quote:

Originally posted by Cro_Addict

That is a photoshop

Lol

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Be the best person you can be. Always.

quote:

Originally posted by love_child That is a photoshop

No sir! That is paint!

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Originally posted by Cro_Addict No sir! That is paint!

Lot of talent there

The concept of a "missing link" is about as useful as "junk DNA." By that I mean... not much.

Worth reading:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/...us_masillae.php

It is their version of marketing hype... I commend them for using corporate marketing strategies to increase interest.

I'm certainly not taking it as literally as you guys.

___________________
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quote:

Originally posted by basilisk The concept of a "missing link" is about as useful as "junk DNA." By that I mean... not much. Worth reading: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/...us_masillae.php

I would definatley not go as far as to try to say that this find is negligable in tracing the evolutionary history of homo sapiens sapiens. And also calling junk DNA irrelevant with respect to evolutionary tracking. The fact is yes it is a missing link in our history, whether it's a direct link or indirect is unknown but it's most probably indirect. The facts are that we have evolved from a creature similar to this and as we trace back and look at previous more recent missing links we see that the laws of parsimony bring us to this logical conclusion.

So an interpretation of missing link should not give the reader an impression that this specific creature is our ancestor, but instead give us an idea of the morphological changes that would have incurred over generations of time to bring us to where we are today. So in conclusion the argument of "not much significance" is a sign of ignorance and negligence to scientific evidence.

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Originally posted by Nrg2Nfinit I would definatley not go as far as to try to say that this find is negligable in tracing the evolutionary history of homo sapiens sapiens. And also calling junk DNA irrelevant with respect to evolutionary tracking. The fact is yes it is a missing link in our history, whether it's a direct link or indirect is unknown but it's most probably indirect. The facts are that we have evolved from a creature similar to this and as we trace back and look at previous more recent missing links we see that the laws of parsimony bring us to this logical conclusion. So an interpretation of missing link should not give the reader an impression that this specific creature is our ancestor, but instead give us an idea of the morphological changes that would have incurred over generations of time to bring us to where we are today. So in conclusion the argument of "not much significance" is a sign of ignorance and negligence to scientific evidence.

My point is that most people do not understand missing links or junk DNA and constantly misuse these concepts. This finding is pretty interesting but touting it as "the missing link" (or anything as "the missing link") is just scientific grandstanding.

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Originally posted by basilisk My point is that most people do not understand missing links or junk DNA and constantly misuse these concepts. This finding is pretty interesting but touting it as "the missing link" (or anything as "the missing link") is just scientific grandstanding.

Sure very intresting and impressively precursory. You will never find a direct missing link and thats obvious. Its simply the way we create phylogenies everything branches out and diverges.

heres an intresting example i created for dinosaurs


.



you have all the species listed there and their branchings and how they presumably relate to one another. You will not find one dinosaur directly linked to another one because thats not a probable find. Instead you get a V and at the bottom of that V is the previous taxonomy down.

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Originally posted by Nrg2Nfinit You will never find a direct missing link and thats obvious.

No, no, that's the problem! It is NOT obvious! Plenty of people don't "believe" in evolution because there is no evidence of "THE missing link." It is a loaded term that has taken on a meaning of its own... far removed from what its scientific relevance is.

FYI I am in ecology and evolutionary biology program at U of T... I know all about phylogenies

well obvioulsy there are missing links otherwise evolution wouldnt occur.

the problem is that speciation is so gradual by the time you have a visually different organism, it has already speciated.


for example we have alot of species of lizzards that look the same but chose to breed seperatley based on location. You get the point i guess