The ridiculous hype surrounding the description of Darwinius masillae (if that is your real name) has overshadowed the true scientific importance of the discovery of an early (~47Mya) and complete (including hair/skin outline and digestive tract contents) extinct primate fossil. It is now becoming clear that the hype surrounding this discovery was engineered. Carl Zimmer has been following the issue closely over at The Loom, which you should already be reading regularly. Among the interesting issues is why the authors chose to publish in PLoS ONE, whose stated mission is to publish technically competent research without regard to subjective importance or interest, instead of in a higher profile journal.
On a related note, shouldn't we right here and right now be able to come up with a list of characteristics that the "missing link" must have, like physicists have done for dark matter, in order that we might know it when we see it?
Comments
Josh Witten | 05/21/09 | 14:34 PM
Hank Campbell | 05/21/09 | 14:38 PM
Josh Witten | 05/21/09 | 15:05 PM
As soon as any intermediate fossil (between two existing fossils) is found, the creationist fundies will demand the next-intermediate fossils, and declare THAT the "missing link" and so on until the fossil of every last animal that has ever lived has been dug up and documented, which of course is not possible.
Anonymous (not verified) | 05/23/09 | 08:30 AM
So if they come up with an argument like 'an intermediate eye' it doesn't mean that they are out to undercut science (necessarily - I have never met someone 'on the street' who used a creationist argument that seemed to be agenda-driven) it means they don't understand this aspect of science.
We can often get jaded because we've heard the same stuff before but to many people out there it is the first time they are learning about this. I think this is why longime Pandas Thumb and other people who have done this for so long come across just as shrill as the agenda-driven creationists. It eats away at them and it becomes more about damaging the other side than science and education.
Hank Campbell | 05/23/09 | 10:40 AM
In fairness to our awesome site, as far as articles that broke when the embargo was lifted, ours was far and away the most balance and least hyped. Carl and others who got to go into more detail with the benefit of Hurum's later, more exaggerated interviews on the matter get the benefit of hindsight.