New "Missing link" for evolution!

[Offworlder_v1legacy]

Looks like a cross between a feline of some sorts and an ape, strange.

 

[FROGGEman2]

If it's true then yessssss! Creationists can FINALLY retire.

Nope, they'll just resort to the "coincidence" argument everyone falls to when there is no 100% proving their point.

It's funny how The Escapist community is almost entirely made up of hardcore scientists/ science lovers/ science supporters/ Creationist haters

 

[Valiance]

Awesome...

Can't wait until we can trace everything back piece by piece.

 

[edinflames]

If it's true then yessssss! Creationists can FINALLY retire.

Nah they wont. If you have enough faith in a bronze age book to reject a hundred years worth of empirical evidence, hypotheses proven correct, observations, etc then one more fossil is not going to make them budge. I can picture them now: "duuh it just looks like a monkey to me".

they found a monkey. yay.
until evolution has been 100% proven, I'll choose to believe in creation.

Is this trolling or serious?

You could try reading the New Scientist article on Ida, which explains how monkeys are quite different in terms of bone structure (lets face it, in 40 million years you'd expect something to change). Then again I suppose if you were being serious New Scientist is probably known to you as New Satanist.

Ultimately you can choose to believe what you will, but that doesn't make what you believe to be true. This is where the scientific method of trying to prove yourself wrong comes in.

Or you could choose to believe in the mystical power of of the great god Imhotep.

 

[Aardvark Soup]

This is indeed a very interesting discovery and it can probably teach us a lot about our origins. However, there are two common misconceptions about this:

-This is not the 'missing link' between mankinds and more primitive primates. You might find the remains of one kind of species that's right in between them but that only means there are also species that are right between the 'primitive monkey' and this fossil and between this fossil and homo sapiens. The evolution of an animal has thousands of stages. Genetic mutations usally only change a very small property of a species and don't suddenly transform a monkey in a human.

-This fossil does not 'prove' the concept of evolution. Evolution has already been scientifically proven many years ago. The main reason this is more interesting than, let's say, some animal that's between a turtle and a goldfish is because it tells something about the roots of mankind.

 

[hardlymotivated]

[snip]
Evolutionism is as much a matter of faith as Creationism. And you listen to a man by the name of Charles Darwin who scribbled down his silly story in the Galapagos about a hundred and fifty years ago .

Evolution isn't a belief system, so to stick "ism" on the end confirms that you don't really know what you're talking about. That evolution has occurred is a scientific FACT - there are hundreds of thousands of pieces of evidence for this. The idea of evolution being "as much a matter of faith as Creationism" is just false.

There is no evidence for Creationism and it isn't falsifiable. At best, creationism is a hypothesis. Simply saying God/Allah/Flying Spaghetti Monster/A giant space leprechaun did it doesn't encourage progress. While it very well may be true, the lack of evidence for existence of such beings means that it's completely pointless to just dogmatically stick to that kind of answer.

Evolution, however, has gone through the same process to become a scientific theory as EVERY other scientific theory we currently have. It's been attacked in the scientific arena for 150 years, and as a better explanation for the diversity of life on Earth hasn't been found, it's the theory we keep. We don't have a complete picture of the fossil record yet, but to claim that it's a "matter of faith" is simply wrong. "Faith" doesn't require you to look for evidence. Science does.

 

[edinflames]

Do you know everything about robots? Do you feel you can define what a robot is?

Nope, i can tell you what i think it is, a robotics expert can tell you what a robot is right now, but no one knows what robots will be like or were like thousands of years ago. Maybe robots were in existance on another world long before we had learned to cutivate the ground. I know nothing for sure and it isn't possible to.

Creationism doesn't have holes. Its always a credible theory because it doesn't depend on science to "prove" it right or wrong. It depends on faithfuls who follow it like you follow evolutionism, with zeal.

]I don't follow evolution"ism" with zeal, I accept it occurred and occurs because that is what the evidence shows. I have no need for silly stories scribbled down by bronze age goat herders.

Evolutionism is as much a matter of faith as Creationism. And you listen to a man by the name of Charles Darwin who scribbled down his silly story in the Galapagos about a hundred and fifty years ago .

Yes, the silly story of how a devout god-loving man like Darwin (he wanted to be a priest) through observation and patient study, combined with what he learned from the famous biologists and geologists of his time eventually realised that what he had been taught to believe from birth about 'god' and 'creation' was a load of shit.

If you took the time to read some books written in the last 300 years instead of the last 2000 you would discover that Darwin supressed his own discoveries for many years until he had built up as much conclusive evidence as was possible given the limitations of technology and science in his time. Why? Because it greatly troubled him that he had delivered empirical proof that the bible was false.

Oh and for all those creationists who go about claiming Darwin had a deathbed conversion: You are liars, it just goes to show the depths to which you will sink, to try and convince other people not to mock your faith, that you are prepared to tell lies about a dead man's last moments. Darwin was in the presence of several friends and family members when he died and there was no priest or reverend amongst them. His last few hours alive are well documented, there was NO deathbed conversion.

 

[MorphingDragon]

Personally, Im a christian who believe in both God AND Science.
Im a strong believer, Programmer and Hobbyist Physicist.

Now I dont believe evolution doesnt exist.
If people actually payed attention in freaken class.
Darwins theory stated that we cane from single cell organisms,
now that is what really gets umm, controversial.
Do you believe you came form the same class as amoebae?
I dont, but I know mutations change species,
which has been proved within humans even.

I also believe that there was something like or was a big bang.
Red shift and space static prove that at least the universe had a force that makes it move apart.
Anti matter does exist, I mean...
What if God MADE the big bang happen.
The Deep Sea scrolls (The TRUE un-edited Bible) still hold true.

But ultimate, God is only truly proved when our bodies die.
But then 1:100000000000000000 someone survives and saw something.

You can believe what you want to believe. Thats what I believe.
Personally, any Christian who disbelieves the most basic concepts of Science are a bit hypocritical.
Biology is even mentioned in the Bible to a certain extent. (The Armour of God, for an example)

 

[edinflames]

*snip*

Where does 'faith' get such a privileged position?

Any other form of thinking, be it philosophy, poetry, any scientific discipline, political ideology, whatever, can be interrogated and examined. Criticism is made, antithesis develop and change occours within the school of thought.

Yet religion stands still, or at best is extremely hostile to change and new ideas. Yes there are individual exceptions but these were always individual church members that stood against the church establishment of their time.

Why is this? Simple, because religion is the only belief with the arrogance to say that it has the whole answer. Every religion on earth claims to be the holders of the absolute truth and the implication of this is that one book written hundreds or thousands of years ago (forgetting the politically motivated amendments by men such as Constantine I or King James VI) is all you ever need to know, regardless of what new discoveries might be made in the time since original publication. To the religious, and the religious alone, one book is all you need. There is no need for proof, because superstition is apparently proof enough.

 

[MorphingDragon]

Surely that would the ultimate free will, as your actions could end up changing your species over time.

Huh... Never thought about it that way. Neato!
Kudos to a person who knows how to not be a dBag

 

[darkstarangel]

Actually its just a lemur. Perhaps an extinct breed of lemur but a lemure none the less.
Check out www.answersingenesis.org they wrote an article about it.

As for creationisms point of view, its very poor evidence for evolution at best. If evolution happened then the earth should be littered billions of intermediate fossils not just a fossil of a complete organism like a lemur, ape or human. After all, how many of any animal could live, breed, die & leave a fossil in 47 million years? They should be as common as rocks.

Plus evolution is supposed to be caused by random chance mutations. Mutations cause deformities which tend to hinder an organisms survival. A mutation may cause a repeat in the phenotype for example Causing fruit flys to grow another mid-section with another row of legs & pair of wings but they interfere with the flys movements & ability to fly. They dont work because they dont have the neural connection to the brain.

Also like most fossils this lemur could only been rapidly buried by a powerful flood which would drown it to the ground with large quantities of sediment. Thats how fur & food get preserved so well.

 

[damselgaming]

*squish*

I'll level with you here- I didn't read any of what you wrote because I'm not really that bothered. I was just telling a relevant story about one of my friends. I'm thinking maybe you should take a chill pill... or ten.

 

[RelexCryo]

I would ask you to actually read it, but you wouldn't bother. Oh well.

 

[Bagaloo]

Actually its just a lemur. Perhaps an extinct breed of lemur but a lemure none the less.
Check out www.answersingenesis.org they wrote an article about it.

As for creationisms point of view, its very poor evidence for evolution at best. If evolution happened then the earth should be littered billions of intermediate fossils not just a fossil of a complete organism like a lemur, ape or human. After all, how many of any animal could live, breed, die & leave a fossil in 47 million years? They should be as common as rocks.

Plus evolution is supposed to be caused by random chance mutations. Mutations cause deformities which tend to hinder an organisms survival. A mutation may cause a repeat in the phenotype for example Causing fruit flys to grow another mid-section with another row of legs & pair of wings but they interfere with the flys movements & ability to fly. They dont work because they dont have the neural connection to the brain.

Also like most fossils this lemur could only been rapidly buried by a powerful flood which would drown it to the ground with large quantities of sediment. Thats how fur & food get preserved so well.

You don't know its just a Lemur, you are just hoping it is so as to preserve your faith.
The reason more fossils like this don't exist are that in order for fossilisation to occur very specific conditions need to be met. However, despite this there are still a plethora of fossilised creatures around the world today, and potentially more being discovered as I type this.

Now, about mutations. Yes, mutations can cause problems, rendering a species worse off than it was before. The mutants die out because of this. But sometimes, oh-so-rarely, they get a mutation thats actually useful. That helps the creature survive in its habitat better than its kin around it. This creature is more likely to mate because its more likely to be alive, the mutation is passed on etc etc.

So, in summary:
Despite the uncommon conditions that need to be met for it to occur, there are in fact a large number of fossils in the world today.
Mutations aren't all bad, they lead to evolution.

What I don't understand is your persistance in denying evolution occurs? You could take the other creationist stand, that evolution is all part of God's master plan, and nobody could fault you on that because nobody can prove or disprove the existence of God.

Instead you are simply denying a scientific theory that has been evolving (see what I did there?) for quite some time.

 

[hardlymotivated]

Actually its just a lemur. Perhaps an extinct breed of lemur but a lemure none the less.
Check out www.answersingenesis.org they wrote an article about it.

As for creationisms point of view, its very poor evidence for evolution at best. If evolution happened then the earth should be littered billions of intermediate fossils not just a fossil of a complete organism like a lemur, ape or human. After all, how many of any animal could live, breed, die & leave a fossil in 47 million years? They should be as common as rocks.

So why isn't the ground littered with fossils of all the organisms around today?