The Missing link?
PHOTOS: 7 Major “Missing Links” Since Darwin
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/photogalleries/darwin-birthday-evolution/
The Fossil Fallacy
Creationists’ demand for fossils that represent “missing links” reveals a deep misunderstanding of science.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-fossil-fallacy/
Humanity never had a “missing link” to apes
Our early human ancestors began to walk on two legs a couple of million years ago, abandoning their old life of swinging between tree branches and perching in the leafy forest canopies of Africa. Now, a new study suggests that this transition from the trees to the ground was a long one. It appears that our ancestor A. Afarensis — typified by the 3.2 million-year-old “Lucy” fossil skeleton — lived at least part of her life in the trees. But she also walked on two legs.
What this means is that the whole idea of a simple “missing link” between humans and our ape cousins is false. There was no one, single moment when humans leapt from the trees to find a new existence on land. It happened gradually, over millennia, with different individuals from different species testing out what it would mean to live far from the protection of sheltering forests. Instead of thinking of our transition to walking as a “missing link,” it would be more accurate to say the transition was a long chain, in which one kind of life shaded into the other very gradually.
http://io9.com/5954898/humanity-never-had-a-missing-link-to-apes
Missing link
Missing link is a term used by non-biologists, especially by young Earth creationists who deny evolution, to refer to an alleged “gap” in the fossil record. The term is usually applied to an alleged gap in the fossil record between humans and other primates. For example, Newsweek magazine in a note about “Ardi” (a 4.4 million-year-old hominid fossil) commented: “Scientists getting closer to finding the missing link” (October 12, 2009; p. 12). No. Scientists aren’t looking for a missing link between humans and other apes. The idea of such a fossil originated in the 19th century and has been abandoned by all but journalists and those ignorant of modern evolutionary theory (not that the two are mutually exclusive).
The notion of an ape-man fossil existed among scientists well into the 20th century, as is evidenced by the Piltdown hoax. It is an amazing and surprising fact that we now have “a rich supply of intermediate fossils linking modern humans to the common ancestor that we share with chimpanzees” (Dawkins 2009: 150).
At the time Darwin published his Origin of Species (1859) the fossil record was sparse, and ways of dating what fossils had been discovered were primitive. It is a testament to good luck and hard work that we now have an extensive fossil record in certain areas. Fossilization is “a highly improbable event, and most creatures that have ever lived do not become fossils” (Prothero 2007: 51).
Consider the chain of events that happen to an organism after it dies. First, there are the biological agents (bacteria, fungi, insects, and other decomposers, scavengers, etc.) that break down or destroy an organism after death. The soft parts of animals decay or are eaten quickly, so they almost never fossilize. Only the hard parts, the shell or skeleton, have a reasonable chance of preservation. After an animal dies, its bones are typically scavenged and broken, so little or no remnants of the skeleton may actually survive….
In the marine realm, there are many agents of destruction as well. (Prothero, 51-52)
http://www.skepdic.com/missinglink.html
Missing link is an obsolete expression for transitional form. It is generally avoided in scientific discussions as it is suggestive of several misunderstandings about evolution:
The old idea of a (Great) Chain of Being, in which there is a linear progression “upward” presumably ending with mankind, just underneath gods and other divine beings. Concepts of evolution since Darwin recognize, to the contrary, that evolutionary change often involves branching, and that unguided evolution has no preferred “direction”.
The idea that the fossil record is the only type of evidence which can establish a connection between different life forms. The preponderance of the evidence for evolutionary connections always has been found in living things from the present (“neontology”) rather than solely in the fossil record (“palaeontology”). Comparative study of DNA since the elucidation of its structure is just one of the remarkable new lines of investigation.
Another mistaken idea is that there is a scandalous gap in the fossil record especially with regard to human evolutionary history. While a hundred years or more ago, there were very few fossils of human precursors, even as early as the 19th century there were famous fossils such as Neanderthal (Homo neanderthalensis) and Java man (Homo erectus), and the number has dramatically increased as explorations have concentrated on productive regions in Africa (as suggested by Darwin, but largely ignored at first) since the mid-20th century.
The final mistaken idea is that there is precisely one form: the missing link, which makes the connection between the past and the present. Evolution is understood ever since Darwin as an ongoing process in which one can expect many changes, sometimes very small, which can be fully appreciated only in their places in a web of relationships over stretches of time.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Missing_link
Evolution 101: The Missing Link FAQ
http://observationdeck.io9.com/evolution-101-the-missing-link-faq-1528464011
The Missing Link Fallacy
http://www.science20.com/between_death_and_data/missing_link_fallacy-75791
Getting the Monkey off Darwin’s Back: Four Common Myths About Evolution
http://www.csicop.org/si/show/getting_the_monkey_off_darwins_back/
Evolution and the Missing Link: Why Is It Missing?
http://atheism.about.com/od/evolutionexplained/fl/Evolution-Missing-Link.htm
There are two major myths about missing links:
1. There is only one “missing link,” the intermediate between apes and man.
2. There should be many transitional fossils, but science can’t find them.
http://www.proof-of-evolution.com/missing-links.html
Missing links still missing!?
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/feb98.html
A Missing Genetic Link in Human Evolution
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-missing-genetic-link-in-human-evolution/
‘Missing link’ gene found that triggered leap in intelligence two million years ago - and allowed early humans to start talking
'Duplicated gene’ allowed man to talk and transmit knowledge
Humans share 96% of genome with chimpanzees
Instant leap in brain evolution let early man leave our 'cousins’ behind
http://whatmissinglink.wordpress.com/
MISSING LINK: BONOBOS IN THE DRC AND HUMAN EVOLUTION
Top 10 Missing Links
http://www.livescience.com/11326-top-10-missing-links.html
~News Articles
How Many Times Will Paleontologists Find the “Missing Link”?
Ancient skeleton in underwater cave may be a “missing link”
Missing link found? Scientists unveil fossil of 47 million-year-old primate, Darwinius masillae
MISSING LINK between HUMANS and MONKEYS FOUND
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/09/talking_monkeys/
Missing link between man and apes found
A “missing link” between humans and their apelike ancestors has been discovered.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/evolution/7550033/Missing-link-between-man-and-apes-found.html
“MISSING LINK” FOUND: New Fossil Links Humans, Lemurs?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/05/090519-missing-link-found.html
Missing Link In Human Evolution?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI-7PFN_4wE
Scientists come face to face with evolution’s missing link
Evidence points toward solving evolutionary 'missing link’
A team of paleoanthropologists, after four years of analysis, has made its most detailed case that Australopithecus sediba is a direct ancestor of modern humans. But many experts are unconvinced.
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/11/science/la-sci-australopithecus-20130412
Is the Ida fossil the missing link?
http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/evolution/ida-fossil-missing-link.htm
Human 'missing link’ fossils may be jumble of species
Rethinking Human Origins: Fossils Reveal a New Ancestor on the Family Tree
http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2092438,00.html
Skull of Homo erectus throws story of human evolution into disarray - A haul of fossils found in Georgia suggests that half a dozen species of early human ancestor were actually all Homo erectus
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/oct/17/skull-homo-erectus-human-evolution
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