History Channel: The link - the oldest and most complete fossil of a human ancestor

[usregimechange]

About Ida The Missing Link

Scientists have discovered the oldest and most complete fossil of a human ancestor.



An incredible 95 percent complete fossil of a 47-million-year-old human ancestor dubbed Ida has been discovered and, after two years of secret study, an international team of scientists has revealed it to the world. The fossil’s remarkable state of preservation allows an unprecedented glimpse into early human evolution. Discovered in Messel Pit, Germany, it represents the moment before anthropoid primates--the group that would later evolve into humans, apes and monkeys--began to split from lemurs and other prosimian primates. This groundbreaking discovery fills in a critical gap in human and primate evolution.

A cast of the specimen will be on display in the "Extreme Mammals"
exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

Discovering The Link

Jørn Hurum from the Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, uncovered the primate through a chance encounter with a fossil dealer in Hamburg. Immediately recognizing its significance he procured it for his museum. Remarkably, it had been hidden from the world for 25 years in a private collection.

The fossil's analysis has revealed that it is 47 million years old. Named “Ida” by the scientific team, she lived in the early Middle Eocene during a critical period in evolutionary history when, after the extinction of the dinosaurs, mammals first began to thrive on the planet. The Earth was beginning to take the shape that we recognize today, with the Himalayas forming, and early horses, bats, whales and many other fauna and flora evolving. In primate evolution, our own lineage, the anthropoids (monkeys, apes and humans), split from the branch leading to modern prosimians (lemurs, lorises and tarsiers).


More:
http://www.history.com/content/the-link
http://www.history.com/content/the-link/watch-video


This is an amazing program that everyone needs to watch.

[JDPriestly]

1. Does the article state why people believe this fossil to be authentic?

I have wondered whether perhaps it might be another false fossil.

[Ediacara]

6. They've X-rayed the slab and counterslab

The counterslab has some reconstruction that was done in its museum. The radiographs indicate that the fossil is genuine.

The counterslab is on the right and is mirrored. As you can see, the reconstructed areas (dorsal verts, distal tail) show up as matrix.



Additionally, fake fossils are easily identified to the trained eye when you're looking right at them.

[Petrushka]

9. Is this really anything "new"? Or just some more old-fashioned "Ringling Science"?

http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/index.php?id=1001

<snip>

The attentive journalist, with some idea about science and a nose to detect odours, will find on inquiry that this fossil -- genuinely remarkable for its completeness, given its age -- is otherwise nothing special. It is of a kind of animal, adapiforms, known for decades, and for as long the subject of speculation about its place in the evolutionary sequence prior to anthropoids. The alternative hypothesis is that we descend from tarsiers.

The specimen itself was not, in fact, dug up a couple of years ago. It was instead purchased, for a reported $1 million, from an obscure private collector, who had held it for at least 20 years. From the beginning, the "research program" was an exercise in entrepreneurship, with an investment to be recouped. In the end, direct participants in this circus included the History Channel, the BBC, Little Brown, Hachette Livre, and other mainstream media "content providers."

All of these agreed to prepare the media hit in secret. As part of the launch, a formal scientific paper by the team that studied the fossil was published in the open-access online journal PLoS One.

Actually read that paper, and the hype evaporates. The authors methodically distance themselves from every sensational claim in the fine print:
"Note that Darwinius masillae, and adapoids contemporary with early tarsioids, could represent a stem group from which later anthropoid primates evolved, but we are not advocating this here, nor do we consider either Darwinius or adapoids to be anthropoids."

This is one of several remarks disowning the very assertions they have associated themselves with by participating in the extravaganza. They want to have it both ways: to pocket the stardust, while protecting their academic reputations.

More formidable criticism will follow. Already I have read initial critiques from two prominently established paleontologists, solicited by a journalist in Discovery magazine, about dubious assertions in the rest of the paper. But it is in the nature of modern media that the outrageous claim gets 100 times the coverage of any later retraction.

<snip>

[MichaelHarris]

2. That sound you just heard?

Thousands of fundie heads exploding

[spin]

3. It was a great program, well worth watching unless you're a fundamentalist Christian...

Kind of shoots another hole in their interpretation that the Bible is literal truth and there were dinosaurs on the ark and the world is only 6000 years old. Ida, the new primate fossil discussed in the program, was 47 million years old.

1. God made everything in six days, and rested on the seventh. (By the way, this is the basis for our seven day week—Exodus 20:8–11). Leading Hebrew scholars indicate that, based on the grammatical structure of Genesis 1, these “days” were of normal length, and did not represent long periods of time (see Get Answers: Genesis).
2. We are told God created the first man and woman—Adam and Eve—on Day 6, along with the land animals (which would have included dinosaurs).
3. The Bible records the genealogies from Adam to Christ. From the ages given in these lists (and accepting that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to Earth around 2,000 years ago), we can conclude that the universe is only a few thousand years old (perhaps just 6,000), and not millions of years old (see also Did Jesus Say He Created in Six Literal Days?). Thus, dinosaurs lived within the past few thousand years.

So, Were Dinosaurs on the Ark?

In Genesis 6:19–20, the Bible says that two of every sort of land vertebrate (seven of the “clean” animals) were brought by God to the Ark. Therefore, dinosaurs (land vertebrates) were represented on the Ark.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2000/04/03/dinosaurs-on-noahs-ark

[ColbertWatcher]

5. Love your picture ...

[spin]

8. Your picture is great! (n/t)

[sandnsea]

4. It'll be on again Friday at 8pm

and Saturday at midnight. I hate that I missed this, sounds fascinating.

[csziggy]

7. A warning - the schedule says it is 2 hours long - it isn't

They found a sponsor to limit commercials during the show so the actual show ends at about and hour forty minutes.

<rant>The extra 20 minutes was filled tonight with extended ads for Ice Road Truckers and that stupid reality show that is being introduced about exploring Africa (Expedition Africa) - I think they are supposed to be retracing Stanley's efforts to find Dr. Livingstone. I'd enjoy a real historic exploration of that subject, but their ads are framing the show similar to a reality show with personality clashes between the participants. So far, I have no desire to watch it because the people involve seem so annoying.</rant>

"The Link" show itself is really good. I may try to pick up the book about the fossil and their findings.