The Missing Link?

Today, in a special news conference in New York, scientists unveiled the fossil of a 47 million year old monkey they claim is the missing link between primates and humans. The fossil, named Ida, was found 25 years ago in Germany.

The article's author states, "With her human-like nails instead of claws, and opposable big toes, she is placed at the very root of human evolution when early primates first developed features that would eventually develop into our own.

Another important discovery is the shape of the talus bone in her foot, which humans still have in their feet millions of lifetimes later."

It certainly sounds intriguing. The following excerpt from the article explains the evolutionary period in which this specimen lived: "47 million years ago in the Eocene period...this was when tropical forests stretched right to the poles, and South America was still drifting and had yet to make contact with North America.

During that period, the first whales, horses, bats and monkeys emerged, and the early primates branched into two groups - one group lived on mainly as lemurs, and the second developed into monkeys, apes and humans.

The experts concluded Ida was not simply a lemur but a 'lemur monkey', displaying a mixture of both groups, and therefore putting her at the very branch of the human line."

To me, it sounds like the scientists have determined not only that lemurs and monkeys were related, but that monkeys and humans are directly linked. If that is the case, I think the true missing link would be one that could show the transition from monkey to human, if there is one to be found. All Ida shows is that there was a transition from lemurs to monkeys. Hardly the missing link, as far as I'm concerned. Regardless, this will add a new element to, and heat up, the evolution vs. creation argument.