Thursday, April 13, 2006

The missing link...

...was a great puzzle for kids of the 1980s. I could actually figure out the Missing Link, as opposed to Rubik's Cube, which was impossible for my pre-teenage brain.

But that's not the missing link I'm posting about.

No, friends, it seems that new fossils have been found that are from the same species as the well-known "Lucy" hominid. I can't explain the science to you, so here's a link and a snip from National Geographic:
The new fossils are from the most primitive species of Australopithecus, known as Australopithecus anamensis. The remains date to about 4.1 million years ago, according to Tim White, a biologist at the University of California, Berkeley.

White co-directed the team that discovered the new fossils in Ethiopia in a region of the Afar desert known as the Middle Awash.

The team says the newly discovered fossils are a no-longer-missing link between early and later forms of Australopithecus and to a more primitive hominid known as Ardipithecus.

Time for Michael Behe to move the goalposts again. First, the fish-with-limbs was announced last week. Now this. Time to call in the bacterial flagellum. No doubt the Australo-something-or-something are irreducibly complex.

Andy in the HBG

5 Comments:

Blogger Banana Librarian said...

I hope you realize the font you're using is the most obnoxious font on the planet. It's the font of "the man," man. It just takes a moment to hightlight your blog entry, then choose any san serif font like ARIAL. More of the younger crowd might actually stick around long enough to read it.

Yeah, I'm an old fogie. So shoot me. I'm already in the choir, so I'm not wasting my time trying to read your nasty old font.

10:15 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Actually, Lucy is an example of the species Australopithecus afarensis; this find is a different species in genus Australopithecus, A. amanensis, an older species than Lucy's.

I'm still not sure what this means for science exactly, but I know my Human Evolution professor would be very proud of me for remembering. ;)

11:15 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

At least the font isn't in some obnoxious colour like purple!!

11:56 AM  
Blogger ACLU of Pennsylvania said...

Thanks, Mad Scotsman! :)

I had no idea our font was the one "the man" uses. We also wear suits sometimes, so what can I say. Alas, it won't be changing until our blog moves to a new host, which it will in a couple of weeks.

Sara

2:55 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hmmmmmmm....well, it appears you have a fish, and several skeletons of apes that happen to have the same name as a cartoon character that pulled a football right before it was kicked. Thats about, say, a hand full of species.Now, lets compare this to the fact that there are HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF SPECIES,AND NO TRANSIOTIONAL SPECIES . If there had been transtional species, we should have seen them by now.Instead, we find fully formed species ready to sleep, eat, live, and reproduce. Besides, how would natural selection favor a creature thats in the middle of going from water to land, land to air, land to water.

9:56 PM  

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