Remember Ida?
In May 2009, earlier this year, a huge story broke about a new fossil discovery. The fossil’s name was Darwinius masillae—or better known as Ida. There was a great number of news and science agencies heralding this discovery as a “missing link” between humans and lemur like primates—such as National Geographic, The Wall Street Journal, and even some European news agencies like The Sun. Ida even had its own website—revealingthelink.com.
While there were many who were proclaiming that Ida was such an important find in regard to human evolution, there was also a fair amount of scientists who doubted that Ida beared out what was being claimed.
Now, several leading scientific journals and news agencies are reporting that Ida is nowhere close to being a link in the human evolutionary chain. Nature, Science, MSNBC, ABC, and the BBC are all running articles decrying Ida as a missing link.
There is something that bothers me about all this. When Ida was being reported as a “missing link,” the main stream media picked up the story and ran with it. Now, I am willing to bet that Ida will barely get a mention in the ticker on the bottom of the screen. Why? Because reporting that scientists have found a “missing link” is a much better story for ratings than reporting that scientists were wrong. I hope I am wrong. I hope the main stream media will report this late developing part of the story as well. The reason I say this is that I fear many years ahead of people proclaiming that sceintists have shown that humans evolved from apes and asking, “Don’t you remember that fossil they discovered named Ida?”
Do you think the main stream media will report this part of the Ida story?
While there were many who were proclaiming that Ida was such an important find in regard to human evolution, there was also a fair amount of scientists who doubted that Ida beared out what was being claimed.
Now, several leading scientific journals and news agencies are reporting that Ida is nowhere close to being a link in the human evolutionary chain. Nature, Science, MSNBC, ABC, and the BBC are all running articles decrying Ida as a missing link.
There is something that bothers me about all this. When Ida was being reported as a “missing link,” the main stream media picked up the story and ran with it. Now, I am willing to bet that Ida will barely get a mention in the ticker on the bottom of the screen. Why? Because reporting that scientists have found a “missing link” is a much better story for ratings than reporting that scientists were wrong. I hope I am wrong. I hope the main stream media will report this late developing part of the story as well. The reason I say this is that I fear many years ahead of people proclaiming that sceintists have shown that humans evolved from apes and asking, “Don’t you remember that fossil they discovered named Ida?”
Do you think the main stream media will report this part of the Ida story?
Am I wrong about the years to come and people still believing Ida is a “missing link”?
Labels:
Creation,
Evolution,
Science
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I know I am chiming in really late on a lot of these topics, but you will have to forgive me, I just found this site recently and find the topics really interesting. So I do feel like chiming in, even though I am late ... better late than never huh?
You are 100% correct on both accounts! The media had nothing to say about it after it was not top rated news of a missing link, and I am sure for years to come, because of this, people will always utter the words "remember when they found that one missing link - Ida I think it was?" Sad that the world moves so fast that you can't even begin to keep up with one story before 50 more are bombarding our minds and thoughts! It is only going to get worse too.
Time to make time for those things that seem important enough to remember parts of, and get the entire conclusion to those things that saturate our memories in part, as to make a whole out of all the endless information fed to us daily!
P.S. I emailed you Mr. Hyde ;) Thanks!