpanzee in the realm of science? If this is a wholly stable creature whose children and parents are identical to itself, but natural selection made extinct, why is THIS the much heralded "8th wonder" when Charles Darwin's forehead seems to be a better example of a human/simian hybrid. (that's humor). I'm posting about it, again, because I want someone who is into this kind of stuff to give me some context. My experience shows that when you say ANYTHING about evolution, Obama, abortion, anthrogenic global warming, etc etc invariably if you offer any resistance or even pose an honest question it descends into an us vs. them, hence the personal belief disclaimer. My purpose is to ask a question. That's it, because as I said, if this was found on Mars it would be a FANTASTIC and EARTH SHAKING discovery with LOTS of RADICAL implications... it is being treated this way... yet to me, a creature like this just doesn't seem to warrant it. I'm not getting into how we got here, because again, couldn't care less... it is a matter of curiosity, but not of real significance to me personally... but I do get curious as to why this PARTICULAR DISCOVERY seems to be making incredibly huge news and is so Earth-shattering.

Is the nails, opposable big toes, and talus bone in the foot? Or the correlation to the time in which it was found? The tail? What? Like I said... finding a cross between a chimp and a human would be mindblowing, but this just doesn't seem amazing. Newsworthy? Yes, but not front page big.

If an article came out about Cray-o-la coming out with a 2048 color crayon box were to be all over Drudge, MSN, CBS, NBC, etc etc one morning and treated in the articles as if a new day in artistic and human achievement were upon us, wouldn't I be right to ask what the significance was? The article talks like this is Archaeological/Paleontology 9/11, and I'm not one of those people, I'm just asking about the significance, 'cause I don't see it.

It's very possible someone will post and I'll have an "ah ha" moment and then I'll be like "gee whiz, why didn't I think of that?" That's the reason for posting.

[TheRealHanSolo]

Its a big deal because just like the followers in a church the more you have believing you the more you can convert and the more money you bring in. This article was published so people who are on the fence might go "damn there it is well now I will support these claims and put my moral and financial support behind them".

[RaTix]

Thanks for clarifying, your post just seemed angry at the article and I couldn't understand why lol.

It's a big find because of the actual linking characteristics between this monkey thing and humans. So yes, the nails and toe and bone are all very significant as no other creature living or dead that has been discovered had any distinctive, linking traits. The nails help show the "link" between monkeys and humans, and thus help map out the possible evolution of humans.

Lemurs were always considered the closest match to humans. I forget exactly what traits, or if it was DNA, that made it the closest match. But for a lemur type monkey to be found with human traits kinda confirms that theory. So in that sense it's a big deal.


If this is the missing link, does that mean people are gonna stop looking for big foot? The poor guy in the ape suit out in the woods is going to be very sad about this find.

[Reaver]

Wow, I love these kind of threads, It's like our own DSA C-SPAN Debates.

Ratix you should make another forum titled,

(C-SPAN debates, because the world is fucked up as is)

[keyser28146]

Ah. There it is. I'd never heard that a lemur was considered the closest relative... always chimp. That COMBINED with the 45 million year gap means I can now see the significance. Thanks.

[LordCompulon]

I studied some historical geology in school, and I know that this is huge for that community. The fossil record holds a lot of information, but is incomplete in some eras. For every animal that ends up becoming a fossil, there are countless others that don't find their way into the right conditions that lead to fossilization. Most living organisms decompose completely in the most common conditions. As time goes on for long periods this effect is increased. For this reason there are large gaps in the fossil record, and its tough for scientists to explain everything because the picture is not complete.

Religious institutions have long denied discoveries of science that don't fit with their history and ideology. Its also been more easy for these religious institutions to question science where there are gaps in knowledge, where proof is impossible, and where the truth is found through indirect evidence. Although there is a lot of indirect evidence that humans descended from more primitive species, we can't just roll back the clock 50 million years to find out what really happened.

So a discovery like this is huge for helping to put together the truth, to fill in the gaps that help explain why the solution found by science is real. One small needle in a haystack...that one monkey-lemur that happened to be in the right place at the right time, and stayed there for soo long to be found. It would be easy for an Religious Institution to remove that one piece of evidence and help keep the truth obscured, so that they can push their agenda. This sensitivity is why the fossil was studied in secret for so long before revealing its wonders to the world.

[EagleOne]

From my studies on "evolution" Darwin does not state that we are from monkeys. He simply says that in his theory of "survival of the fittest" is that in order for a species to survive it must "adapt" to it's enviroment and evolve with each change through time. So he didn't actually say we came from monkeys but did note the similaries between the two species. So Darwin is actually explaining adaptation and not so much evolution. Even today, us as humans evolve by adapting to our enviroment. If it's cold we use more clothing, if it's hot we take off clothing. It works the same for animals and the genetics in the animal change as time progresses in order to adapt with the change climate and enviroment.

Don't forget we too are animals only we have slight differences in our thought process.

[Reaver]

check out the front page of google,

https://www.google.com

[keyser28146]

Word.

@Eagle
Or in Bear Grylls case, how to adapt to the environment by staying in hotel rooms and pretending to be able to survive, and getting paid for the acting.


In regards to google... I was a day ahead on this one. Drudge leans right, but his news is DAYS ahead of the mainstream press outlets.

[keyser28146]

Here comes a new one!

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http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/10/091001-ardipithecus-ramidus-ardi-oldest-human-skeleton-fossils.html

[Hogezz]

Wow. All those folks in Norway who raised over 1 million for Ida must be pissed off now!