Skeleton found in Germany believed to be 'missing link'

Hey now, that kooky rapture theology that lees mentioned started in England and then caught fire in the US.

I was kinda hoping the missing link would be a tad bit taller and maybe look a slight bit more human....

Ja gotta laff tho... I merely offer this link, so you can read some of the comments made to the report here in the Times...

I was talking specifically about the people who believe in the literal truth of the Creation story, complete with six days of hard work and one day of resting. Not all Christians are of the Rapturous, literal truth variety, and I find that quite relieving.

I've also heard other people claiming that a million years is a blink in God's eye, which could allow them to make the claim that God did create the world in six days, but his idea of a day is far longer than our puny human idea of a day.

KD was alluding to rhyming slang, JR, not theology.

I'm just glad I was born after indoor plumbing was considered a 'humane living condition'. Not sure about those previous lives I've lived.

Perfect timing:

[topic="135410">Fossil sunglasses for sale[/topic]

You were? Then why not refer specifically in your statement ? Ta ta

Llees' explanation is the Mormon belief, at least that of the Mormons I knew back home in Utah.

I didn't feel it necessary, since the OP (before the thread merge) was talking about reconciling fossils and things that add weight to the evolution arguments with creationism. Since Catholicism has stepped over that particular complexity it seemed unnecessary to reference it.

I also said "one explanation", which by no means implies, All Christians have no sense and believe in literal creationism despite any and all evidence to the contrary. Even if I thought that, which I don't, that would be a position I'd rather not defend in favour of being productive today.

This is shitty and inaccurate logic no matter how u try to present it. If instead of "Christian" you had written "Mormon" (deferring to Ruthie) then fair enough.

There are roughly 13 m Mormons on the planet compared to 2.1 billion Christians - 0.6%. Thanks.

Now, the Google's logo reflects the piece of info, from this thread:

(attached image)

I don't see your problem, parnell. You don't believe the literal truth of the six day creation. Your particular branch of Christianity doesn't believe it. Nobody thinks you do believe it. Nobody even thinks all Christians believe it, unless they are so very stupid that their opinion doesn't count anyway. Not every Christian who does believe it is a Mormon.

The discussion before the thread merge was specific to those people who believe the creationist myth. Catholics, whose current Pope suggests they should accept evolution, are not relevant to the discussion because they don't fit the criterion of belief in literal creationism. Evolutionary theorists also do not fit into the discussion, because they do not fit the criterion of belief. Should they also have been specifically excluded?

parnell, must you argue with someone who's not even being argumentative? or are you arguing simply because that's what you do when you feel like somebody "unqualified" is encroaching upon your beliefs? llees not once slagged off the catholic church, if anything, gave it a gold star for being rational and acknowledging scientific evidence.

oh dear...

I took issue with her statement which is grossly inaccurate.When called on this she qualifies her remarks by saying that she was speaking about ONLY those Christians who believe in this nonsense. ... uh without making any reference in her original statement to such a qualification.

Had she written "There are some nutty Christians out there who etc etc" then fine but to write "If you believe in fossils you fail as a Christian" is quite a leap.

I don't have a problem with llees , quite the contrary , I have a problem with her original statement.

Guysss pleeease for the love of Ida can you take the Dawkinsite/Christian fight to another thread. I realise that there is a crossover here between science and theology and that some of you are wetting your knickers with glee at the possibility of yet another excuse to harass anyone who doesn't worship at Dawkins' altar.

Is there not just a little bit of scientific interest here please, this whole this is fascinating. For people who bang on about proof and science ad infinitum, you don't seem very interested in it.

I think the issue is that IDA is being labelled as the missing link... but link between what? Whilst I am convinced by the scientific sense of evolution - let's face it we see it everyday wether we realise or not - my mind cannot comprehend the enormity of a geological timespan that is fundamentally the engine and fact that 'evolution' depends upon. A million years - that's a seriously long biergarten session - and only a modest few thousand adaptations or mutations and a new species is created. We are talking SLOW... with a capital W.

There are clearly a lot of 'linkages' that will never be discovered for quite reasonable reasons and whilst the religious fanatics pounce on these are 'proof' that Darwin is wrong, merely indicates that their logic is so flawed no matter what you say, you are wasting your limited breath.

If today, we accept that species go extinct, why do 'creationists' (dare I include 'religious nutjobs'?) fail to accept new species appear even today? We still have so little knowledge of the world around us, that, to use 'personal incredulity' as an argument is plainly idiotic! Evolution is an ongoing thing - we humans ARE classic examples.

As a consequence, the appearance (albeit 20yrs after discovery) of IDA is merely life in macroscopic scale. Life will continue for a few billion years more yet - (work out how many biers you can drink in that timescale...) and the numbers are stupefyingly huge.

By which time, whatever Church you're in, won't matter...

EDIT: Opps - reasonable reasons... sorry!

I think all these hails are just political, as this is nothing new in the list of fossils claimed to fill in the gap in evolutionary story...as if every other bit in the chain is already explained! this is just a theory...had never became an accepted scientific fact unless considered as beleif for its followers! (although I don't deny evolution as a concept)

It's very misleading trying to drift the discussion of the question of creation into "missing link"...what about every atom in the universe that perfectly fits its place, is it also evolutionary?

"And it is We who have constructed the heaven with might, and verily, it is We who are steadily expanding it." Quran translation (51:47)

{10. He it is Who sends down water (rain) from the sky; from it you drink and from it (grows) the vegetation on which you send your cattle to pasture;

11. With it He causes to grow for you the crops, the olives, the date-palms, the grapes, and every kind of fruit. Verily! In this is indeed an evident proof and a manifest sign for people who give thought.

12. And He has subjected to you the night and the day, the sun and the moon; and the stars are subjected by His Command. Surely, in this are proofs for people who understand.

13. And whatsoever He has created for you on this earth of varying colours [and qualities from vegetation and fruits, etc. (botanical life) and from animal (zoological life)]. Verily! In this is a sign for people who remember.

14. And He it is Who has subjected the sea (to you), that you eat thereof fresh tender meat (i.e. fish), and that you bring forth out of it ornaments to wear. And you see the ships ploughing through it, that you may seek (thus) of His Bounty (by transporting the goods from place to place) and that you may be grateful.

15. And He has affixed into the earth mountains standing firm, lest it should shake with you, and rivers and roads, that you may guide yourselves.

16. And landmarks (signposts, etc. during the day) and by the stars (during the night), they (mankind) guide themselves.

17. Is then He, Who creates as one who creates not? Will you not then remember?

18. And if you would count the graces of Allah, never could you be able to count them. Truly! Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

}Quran translation (18:10-18)

What the frak has Richard Dawkins got to do with this? He wasn't even mentioned until you brought him up.

http://www.clarku.edu/~piltdown/map_intro/...glinkfound.html

I referred quite specifically to Dawkinsites actually.

Ahh, Dawkinsites. Everyone who doesn't believe in woowoo and uggabugga I suppose?

And they have what to do with this? You can understand evolution without being an in your face atheist you know..

Nah Dawkinsites are to atheism what the Westboro Baptist Church is to Christianity.

I am a atheist you twat. I just would rather talk about the science involved here than use it to point score against people who dare to believe something different to me.

I always find it amusing that evolution nay-sayers feel quite offended when you suggest they evolved from ape-like ancestors, but feel quite happy with the thought that instead they were made from dirt...presumably with some holy spit to make it stick together...

so an ape-like creature for an ancestor or a muddy puddle for an ancestor... which do you pick? ;-)

Awesome.

Can an omniscient being blink? I mean, he might miss something important and become merely mostly-scient. On the other hand, if he already knows what's going to happen, I'm sure he can barely keep his eyes open, just like me when they're doing CSI re-runs.

Which would explain the behaviour of Balor, for example, the only god whose eyelid is specifically mentioned, and who needed four stout men hauling with ropes and pulleys just to get his eye open, and that in the middle of open battle.

What are you.. 4?

Ross! You're the one with the EXCLAMATION mark... How old are you? And pray, (intended) what difference would it make?

There are Theistic evolutionists. They believe in a Creator and biological evolution.

Theistic evolution (Wikipedia)

This thread is depressing me. The fossil reminds me of Inner Lizard which, alas, has now already been gone for nearly 3 1/2 years. Also, it would seem that we had nice tails at some point, admittedly it was long ago, but I really would have liked to keep the tail.

Just to get the thread back on topic...I don't think anyone has mentioned the innaccuracy in the OP yet, so just to be clear, this fossil is definately NOT thought to be a missing link between apes and man but is touted to be a link between great apes (including humans) and smaller primates such as monkeys and lemurs. Not everyone agrees on that interpretation, though.

And as usual, the "science" reporting of this fossil in the media has been particularly bad. I'm not sure if you can access this Nature link without a subscription or not, but if you can, it gives some quite interesting, and probably much more accurate information about the fossil than you would get from regular media outlets. Just in case you can't access it, I quote the first paragraph here:

Actually if you are interested I can answer this one.

The young earth creationists (YECs*) in the US have an 'answer' for this. I knew it would come and I have seen it a few times already. This "fossil" was an infant, therefore it never reproduced, therefore we can not 'prove' it was the ancestor of anything at all.

Actually this is what a lot of them say about every fossil. No one can show fossils ever gave birth, therefore it is mere assumption that they are ancestors of anything. I am not sure who came up with this line of... ahem... reasoning. However I think it might be a certain individual who is currently in a US jail for tax evasion on the money he made selling this idea.

I will not insult the intelligence of anyone on the board by explaining why itis insane logic. Suffice to say this is how a large number of YECs are dealing with this.

*a subset of Christianity, lets not taint all of it with the same brush here, there are after all over 33820** different forms of Christianity. The others are all wrong though. Whichever one the Christian reader of THIS post is, is the one thats _right_ on the money... obviously.

**World Christian Encyclopedia (year 2000 version)

What a misanthropic idiot. Believe in what you want, but thinking people who believe otherwise should die out?

Absolutely and I would trade tickets for a talk by Richard Dawkins in favor of hearing a talk by Evolutionary Scientist and Roman Catholic Kenneth Mil…[/quote]Thanks for that. PZ is also worth a read on this fossil and he is also playing down the inaccurate media hype. Found here.

That's actually not true. Fossil reveals oldest live birth (BBC News).

(attached image)

It does not matter who is speaking just the fact that there are those who do believe in evolutionary biology and a Creator. From there discussions can take place and science done without questioning their personal beliefs in their faiths.

Oh dear right back at you. You're quoting without context, when it should be obvious reading the *original* statement that "if you believe in the fossils..." is the opinion of those people who are forwarding the explanation given in the first part of the sentence.

But if you're looking for offence, then of course it's a lot easier to find.

LOL Genie, I never said it WAS true. Do not shoot the messenger. I am just merely passing on what their excuse for fossils generally is when I read what they write.

...but don't both the Mormons and your lot both believe in messages written on stone tablets and blokes going around preaching and performing miracles?

Wasn't shooting at you (isn't that a gross criminal offense here?), just pointing out to anyone who might hear that argument being put forth that it has nothing to do with reality and the way science helps us clarify it.

In the beginning GOD created!!! Even Darwin knew his theory of evolution was wrong.

Heheh trolling is one thing, but this user clearly joined just now just to troll. Thats dedication.

Facts are facts. There is no evidence to support the belief in God, Creationism, etc. Science is only based on empirical findings. Why couldn't we be here by "chance"? I guarantee survival back then was infinitely more difficult than ever was and possibly ever will be!

This is a neat skeleton, but you can not say that it is a link between any animal because you do not know that and you never will. You can say it is but the only way to know is to go back in time. It could just be a extinct animal. We will never know if it is a link because we can not prove that it is.

The basic idea is that this fossil shows an intermediary stage of evolution between older fossils that have been found and more modern animals (that have been found as fossils or studied directly):Scientists hail stunning fossil (BBC News)

Whether it is or not will have to be worked out by proper scientific tests, none of which require fantasy notions like time travel.

Wow, that's like TWO people who joined yesterday JUST to post nonsense on this thread. Is there like... people trawling the internet for any mention of the word "evolution" just so they can join up and come out with this stuff?

Mauddib

Yes, I did just join to leave a comment on this. I was not trawling the internet. I just opened a link that a friend sent me and joined. What you think is just your opinion and what I think is mine.

time555

I know that the idea of this fossil is to show an intermediary stage of evolution between older fossils and modern animals. BUT it never can be proven that it is because the only tests that scientists can do is it's similarity to modern animals and from what I have learned in science similarity is not proof of anything.

It looks like that animal skeleton is in a praying position. Uncanny!I don't agree!

Comparing pieces of physical evidence is making an observation, the basis of the scientific method. If you're not willing to believe that scientific evidence can be gathered by observation of natural phenomena and experiments then you really are off in cloud-cuckoo land where anything can be 'real'.

Ah so theres GROUPS trawling the internet and delegating the actual joining and being kooks to others like these two. That makes me feel _much_ better...

Intersting. The one thing i don't understand isn't in the article, but on these comments. Why can't you beleive in God AND science? Why can't have God made people in a different form and then change over time? And, yes, I know that in the bible it said that when God banished them from the Garden of Eden that plants will no longer willing bare us fruit and now they will confront us with briars. But we can have every animal for our food and everything, and you're saying that they said that she's a herbivore. Well, I have two theories. First of all, they said that according to her STOMACH CONTENTS. How do we know that the male was out hunting and she had to eats fruits and vegitable until he came back? And my other theory which isn't as likely, what if people evolved INTO primates? What if everything went the other way around, that we didnt evolve from apes, that apes evolved from US. I know I sound crazy, but if it fits I will always bring it up.

Jesus, they unlocked the solitary confinement cells early today, didn't they?

Wow, thats three now. Has anyone checked the ip addresses of these 3 to see if they are the same person?

Try actually reading the thread next time You still don't seem to get the idea that a scientific theory is not just whatever happens to pop into your head

Dr Drake 708, please ignore the abrasive responses, and thank you for at least participating in such a debate in a scientifically-oriented way.

Two points for your thought -

1. There is no direction in evolution. There's no "we evolved from the chimps" or "the chimps evolved from us". The only things you can reasonably and scientifically say in evolution is that present day chimps and present day humans had a mutual ancestor (bzw. ancestral group) who lived ca. 5 million years ago and are likely to have looked more like chimps than like humans. To put this in a graphical sense - there's the big tree of life, which branches and branches and on one of the branches there are two twigs, one is us and one is the chimps, but they are equally high on the tree.

2. Theoretically, there is no necessity for there being one trunk to that tree. According to what we know today, there could have been additions to the tree that don't have common ancestry on that tree. However, there are various lines of evidence that speak against this - the common genetic code, the common biochemistry (think about the limited pool of amino acids, and energy carriers such as ATP and not GTP) and identical protein structures between, for example, the neurons in your brain and the staphylococcus on your tooth (this could be convergence, but highly unlikely).

In short - yes, it could still be theoretically possible that man was created while the rest of the animal world evolved. However, this is the least likely scenario and all of the evidence we do have speaks against it. To make this a preferred theory, you have to come up with lots of proof, not just conjecture and what-ifs and couldn't-it-bes. God coming down from heaving and smiting the Darwinists would convince me, at least for the short period of time before I get smitten.

I really don't see what all the fuss is about. On the creationists' side, well they're quite used to debunking fossils, so this one is no different. As for the evolutionists, well this creature has got a head at one end, a tail at the other, and a leg at each corner, so nothing radically new there. Only really of interest to a handful of palaeontologists.

I'm just waiting for someone to find a fossil where the bones are arranged in such a way that they spell out the name of Allah in Arabic when you squint at them from the right direction. That'll be fun!

Done.

How quickly we digress. The article does not even talk about the "chimpanzee - human" link, but an even older one:... and it devolves into another faith/evolution discussion.

De Omnibus Dubitandum

Only getting to this now, while I wait for a test to run on my computer. Writing this mainly for my own entertainment rather than because I care what our three newly joined up "trolls" have had to say.

The issue with the media hype is that there IS no ?missing link?. There is no 5 step program to mapping out Human Evolution and we are just missing an example from one of the steps to show it is all true conclusively.

The scientific theory proposes something more like a rainbow. If you look closer at a rainbow there is not a sudden point where red stops and orange starts. Where Orange stops and yellow starts. There is a continuous spectrum of colours slowly ?fading? into each other without a point where one starts and another begins.

Our ancestral history is the same. A very slow fading from one species to the next to the next often giving us no way to say where ?orange? stopped and ?yellow? began. I have had meetings reported to me where almost fist fights broke out between scientists reviewing new specimens as they tried to decide if the new fossils were ?Reptile like Mammals? or ?Mammal like Reptiles?. This alone should give a good impression of just how many ?Links? we have.

Unless we find one fossil of every generation of every animal who ever lived we will never have a complete picture and someone can always claim a ?missing link? and people will be convinced by this ?hole? in the theory. Frankly it is not a hole at all...

It is a media phrase only and means nothing. A scientific Theory is a proposed explanation that unites and explains facts and then makes predictions. The Theory must stand up to rigorous testing AND make predictions. What Ida and other ?missing links? in fact are, are examples of these predictions being borne out in reality. It is us saying ?If this theory is right then we should expect, upon looking, to find fossils of animals that exhibit characteristics X, Y and Z?.

The best media example of this was the argument about the Whale evolving from a Land Mammal. In an effort to rubbish the theory Creationists started putting comical cartoons in papers at their own expense laughing about what ?intermediates? would have to look like for the theory to be borne out. It was quite a silly looking walking whale creature.

The cartoons quickly stopped when ?Ambulocetus? was found, literally meaning ?The whale that walks? or ?Walking whale? and looked in many ways very similar to the cartoon. Not content with this however, and using the first fossil as an indication of where to look, not one but multiple fossils were then found in the chain from land mammal to whale. They poured in now that we knew where to look. Pakicetus? Ambulocetus?.Dalanistes?. Rodhocetus?. Takracetus? Gavioceluus?. Dorudon. (Forgive spelling or temporal errors here, that was from memory)?. So many in fact that we do not now have intermediate fossil forms, but intermediate fossil CATEGORIES on the road from one to the other.

The fossils were dated and lined up in temporal order based on the dating. They were not lined up out of convenience to match the theory. We did it in the age they appeared to be in our dating tests. The changes were THEN looked at to see if they matched. If three fossils dated in a row but we then saw something evolving "forwards" and then "backwards" again we know either our dating sucks or the theory is wrong. Did either happen? No. The steady migration of the dorsal blow hole, the steady and necessary changes in the middle ear, and more, all matched up perfectly. The predictions were borne out.

We also do this on a genetic level. We make predictions based on the theory that must be borne out if the theory is true. For example the human genetic structure has 1 less chromosome pair than the higher apes. Massive changes are not allowed in genetics as it would rubbish the theory. Evolution is a slow process requiring slow small changes. We could not lose an entire pair of chromosomes and survive. This is impossible. The likely hood of a !sudden! Development in a pair is also small. The theory therefore predicts that 2 pairs must have merged. No other explanation would work if we were to hold the theory of evolution to be true.

Guess what? It is human chromosome number 2. In fact our knowledge is now advancing so well we can pinpoint it to a precise fusion point of base pairs. The precise fusion site has been located in 2q13?2q14.1 (ref. 2; hg 16:114455823 ? 114455838),

So to be short (a clear inability on my part admittedly as you can see above) there is no such thing as a ?missing link? nor will we ever find one nor is "Ida" one. What we have is a Theory that unites and explains all the facts we "currently" have to hand (without postulating facts we do not have such as an invisible creator) that has withstood constant and intense testing and has made and had borne out countless predictions.

None of this is 100% ?proven? of course. However nothing in Science is. Do not believe anyone that tells you anything in science is 100% conclusively proven. Infallibility and total certainty we leave to a type of people of a completely different ilk.

"9:24 Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief."

I agree with you about the science reporting on this issue - slow news week perhaps. This is scientific news because of the quality of the find, not because it is the final blockbuster evidence that evolution is a fact - this is already known . The fossil dates to an interesting time in the evolutionary calendar, just after a major split in the family tree. It's also a good find because it's (probably) a juvenile and hence gives us a bit of information about both younger and older animals, which is useful because finding good fossils of both is rare.

You can. But to believe the Bible is the literal word of God is just a bit daft. That was written before science existed. Now that science exists, it MUST be re-interpreted, given "new evidence" (aka science).

Science has still yet to prove/disprove the existence of God, and there are many scientists with faith.

It's only the bible-thumping indoctrinated types that, (wearing a non-believer hat), should be put down (yes, anaesthetized), leaving way to further human progress, which advances knowledge rather than restricts it. These people, whatever their faith, are not very practical or helpful to a larger dialogue focussing on similarities rather than differences.

The same reason you can't like both the Yankees and the Red Sox or both Chelsea and Man U.

Sorry Ida, here comes Ardi.

From National Geographic:

"Scientists today announced the discovery of the oldest fossil skeleton of a human ancestor. The find reveals that our forebears underwent a previously unknown stage of evolution more than a million years before Lucy, the iconic early human ancestor specimen that walked the Earth 3.2 million years ago. The centerpiece of a treasure trove of new fossils, the skeleton?assigned to a species called Ardipithecus ramidus?belonged to a small-brained, 110-pound (50-kilogram) female nicknamed "Ardi."