History.
I'm trying to think of one *missing link* earth shaking discovery which has turned out to be as significant as initially claimed and am coming up short.
Discoveries like that should be greeted with a healthy dose of skepticism instead naively accepting anything anyone says just because evos want it to be true so bad. It should be treated as a potential hoax, or at the very least, a misidentification until it has been thoroughly and rigorously studied and classified. This bickering among scientists over what to classify it as indicates too much eagerness and not enough caution in labeling it and making the final determination of what it is and where it goes in the evolutionary tree.
It makes the scientific community look like a bunch of gullible fools and destroys their credibility every time they have to backpedal because they over reacted.
For all the evos worry about science's reputation, they do it to themselves. Way to shoot yourself in the foot.
I'm trying to think of one *missing link* earth shaking discovery which has turned out to be as significant as initially claimed and am coming up short.
I asked why you (well, not you, but you answered) were suggesting Ida was a hoax, not why it might not be "as significant as intitially claimed." As the article shows, lots of "evos" also question its significance. But as far as I know, no one's suggesting it's not actually a 47-my-old primate fossil, which is what the continual "Piltdown" drumbeat implies.
It should be treated as a potential hoax,
Why? I remember Coyoteman used to ask anti-evolutionists to come up with a list of 5 hoaxes out of all the fossils we've found, and he'd spot you Piltdown Man. Nobody ever came up with 4 other demonstrable hoaxes. And yet you act like it happens all the time and say it should color any announcement of a fossil find.
It's like passing off fake art works, the greatest defenders of a fake are those who have the most invested in it. And being a late investor just won't do.