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.

For the upcoming Darwin anniversary, Richard Dawkins has posted some great Darwin quotes and here they are:

1. “The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic.” (Autobiography)

2. “It seems to me absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent Theist & an evolutionist.” (Letter to John Fordyce, May 7 1879)

3. “I hardly see how religion & science can be kept as distinct as [Edward Pusey] desires‚Ķ But I most wholly agree‚Ķ that there is no reason why the disciples of either school should attack each other with bitterness.” (Letter to J. Brodie Innes, November 27 1878)

4. “In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.” (Letter to John Fordyce, May 7 1879)

5. “I think that generally (& more and more so as I grow older) but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind.” (Letter to John Fordyce, May 7 1879)

6. “I am sorry to have to inform you that I do not believe in the Bible as a divine revelation, & therefore not in Jesus Christ as the son of God.” (Letter to Frederick McDermott, November 24 1880)

7. [In conversation with the atheist Edward Aveling, 1881] “Why should you be so aggressive? Is anything gained by trying to force these new ideas upon the mass of mankind?” (Edward Aveling, The religious views of Charles Darwin, 1883)

8. “Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?” (Letter to Graham William, July 3 1881)

9. “My theology is a simple muddle: I cannot look at the Universe as the result of blind chance, yet I can see no evidence of beneficent Design.” (Letter to Joseph Hooker, July 12 1870)

10. “I can never make up my mind how far an inward conviction that there must be some Creator or First Cause is really trustworthy evidence.” (Letter to Francis Abbot, September 6 1871)

You know what? That’s just bullshit. The opposite in true, in fact. Just bringing you some more bad news from the front lines of life. Most things happen arbitrarily and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Go with it.

Dawkins on evolution, what is “natural”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU884Q2iUmE&watch_response[/youtube]

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, referred by Richard Dawkins, the Creationists:

…Have spent years working school boards, with only minimal success. Now critics of evolution are turning to a higher authority: state legislators.

In a bid to shape biology lessons, they are promoting what they call “academic freedom” bills that would encourage or require public-school teachers to cast doubt on a cornerstone of modern science.

A handful of states have considered such bills in recent years, but backers are now organizing a national movement, with high-profile help from actor Ben Stein. His new documentary, “Expelled,” argues that educators suffer reprisals if they dare question evolution; in an attempt to spur action, he has held private screenings for legislators, including a recent showing in the Missouri statehouse.

The academic-freedom bills now in circulation vary in detail. Some require teachers to critique evolution. Others let educators choose their approach — but guarantee they won’t be disciplined should they decide to build a case against Darwin.

This is not a matter of questioning authority; this is a time-waster. We have been there, done that. If they want to spend time debunking Darwin they ought not to put the kids in school back a century or two while they figure it out. It seems to me it’s the students who suffer from this needless and unfounded war.

The great Richard Dawkins on Creationists attempt to disguise “intelligent” design using the space alien theory:

Intelligent design “theorists” (a misnomer, for they have no theory) often use the alien scenario to distance themselves from old-style creationists: “For all we know, the designer might be an alien from outer space.” This attempt to fend off accusations of unconstitutionally importing religion into science classes is lame and disingenuous. All the leading intelligent design spokesmen are devout, and, when talking to the faithful, they drop the science-fiction fig leaf and expose themselves as the fundamentalist creationists they truly are.

Nevertheless, despite their notorious dishonesty, I sometimes hand an olive branch to these people by pretending to take their “space aliens” political ploy seriously. Unrealistic as the space alien theory is, it constitutes intelligent design’s best shot.

The distinguished molecular biologists Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel advanced a version of the notion, probably tongue in cheek, called “Directed Panspermia.” Life, they argued, could have been “seeded” on the early Earth by a spacecraft packed with bacteria. Maybe little cellular machines like the bacterial flagellar motor were designed by ingenious nano-technologists from Betelgeuse. But you still have to explain the prior existence of the Betelgeusians and how they became so advanced and god-like. Even if Betelgeusian life was, in turn, seeded by another rocket from Aldebaran 4 billion years earlier, eventually we have to terminate the regress.

We need a better explanation, such as evolution by natural selection or an equally workable account of the painstaking R&D that must underlie complex, statistically improbable things. Gods, if they are complex enough to be capable of designing anything, are, by virtue of their very complexity, not in a position to design themselves.

The full article is a must-read.

In case you’ve been wondering about the whole evolution thing or whether you never learned much about it in the first place, New Scientist has posted an article that should clear things up a bit. In it, there is a guide to the most common misconceptions about evolution and the dumbass creationists’ myths:

Shared misconceptions:

Everything is an adaptation produced by natural selection

Natural selection is the only means of evolution

Natural selection leads to ever-greater complexity

Evolution produces creatures perfectly adapted to their environment

Evolution always promotes the survival of species

It doesn’t matter if people do not understand evolution

“Survival of the fittest” justifies “everyone for themselves”

Evolution is limitlessly creative

Evolution cannot explain traits such as homosexuality

Creationism provides a coherent alternative to evolution

Creationist myths:

Evolution must be wrong because the Bible is inerrant

Accepting evolution undermines morality

Evolutionary theory leads to racism and genocide

Religion and evolution are incompatible

Half a wing is no use to anyone

Evolutionary science is not predictive

Evolution cannot be disproved so is not science

Evolution is just so unlikely to produce complex life forms

Evolution is an entirely random process

Mutations can only destroy information, not create it

Darwin is the ultimate authority on evolution

The bacterial flagellum is irreducibly complex

Yet more creationist misconceptions

Evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics

Good lord. LOL.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7Wj6_DLV0M[/youtube]

The website put forth to debunk the junk science Creationist movie, Expelled, has gone live. And it offers up an intriguing video of someone who really WAS expelled.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQacQy1KJ9M[/youtube]

“In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.”