'Original' great ape discovered [New genus "Missing Link" found!]

BBC ^ | 2/18/07 | Paul Rincon

[Banjoguy]

not another 'missing link'.....geeesh!

[goldstategop]

Chimps are 99% human. There's only 1% difference in the DNA. People would be less smug if we still had fur like chimps do.

[Tinian]

Because we have molecular (which is considered much more highly reliable, in the short term - eg, <100 mya) rather than simply morphological/behavioral evidence now.

But you've got to miss the good old days watching Gould and Smith fight it out.

[Woodman]

Can someone explain why they assume it was a "Fruit Eater" with canines that size?

[Bringbackthedraft]

"People would be less smug if we still had fur like chimps do." ...............Hmmmmm? You have to go to the beaches on the Mediterranean, then ask that question.

[webstersII]

"OK, an experiment. Sit down and write down in a list EVERYTHING you did in the past 24 hours. Everything."

Your analogy falls apart from the very beginning because of one huge error.

You have, in essence, a "chain of custody" for everything that you did in the last 24 hours because all of those events belong to your memory. There is no question of whether or not you actually did some of those things you can remember or whether someone else actually did them.

There is no similar chain of custody for the bones in the fossil record. Sure, we have have bones here and bones there, some have strongly similar characteristics along with non-similar characteristics, but this means nothing outside of knowing exactly who the bones belonged to and how they came to be where they are today.

The forensic evidence is interesting, and at times compelling, but science and forensics are two different fields. Science is based on repeatable, duplicatable, verifiable experimentation, not a strong inference based on certain assumptions and a preponderance of evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. Science is not equal to the sum of scientific consensus.

With the popular assumptions of potential inherited characteristics the whole question of origins moves from the realm of science to the realm of forensics. No one actually knows what a transitional form would look like because no one has actually produced a control for a transitional form in a lab. That leaves it all open to speculation at that point, and is why the "missing link" keeps changing. If it was really the missing link then it wouldn't get updated periodically.

[Tribune7]

The new specimen was probably male . . .

We aren't sure of the sex, but, hey, it could be the Missing Link!!!

[metmom]

What's this going to be called now? Piltdown Woman?

[em2vn]

Call Tone in Jersey. Hoffa has been found but the egg heads think they found part of a chain, a missing link.

[Gunny P]

G'GrandMa or so, at last We meet. Papa had your nose...

[4CJ]

The new specimen was probably male, a fruit-eater and was slightly smaller than a chimpanzee, researchers say.

Probably female. I'm just as right as they are. See those fangs in the picture, I guess they were used to tear bananas peel from peel.

[metmom]

The new specimen was probably male, a fruit-eater and was slightly smaller than a chimpanzee, researchers say.

And scientists wonder why they don't have any credibility.

The evolutionists regualrly criticize the creation account because of the meat-eating-animals-whose-teeth-aren't-suited-for-a-vegatarian- diet issues, and yet here we have *scientists* looking at some sizable looking canines claming that this creature was *probably* a *fruit eater*.

Maybe they used those teeth like those juicer gadgets; poke a hole in the orange and such the juice out. Sounds good to me.

[KeepUSfree]

Ok, but that's not really the point. If I change it to "have everybody you know and came in contact with make the list". Then, from what I can tell, THAT satisfies your argument.

And, if one had enough outside contact, one could still reconstruct most of the events of the day. And, with each successive bit of input - friends, surveillance cameras, fast-food cashiers, the events of the day would become much clearer.

Some of the "missing links" may never be known - nobody saw you - maybe you were alone.

But, then start examining changes in the house, phone bills, TV audit trails, food in the fridge - and, in many cases , a pretty darn clear picture of "what you did that day" would emerge. And, the Fast food person may remember you - but not have a clue as to what time of day it was - but, based upon the timeline of other obersvations - one might be able to infer WHERE in the timeline the visit to Burger King took place.

And, my point is, just because there is nothing to pinpoint exactly what you did at say between 6AM & 7AM, it does not invalidate the the rest of the information.

Police do this sort of investigative work all the time.

That's all a "missing link" is. One more piece of a puzzle in which you will NEVER have all of the pieces.

[Coyoteman]

The evolutionists regualrly criticize the creation account because of the meat-eating-animals-whose-teeth-aren't-suited-for-a-vegatarian- diet issues, and yet here we have *scientists* looking at some sizable looking canines claming that this creature was *probably* a *fruit eater*.

Maybe they used those teeth like those juicer gadgets; poke a hole in the orange and such the juice out. Sounds good to me.

Did you think to look beyond the canines?

Or are you so eager to bash science that you just posted the first anti-science comment you could think up?

Did you ever consider that different teeth had (and still have) different functions?

[DelphiUser]

Seen this?

Well, I guess we were wrong /sarc

[gondramB]

>>I thought the "missing link" was somewhere between apes and humans..<<

I learned recently from asking some more biology knowledgeable people and then verifying with research that "ape" is a colloquial term for hominids (latin term hominidae) - the family that includes humans. So humans apparently humans are classed as apes even though that term isn't used as much in science now.

This really isn't my field but in looking for a missing link it seems they would be looking not for where humans split from apes but where great apes (including chimps, gorillas and apparently humans) split from lesser apes (apparently called hylobatidae). Apparently the difference is in their "diploid chromosome" a term I don't understand.

[Coyoteman]

and yet here we have *scientists* looking at some sizable looking canines claming that this creature was *probably* a *fruit eater*.

Maybe they used those teeth like those juicer gadgets; poke a hole in the orange and such the juice out. Sounds good to me.

The chimpanzee's diet is mainly fruits, including bananas, pawpaws and wild figs. Note the similarity in maxillary dentition between this newly-discovered fossil (left) and a modern chimpanzee (right).

Here's another view of those "juicer gadgets:"

[gondramB]

>>The evolutionists regualrly criticize the creation account because of the meat-eating-animals-whose-teeth-aren't-suited-for-a-vegatarian- diet issues, and yet here we have *scientists* looking at some sizable looking canines claming that this creature was *probably* a *fruit eater*.<<

I have not heard that criticism of creationists but a couple of big pointy teeth could be for defense. But in any case this seems like an early article -that scientists all across the world haven't had a chance to double check everything yet.

That's an important part of scientific review - scrutiny from scientists all over the world - that's how the cold fusion success was shown to be wrong..

[gondramB]

>>LOL. I've got a replica of a claw from a Deinonychus. It scares my cat.<<

Interesting how deep seated some instincts/fears are in animals. I had two ferrets (just one now) who were never scared of anything - the big one beat up my cat and the little one held its own.

The ferrets love to jump up on the bed especially while its being made. One day we were out of clean sheets and my wife dug out some black sheets from my college days and started making the bed and the ferrets immediately jump up on the bed to be covered (which they enjoyed.)

When she fluffed the black top sheet over their heads the ferrets screamed in terror and ran and hid and wouldn't come out.

My guess is that in the past, ferrets who lived long enough to breed were the ones who avoided big black things swooping from the sky.

[metmom]

But in any case this seems like an early article -that scientists all across the world haven't had a chance to double check everything yet.

So then why are they shooting off their mouths making statements that they're likely to have to retract later. The article is replete with uncertainty; loaded with words and phrases like: *could have been*,*probably*,*are thought*,*Scientists think*,*the possibility exists*,*it appears to show*.

Even other scientists are unsure of the conclusions drawn.

But not all were convinced by the conclusions drawn by the Spanish researchers. Professor Begun considers it unlikely that Pierolapithecus was ancestral to orang-utans.

Professor David Pilbeam, director of the Peadbody Museum in Cambridge, US, was even more sceptical about the relationship of Pierolapithecus to modern great apes: "To me it's a very long stretch to link this to any of the living apes," he told the BBC News website.

That all cuts into the credibility of scientists and then they wonder why people don't accept their latest pronouncements like they're written in stone. Once burned, twice shy.