The Missing Link has been found...

.... NOT! (You just knew that was coming, didn't you?) :D A year ago, a complete fossil was found in Germany by Norwegian paleontologist Jorn Hurum; he discovered what he claimed to be a "missing link" in the chain of human evolution... Here is the news article that came out Friday from AOL news:

(March 5) --Touted as "the missing link" between humans and early primates, a 47-million-year-old fossil appears to be an ancestor to lemurs instead, a newly released study says. The debate, however, seems far from over, and it illuminates the often tricky relationship between science and the media. Last spring, when Norwegian paleontologist Jorn Hurum and his colleagues announced the unveiling of "Ida," an unusually complete prehistoric primate fossil, it was portrayed in newspaper and television reports as a blockbuster discovery nothing short of an "eighth wonder of the world" that would offer a look at one of mankind's earliest evolutionary ancestors.

You can read the full article here.

Okay, I have a "bone to pick" with this one! First and foremost, does this LOOK like a monkey or even a half-evolved-human to you?

"That's right, boys and girls, long ago and far away, this used to be your great-grandpa millions of times removed!" (Thanks, Dr. Hovind!)

Secondly, is it REALLY science to showcase your "findings" before the research is finished? That's what Hurum did! The reason? Because it's just like a music artist does --

"Any pop band is doing the same thing," Hurum told the Times about the public relations campaign. "Any athlete is doing the same thing. We have to start thinking the same way in science."

Excuse me, Mr. Hurum, but that is NOT how science works; science is supposed to be a thorough investigation of the facts - one states his hypothesis, observes and experiments, and reaches a conclusion based on the evidence. It is only THEN that it can be called a fact, if it is proven to be true. But in this case, they didn't even finish experimenting before they put the "evidence" out to the public!

The hype surrounding Darwinius masillae, the scientific name given to Ida, preceded the publication of Hurum's research in a peer-reviewed journal. "Normally, you have the paper first, lots of scrutiny by other scientists and then the media enters the picture," Blythe Williams, a visiting professor of paleontology at Duke University, told AOL News.

And did you notice that they're still holding to the evolutionary theory, even though they say that Ida is a fake? Check it out... they still say, "47-million-years-old..." Doesn't it ever dawn on them that if Ida is a fake, maybe it's not that old after all? Seriously, did they so soon forget about the missing link created by a pigs tooth and an apes skull, put together and aged to claim that this was our new-found ancestor? Could have happened with Ida, too... (And while I'm at it, let me state that the evolutionary dating methods are ridiculous; they date the fossils by the rocks and the rocks by the fossils. They even dated a newly born seal to be millions of years old, and they have dated some things that exist now as being "some-time-in-the-future years old."

All that, and they're STILL going to show it at a museum (on March 19)?! Maybe I missed something here, but if this is NOT the missing link as even a liberal media reports, then why are they showing it off? Are they going to lie about it? My guess would be that they will finish their research and exclaim, "It really IS our ancestor after all!" If that doesn't happen, they'll probably still use it to their advantage somehow -- many missing links are still in the school text-books, after all, even though they were proven to be a phony YEARS ago!

"One cannot assume that man is madeover anthropoid ape of any sort, for much of the available evidence is strongly against that assumption." ~WM. L Straus, Jr.