The evolution scientists, or scientists in general, that I read are downplaying this breathtaking new discovery.
Even though I don’t know nothing from nothing I was quite taken with the idea that they had found the “missing link,” even though I’d been told, or I learned, or someone once told me that the whole idea of the “missing link” was wrong to begin with.¬† Anyway, so then Pharyngula’s PZ Myers cleaned things up a bit for me. You can see from this quote why there is good reason to adore and pledge undying love to Myers (along with other hero, Richard Dawkins):
She’s beautiful and interesting and important, but I do have to take exception to the surprisingly frantic news coverage I’m seeing. She’s being called the “missing link in human evolution”, which is annoying. The whole “missing link” category is a bit of journalistic trumpery: almost every fossil could be called a link, and it feeds the simplistic notion that there could be a single definitive bridge between ancient and modern species. There isn’t: there is the slow shift of whole populations which can branch and diverge. It’s also inappropriate to tag this discovery to human evolution. She’s 47 million years old; she’s also a missing link in chimp evolution, or rhesus monkey evolution. She’s got wider significance than just her relationship to our narrow line.
People have been using remarkable hyperbole when discussing Darwinius. She’s going to affect paleontology “like an asteroid falling down to earth”; she’s the “Mona Lisa” of fossils; she answers all of Darwin’s questions about transitional fossils; she’s “something that the world has never seen before”; “a revolutionary scientific find that will change everything”. Well, OK. I was impressed enough that I immediately made Ida my desktop wallpaper, so I’m not trying to diminish the importance of the find. But let’s not forget that there are lots of transitional forms found all the time. She’s unique as a representative of a new species, but she isn’t at all unique as a representative of the complex history of life on earth.
So PZ says it’s okay to be excited about it, just not to buy the hype. I can dig it.¬† The weird thing about the story is how the fossil hung around on some dude’s wall for a long time before being re-discovered.¬† It’s kind of an Antiques Roadshow for paleantologists.
Oh, and I also like the first comment in the Myers piece:
Meh, I think the overhype is fine. If every single time an interesting transitional fossil is found, the papers blare “MISSING LINK PROVES DARWIN WAS RIGHT!”, maybe a few burgeoning Creationists will get a clue…
Probably not, since many believe the evidence is faked to disprove religion.¬†¬† I do still know a few holdouts who do bring up the missing link to me in arguments.¬† Seriously, they do, or they have.¬† Years ago now maybe.¬† I can’t keep track of everything.¬† My brain is getting old and doesn’t quite work the way it used to.
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