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http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/scienc...s-Skeptics.html
QUOTE
Ida, a fossil of a small, female mammal who died in her first year of life, was unveiled at New York’s American Museum of Natural History on May 19 after years in the shadows. The fossil was discovered in 1983 and split in two, according to Science magazine, with one half housed in a museum in Wyoming and the other kept by a private collector, until it was bought by Jorn Hurum of the University of Oslo’s Natural History Museum.
Ida is an “unusually intact primate fossil dating to 47 million years ago, a time when most primates looked more like squirrels than people,” according to Nature’s blog The Great Beyond. Ida has been described as both monkey-like and lemur-like, illustrating the mixed views currently circulating about her lineage and significance.
The fossil is not believed to be a “missing link” species between apes and humans, according to several experts, though National Geographic reports that Hurum calls Ida “the closest thing we can get to a direct ancestor.”
Hurum is embracing extensive coverage of the fossil’s public debut for science’s sake. As he put it to The New York Times, “Any pop band is doing the same thing. … We have to start thinking the same way in science.”
Ida is an “unusually intact primate fossil dating to 47 million years ago, a time when most primates looked more like squirrels than people,” according to Nature’s blog The Great Beyond. Ida has been described as both monkey-like and lemur-like, illustrating the mixed views currently circulating about her lineage and significance.
The fossil is not believed to be a “missing link” species between apes and humans, according to several experts, though National Geographic reports that Hurum calls Ida “the closest thing we can get to a direct ancestor.”
Hurum is embracing extensive coverage of the fossil’s public debut for science’s sake. As he put it to The New York Times, “Any pop band is doing the same thing. … We have to start thinking the same way in science.”
So. Some people are touting it as the Holy Grail of human evolutionary discovery, but it's not. It's still a major discovery though. Basically I'm using this as an excuse to debate the fossil record, but also to talk about this finding. And there's no sense explaining to me how the evil scientists are distorting their data, because they're not distorting data, they're just giving it a Hollywood title.
