Rival fossil challenges 'missing link'
Ganlea has more claim to be common primate ancestor than Ida, say scientists
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She had a website devoted to her, a film made about her, a book written on her, and even a Google-page dedication of her own. But Ida the fossil primate who was supposed to be the missing link between man and the rest of the animal kingdom has been dethroned by another fossil with far better claims to the crown.
When Ida, the 47-million-year-old fossil of an early primate, was unveiled to the public in May there was near-hysteria about the discovery of the "missing link" in the ancestry of man, carefully choreographed by the publicity machine of the film company behind a television documentary sold to the BBC and the publishers of a book.
Ida, unearthed in a shale pit in Germany, was perfectly preserved right down to her opposable thumb, the fur on her back and the contents of her stomach, but now another team of scientists has questioned her right to be named as the fossil ancestor that links humans to all other animals.
Chris Beard, a palaeontologist with the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, believes that he and his team have found a far better candidate in the shape of a primate fossil found in Burma which he said is much more likely than Ida to be the common ancestor of all monkeys, apes and humans.
Called Ganlea megacanina, the new fossil is about 38 million years old and even though the scientists only have its teeth and a fragment of its jawbone they are convinced that both its anatomical features and its lifestyle are those of an "anthropoid" primate, the group of primates that split away from the other lemur-like primates to evolve into monkeys, apes and humans.
"Ida is a complete fossil, and that in many ways is its calling card. We have an incomplete fossil of Ganlea but even though it is not complete, its anatomy is far more compelling for it to be the ancestor of monkeys, apes and humans than it is for Ida to be the ancestor," Dr Beard said.
"As far as we can tell, not only is Ganlea an anthropoid, it is a fairly advanced anthropoid, which is not what you can say about Ida," he said.
A study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society shows Ganlea's large canine tooth has abrasions that could only have come about by prying open the hard exterior of tough tropical fruits in order to eat the seeds inside, an anthropoid-like behaviour seen today in South American monkeys. It has never been documented in non-anthropoid primates such as lemurs, Dr Beard said.
Other elements of its jawbone, along with anatomical features possessed by Ganlea's close Asian relatives, suggest that it belonged to the ultimate ancestral group of all anthropoids, some of which must have migrated to Africa to become the ape-like ancestors of man.
Ida, meanwhile, remains an oddity at the far end of the primate family tree, about as far away from man's ancestors as you can get, Dr Beard said. "Ida is a good-looking fossil but it was the victim of incredible marketing. It is not all that it was cracked up to be. I've never seen such hyperbole surrounding a primate fossil as the one that came with Ida – and I'm not alone in thinking that," he said.
Meet the ancestor: Ida 'over-hyped'
* Although not a direct human ancestor, Ida is still an important fossil. The most amazing aspect of Ida is her near-miraculous state of preservation – about 95 per cent of her skeleton is complete.
* She lacked a penis bone, making her unmistakably female, and her thumb and fingers were opposable which meant that she could climb and pick berries and fruit.
* Ida had a distinctive ankle bone and she lacked a "toothcomb", a fused row of teeth in the middle of the lower jaw, and a "toilet claw" used for grooming – attributes of lemurs but not monkeys.
* Her fingertips end in nails rather than claws, like monkeys, and her eye sockets are large and forward-pointing which would have given her good 3-D, binocular vision. Her large eyes would have been useful for night-time foraging in a nocturnal lifestyle.
* X-ray scans of the fossil showed that Ida had suffered a fractured wrist bone that was in the process of healing, an injury that may have led to her falling off a branch and into the lake where she was preserved in sediment.
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Comments
the fact is there is no missing link, and the majority of 'facts' the scientists are using to claim evolution among apes is based on their own fantasies and wating for an explanation of how and why we came to be. All the images we see of transitions from monkey to human are artistic impressions, not based on any evidence.
mutation is a bad thing in genes, it has never and will never prove to add any advantage to any living organism. this is a hard and stubborn fact that scientists since darwin have been trying to prive otherwise, the fact is there is not a single mutation documented that has added to the benefit of the living host.
the notion that inhabitants of the sea felt the urge to go to land then felt the urge to fly and their cells developed accordingly is so outrageous that it confuses me to see why so many 'intelligent' people would believe such things.
Yes it is...but only if you believe in geccos and Geico commercials.
Far better to not ask questions and go on writings from a time when those people still believed the sun revolved around the earth or a small blemish was enough to consider you a evil witch. Obviously very learned people but as far as mutation goes I dont see how you can argue against it having seemingly being impossible. We see it regularly with virus strains such as bird/swine flu etc as they "mutate" to spread to another organisum. The problem is creationists and their religious, "unevolved" ilk arnt able to accept the time required for this level of change being as you seem to think the world is appoximately 20 minutes old and that somehow you expect mutation or whatever to manifest as a child with an extra arm rather than the tiny incremental changes that occur with EVERY generation adding up to an overall change.
God hides in the shadows of science's light and with every dicovery that shadow becomes smaller.
I would also love to know what "facts" you have seen against human evolution when by nature every religion is based on a rather fantastical notion of an all seeing/all powerful God character that hasnt any proven or evidenced existance. When I have shook his/her/its hand I will be more than happy to accept your position and that i was wrong, until then i will continue to deal in REAL facts as proven, not what somebody wrote down in a book 10,000 (sorry 2009) years ago to explain what he could not.
ofcourse religion has its blemishes, but for every 'holy war' or other crime hiding behind religion, there is a nulear bomb and a man made disease created by learned scientists.
if you would like few facts directly from the quran, they include the following, all written 1400 years ago, when there were no microscopes, telescopes, medical equipment or any knowledge of that sort;
the earth ir spherical (not round, sperical, only recently proven)
the earth and everything in the galaxy has a fixed orbit
the moon's light is a reflected light
every single living thing originates from / was created from water (also recently dscovered)
the universe is expanding (recent discovery)
the stages of a fetus in the woumb are described with no incorrections
the stages of development from creation to the point where humans existed is well documented (in terms of the vegetable kingdom, sea creatures, the heavens, etc)
the invisible barrier between rivers and salty ocean water
even the bing bang is described in the quran (or a very similar idea)
etc
etc
etc
this is probably not even 10% of proof of creation that is directly articulated in the quran, but due to the vast amount of knowledge and still being a young learner there is much more to uncover, but this is all well documented....1430 years ago...and yes it was said a long time ago, but it's that very fact that makes it all the more compelling.
the fatcs are there and only the theory of evolution stands....as a theory.
if there were so many forms of evolving creatures, why aren't there many fossils showing this? almost every dinasaur has been uncovered, but not the missing links in the evolution theory.
survival of the fittest may have a leg to stabd on because we see extinsion, but apes to humans is nothing more than a few arangatang jaws and skulls with some artistic impressions.
i respect your opinion, you are clearly a well read individual but i feel it's important to see both ides of the arguement to develop an independant opinion, i;m sure you do as well.
(oh dear, i went on a bit didn't i?)
Keep digging, fellows!
I wish Creationists would stay out of science discussions. I don't go into their churches talking about geology and biological evolution, so why do they come in and disrupt people trying to have grown-up discussions about science with their laughable bunk?
we can only narrow the gap between these seemingly different views through mutual respect for opinion and also evidence. I think science and creation go hand in hand.
i feel that due to the lack of spirituality and morals in society today, science is the best way to prove creation for the time being.
I have heard all the Creationist arguments and I am afraid they are not science. I respect your right to hold your opinions but this is an article about science after all.
Whether there is a God behind it all it a matter of personal faith, it is about culture and psychology, not hard science. The facts and evidence are overwhealmingly on the side of evolution. Just a theory? Yes, a scientific theory - like gravity. A framework within with known facts fit, not something dreamt up by somebody smoking a pipe in an armchair.
What was laughable in what you originally wrote was your assertion that there is overwhealming evidence AGAINST human) evolution (really?), and then showed that you completely misunderstand the role of mutation in evolution, as SmokingJay pointed out.
I would like to hear this overwhealming evidence against the fact that humans are evolved primates. Credible evidence. Fact-based evidence. I am not holding my breath ;-)
I have to agree with Khalilio in the fact that the Quran was written over 1400 years ago in a time of no morden day equipment and with much more indisputable accuracy than scientist today can wrap their brains around.
The very description of the process inside the womb, the very place every human comes from, (most scientists can still not or very recently explain), is a starting point for the belief in God/Allah/The Almighty (call him by any of the 99 given names). Also can scientists explain how a man, 1400 years ago, can descibe the exact details of rivers/oceans, the sliding of mountains, the earths crust, volanos, wind, the sun, atmosphere, relaitivity, gravity, the solor system, our flesh, our eyes, hearing ect. ect. ect the list is so very long!
So Arcane_af you start there and provide a very real & plausible explanation as to how an uneducated, illiterate desert dweller could have more knowledge for the basis of life and the rules that a civilized, well round society should follow .... without direct Divine (meaning Superior Intelligence, Higher Power, Creator, Supreme Being, again, call him by any of his 99 names!!) intervention?
I am also curious as to how you will explain, scientificly, that the best evidence we have to date are fossils of a guessed past and in fact the most acurate, due to written record keeping from our ancestors, is the proven infomation that was written in artifacts such as the Quran?
In response to the comment, Arcane_af, that you dont come into the church and spew out your biological and geolocical "LAUGHABLE BUNK" and that by creationist, as you call us inside you "GROWN UP DISCUSSION" the very comment you make shows your immature and ignorent nature.
As a matter of FACT the Quran very explictly states that we as humans have a responsbilty to seek out the knowledge and creations in which our planet holds!
Which would mean your biological and geological explainations are already being discussed and I dont know one single church/mosque that would refuse an adult and mature conversation in the duel pursuit of an answear to the begining of human life.
God and Science are one in the same and I PRAY that I will be alive to hear scientists come to that CONCLUSION.
Until then, I also support the research and discussion seeking the answears.
Only thru CONVERSATION AND AN OPEN MIND can any society, created or evolved continue.
You can not argue that we should seek and discover and then exclude the very accurate infomation and or group of people.
Doing so will only further "DEBUNK" your side of the facts so everything you try to PROVE will remain a "THERORY" !
in the words of many converted scientists, any sensible study (with no prejudice) into life on a molecular level will only ever cry out "intelligent deisgn, i.e. creation. the notion that everything is based on a chance existence isn't enough of a counter argument for creation for it to be credible.
the theory of evolution is standing on its final withered old legs and the light of creation gets stronger with every new discovery that was already written 1400 years ago. the arrogance of the human to reject his purpose and to set about creating his own reason or exisitng and his own purpose will only sadly end in destruction, probably through nuclear war or something similar.
i think the best thing you can take away from what has been said is that there is a credible arguement to be looked into that defies evolution, and as was mentioned in an earlier post, not asking questions is simply foolish, to follow one opinion without being educated on others is simply robbing yourself of enlightenment, in any walk of life, not just the evolution vs creationism debate.
gravity and evolution do not fall into the same category of science, u can prove gravity, you can't prove evolution.
and nobody has remarked on the information we find present today in the quran....or is it all just coincidence, just like evolution?
If you think there are no transitional fossils you could start by looking here:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-tra
Somehow I doubt you will.
On your claims I could equally say that gravity has never been proven (this is true despite your assertion that it has been proven, scientific theories are never proven) instead the effects we see are all due to magical falling fairies. We know this because it was written in a book by some semi literate Bronze Age peasants. So fact, the fairies make things fall, my claim has equal validity as yours and you need to open your eyes to enlightenment. There is a rather nice article in the onion parodying this. I would suggest you read: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39
Do not make the mistake of creationism vs. evolution = religion vs atheism. This is a false analogy, most of the world's religions fully support evolution (CoE, Catholic church etc.). Creationism is what people believe when they do not understand reality. If there is a god you and your ilk are delivering a huge insult by dismissing the evolutionary process that presumably they set up.
Get an education and then make your posts. Your ignorant ramblings are kind of embarrassing.
I think religion overides sense in many people, like a functional mental illness. The conclusions come before the evidence. Like I have said, it is psychology, culture, upbringing, conditioning.
Mohammad was some kind of creative genius, I have no doubt of that. William Blake was much the same, he spoke to angels too, he just didn't invent a religion out of his brilliant mind (wrote some great poetry though.) Scientific fact in the Quran? Personally, I stopped reading when I read that non-Muslims would suffer horribly in the next life. I'd had enough of that with the Christian canon. By the same measure you could call the Greek philosopher Leucippus an atomic physicist, because he came up with the idea that matter is composed of atoms. Thales talked about life coming from water, which it does in a way, but in a way that I don't think he imagined...
May free-thinking people continue to investigate the truth about planet Earth and the Universe... we'd still be living in mud huts if they didn't!
The very description of the process inside the womb, the very place every human comes from, (most scientists can still not or very recently explain), is a starting point for the belief in God/Allah/The Almighty (call him by any of the 99 given names). Also can scientists explain how a man, 1400 years ago, can describe the exact details of rivers/oceans, the sliding of mountains, the earths crust, volcanoes, wind, the sun, atmosphere, relativity, gravity, the solar system, our flesh, our eyes, hearing ect. ect. ect the list is so very long!
So Arcane_af you start there and provide a very real & plausible explanation as to how an uneducated, illiterate desert dweller could have more knowledge for the basis of life and the rules that a civilized, well round society should follow.... without direct Divine (meaning Superior Intelligence, Higher Power, Creator, Supreme Being, again, call him by any of his 99 names!!) intervention?
I am also curious as to how you will explain, scientifically, that the best evidence we have to date are fossils of a guessed past and in fact the most accurate, due to written record keeping from our ancestors, is the proven information that was written in artifacts such as the Quran?
In response to the comment, Arcane_af, that you don?t come into the church and spew out your biological and geological "LAUGHABLE BUNK" and that by creationist, as you call us inside you "GROWN UP DISCUSSION" the very comment you make shows your immature and ignorant nature.
As a matter of FACT the Quran very explicitly states that we as humans have a responsibility to seek out the knowledge and creations in which our planet holds!
Which would mean your biological and geological explanations are already being discussed and I don?t know one single church/mosque that would refuse an adult and mature conversation in the duel pursuit of an answer to the beginning of human life.
God and Science are one in the same and I PRAY that I will be alive to hear scientists come to that CONCLUSION.
Until then, I also support the research and discussion seeking the answers.
Only thru CONVERSATION AND AN OPEN MIND can any society, created or evolved continue.
You can not argue that we should seek and discover and then exclude the very accurate information and or group of people.
Doing so will only further "DEBUNK" your side of the facts so everything you try to PROVE will remain a "THERORY?!
There isn't a word of sense in the above post. Allah, God, whoever, all part of the human creative imagination, tribal cohesion... when we are truly evolved we will leave religion in the nursery, where it belongs.
How do you reason with a man high on the mental drug of religion?
Holy books discussions on atomic theory and quantum mechanics are so acurate to be uncanny. And the advice section on microbiology and germ treatment have been so usefuly. The advancements they have offered in mathematics, engineering and medicine have got us where we are today as a society. Hmmm or maybe not. Maybe they show exactly the HUMAN knowledge that was available at the time.
The Greeks, through science, had a good unterstanding of anatomy 1000 years before the Quoran was written, pioneers such as Hippocrates moved our knowledge well past what you claim could not be known. Post one piece of text that shows that there was understanding that could not have been known in the 7th Century.
I actually had a friend once trying to convince me the same of the Bible, for his primary argument he used the story of Job to illustrate the fact that these ancients had some knowledge that was beyond their time. This is a story about a man being eaten by a giant fish and living in its stomach for 3 days before being spat our unaffected by the ordeal - yup, 'nough said...
'The stages of development from creation to the point where humans existed'. Quran says god created man from clay just like the bible on which it is based.
Many of the 'facts you attribute to Quranic revelation were know by the Greeks and the Egyptians even before common era ie. AD. Also both they and the Romans had very developed ideas about medicine and surgery. which were lost to science because of the bigotry of the Roman Catholic Church.
How is it that an illiterate peasant was able to understand all this science and surely it would have been better to divulge these things to the learned of the day. Science is the work of hard working men and women throughout the ages which you scorn as seemingly intelligent. The scientists of the Arab world borrowing from the Indians, made many conributions to science but they did not get them from the Quran. Preferring the 'Facts' of the Quran or Bible is not an argument for anything. The evidence against evolution is overwhelming you say.
The scientific community operates by questioning and challenging each other, it is not a conspiracy of fools as you imply, and all the dinosaurs have not been found they are being found constantly. I suggest you read more widely and not accept the preaching of Imams, Mullahs and priests as fact and wisdom.
The second thing is their all knowing, all seeing compassionate god who knows the future. This is the same god who created this imperfect earth which is always bubbling, shifting and exploding. When an earthquake is about to occur we don't hear from the compassionate god warning us, and coincidently the volcanoes and earthquakes mostly occur where his worshippers are thickest on the ground (especially Muslims and Roman Catholics) There is also god's custom of killing both the innocent and the sinners indiscriminately. Surely the ASAK god could have put Adam on a safer stable planet
Of course the answer we get when we sceptics ask these questions is the mind of man is not up to understanding god's purposes and we must have faith in god's plan. It is a pity that in the 3000 years or so we have been vouchsafed his revelation he never thought of telling us about bacteriology for one example. Also if you accept the earth is more than 7.000years old for example where was god the previous period?
It is noteworthy that the authors of the Bible (old and new) and the Quran only wrote about the things they knew at the time and said nothing about the rest of the world eg, the Chinese (a contemporary civilisation) or the people of the Americas. God must have been waiting for the 15th - 20th century missionaries to spread his word around the rest of the world. The Arabs got as far East as the Philippines, why didn't they go to the West to spread god's word?
It is also curious that the revelations of Gabriel to Mohammad were so often convenient for Mohammad's plans. I think it is religion which is on its withered old final legs. As you delightfully put it
Khalilio
A friend stopped by for a visit one day and caught Fields reading the Bible.
When asked why, Fields replied, "I'm checking for loopholes".
In a final irony, W. C. Fields died in 1946 (from a stomach hemorrhage) on the holiday he claimed to despise:
Christmas Day.
QUOTE: " I think it is religion which is on its withered old final legs. As you delightfully put it Khalilio"
ONE thing I will say in all cartainty...IF religion dies, then we all die with it!
TRUE religion is NOT what I profess to believe but is what everyone can actually verify by watching me live my life.
I can do the same with you.
Webster's Dictionary defines religion as: a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs,
and practices.
Attitudes, beliefs, and practices are ALL demonstrable.
Just facts.
No one is saying religions aren't real things. Your behaviours may show you follow religious teachings but that say nothing on the validity of the belief system within that religion. The point people are making is that the dogmatic belief systems within religions, that people take seriously, are nothing more than man-made tripe that was done to further their own cause. Cosmic sky-fairies making all the species in some form of ephemeral laboratory and populating the earth with them for example is not a scientific theory; creationism is nothing more than the guess work of ignorant superstitious bronze age peasants and to be taken seriously nowadays is an affront to knowledge. Why not chose the Hopi indian account or the Maori creationism story as opposed to that in Genesis? tTHey are just as valid.
The lies and ignorance tha surround this debate on the creationist side are staggering yet they continue to piss in the fountain of knowledge whilst taking all society has to offer with the other hand. and as for your statement: "ONE thing I will say in all cartainty...IF religion dies, then we all die with it!" <> d'oh. Seriously, that really takes the biscuit, I find it difficult to imagine a single sentance that could be more idiotic.
You MISSED my point totally! First off you missed the definiton from Webster.
Religion is not necessarily referring to an organized religion such as Catholic, Muslims, Methodists, Baptists or others.
Religion IS a personal set of attitudes, beliefs, and practices.
With this definition EVERYONE has a religion...if you get up in the morning, shower and then eat breakfast then this
is a ritual that you have and is therefore YOUR religion...Got the picture?
(This my quote and your response.
"ONE thing I will say in all cartainty...IF religion dies, then we all die with it!"
<> d'oh. Seriously, that really takes the biscuit, I find it difficult to imagine a single sentance that could be more idiotic.)
I will repeat myself for those who respond before they understand what they have just read.
"ONE thing I will say in all cartainty...IF religion dies, then we all die with it!"
We should ALL know by now that EVERY human being on this planet has a religion!
They have rituals which they do EVERY day...either because they choose to do it or they do it because of
necessity. These ritual acts constitute a "religion" by definition.
Even atheists like you have a religion (even if you claim you do NOT).
Therefore I say unto you, "If religion dies...then we all die with it!".
Keep taking the pills, Pozac, your logic is like a drunken flamingo on an ice rink.
Pozac your logic is twisted beyond that of even the most ardent religious apologists. You are entering the world of deluded schizophrenia. A religion isn't just 'stuff you do', we could go into the semantics of your ramblings and look at the actual definitions of the words but I somehow doubt my analysis would be taken on board.
Let me make it simple. I breathe - this is from necessity (although I do quite like it too), it is NOT a religious act. Nor is going to the toilet and likewise educating reality challenged individuals on web forums is not a religious act but a charitable one. If you list the world's religions eating food or putting on your clothes do not feature... I do these thing but I DO NOT HAVE A RELIGION
So I say "unto you": If religion dies... then... we can all get on with our lives; be happy as individuals and progress as a society rather than wasting time with a bunch of rather silly Bronze Age nonsense.
You misinterpret and misuse Webster's definition. According to you everything is religion, like eg I shave every second day as I don't go out much and I always eat eggs for lunch on Thursday. These do not qualify as rituals and certainly not as religion in the accepted uses of the terms, as I do not do things in order to worship anything or anybody
According to you interpretation obviously if we stopped doing all the normal things of life like eating, using the toilet and brushing our teeth we would most likely die, just as people who starve them selves to death. Your thinking is woolly and your logic fallacious.
One last thing Webster's is not the last word in dictionaries and if you browse a few others you will find more detailed definitions than the one on which you have based your 'POINT' Maybe you are just indulging in badinage