Pharyngula

Posted by: rumleech | May 20, 2009 8:30 AM

nice snark.

Posted by: Dennis | May 20, 2009 8:40 AM

Has everyone seen Google's acknowledgement? http://www.google.com

Posted by: Otto | May 20, 2009 8:43 AM

Fun to read.
But it is a good thing for a science event to be overhyped once in a while.

Posted by: Zeno | May 20, 2009 8:54 AM

It's time for breakfast where I am and now I'm worried about my toast. I really haven't been examining it carefully each morning before consuming it. I fear I may have eaten holy relics. Oh, dear! (Back when I was a Catholic, of course, it was okay. But I no longer feel qualified to chow down on miraculous manifestations.)

Perhaps a bagel would be safer.

Posted by: maddogdelta | May 20, 2009 9:00 AM

Well, I noticed that I have recently lost weight, my teeth are whiter and my bald spot is gone...

It must be Ida

Posted by: Bill Dauphin | May 20, 2009 9:10 AM

Gotta love the toast; suppose it was available on the transitional buffet that preceded Q Cumbers?

Posted by: MadScientist | May 20, 2009 9:11 AM

Hahaha. Hey, it's a fantastic fossil and I certainly wouldn't mind having one. I'm not a biologist, but even I don't see why people are making silly claims such as "missing link" etc. The TV news reporters had me grinding my teeth and tearing out my hair as they spouted inane phrases such as "THE ancestor of humans" - what the hell - assuming it was ancestral to humans (which is not currently an accepted claim), weren't any species directly ancestral to humans ever discovered before - not to mention the implication that there is a single line of descent rather than the numerous splits that make up the evolutionary tree. For me, the greatest contribution of this fossil so far is that it is revealing a widespread ignorance of evolution.

Posted by: Donnie B. | May 20, 2009 9:19 AM

Anyone who watched ABC News last night was informed that Ida is the oldest fossil ever discovered. (This was in one of the blurbs that preceded the story, not in the report itself.)

Not the oldest primate fossil, or the most complete early primate fossil. The unqualified oldest fossil.

Wait... what?

Posted by: Cambrico | May 20, 2009 9:24 AM

You are rigth, but don't you whine a lot about how few science is reported by the media? Take this marketing oportunity! Don't waste it! Once in a century Science has an oportunity like this and all you do is make sarcasm?
Ok. It is ingrained in any fact minded person to be sarcastic with any marketing hype. But this one is in your benefit!!

Posted by: Fred the Hun | May 20, 2009 9:42 AM

MadScientist @13

For me, the greatest contribution of this fossil so far is that it is revealing a widespread ignorance of evolution.

You haven't perchance been living in a cave for the last couple of decades have you?

Posted by: Paul Browne | May 20, 2009 9:47 AM

Right now we are undertaking preliminary studies to evaluate the potential Ida has as an animal model for cancer research.

I mean if she can influence the motion of the stars a little thing like cancer shouldn't be too much trouble.

p.s. Cambrico, we're not complaining about Ida being in the news, that would be a good thing. We are complaining because the story being put out about Ida is almost certainly misleading and it's fairly likely to blow up in our collective scientific faces when it dawns on the media that things are quite not as they were presented.

Posted by: Barry | May 20, 2009 9:58 AM

In fact, PZ, neither you or Ed Yong have a clue as to this fossil’s great importance. Someone is covering up the most important facts. The exceptionally quality of preservation shows this individual had flaxen colored fur, exceptionally light colored skin, and blue eyes. And the basic skull shape is clearly dolichocephalic (very unusual in a female primate). Fortunately, a few rouge, and very brave scientists at Freiburg (who were allowed to view the fossil before the politically motivated scientists at Frankfurt hijacked it), are now leaking this information. Obviously, Ida was a member of the primate lineage which would ultimately give rise to the long-headed humans of Europe. As suspected, and as the great German scientist Otto Ammon predicted many years ago, round-headed humans must now be traced to an even more remote origin in deep time. The misinformation now being promoted by news agencies, science journalists, and (alas) the science blogs about this important fossil is appalling.

Posted by: Brock | May 20, 2009 10:01 AM

Where's the hype coming from? Cable news? Just for S&G I checked CNN, and their coverage isn't too awful aside from the headline (ugh). They even link straight to PLoS ONE.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/05/19/human.ancestor/index.html

MSNBC's coverage annoyingly calls Ida "the link" a few times, but I guess that's forgivable since a "book and TV documentary" are coming out with the same stupid title. They do get points for the extra paragraph on hominids, more detail about the fossil's private ownership, a little more about the bones, etc.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30826552/

Posted by: Christopher | May 20, 2009 10:55 AM

Ok..so I understand the reason for the snarkiness. It's always frustrating when the media gets ahold of science news and runs in outlandish directions with it. But honestly, this coverage is a good thing. Think of how many young scientists are getting excited about Ida! Or think of how many creationists were faced with yet another piece of evidence for evolution. You can complain about "the hype" or you can be happy that science is in the news and not completely distorted.

Posted by: teammarty | May 20, 2009 11:38 AM

Zeno, but what if the bagel has an image of Moses on it??

Posted by: Drew | May 20, 2009 11:51 AM

Note that CNN's headline USED to be pretty good: the modest "Scientists hail fossil as important find"

But then some editor must have decided that that wasn't EXTREMESPORTS enough to compete with Fox, so they bumped it up a couple notches to “Fossil common ancestor of monkeys, humans?” Sigh. I've even heard people saying it's the common ancestor of apes and humans, which doesn't even make SENSE (seeing as a) humans are apes and b) Ida lived long before we think that particular split happened anyway).

"Christopher: But honestly, this coverage is a good thing. Think of how many young scientists are getting excited about Ida! Or think of how many creationists were faced with yet another piece of evidence for evolution."

Sorry, can't agree here. BS'ing the public with these ridiculously inflated claims is not a good way to earn their trust. Any benefit from super-excitement we're going to gain is going to be paid back in disappointment when scientists have to re-explain everything and walk back the extravagant claims, with creationists nipping at their heels and catcalling all the way. It gives people a lot of simplistic misunderstandings about evolution that are then very hard to disabuse them of later. It's not worth it.

We can excite the public about science without misinforming them. We can. There IS good science journalism out there, and it IS exciting and eyecatching when done right, without being flat out inaccurate. And we have to start demanding it.

By the way, I saw this page today when searching for cladograms: it has a nice simple painting right at the top of a primate family tree that even puts finds like this in perspective pretty darn well. Worth passing around.

Posted by: Chili Pepper | May 20, 2009 12:02 PM

It's funny, but at first I thought the whole thing was a hoax: there was this pic of an unbelievably well-preserved fossil, and all the 'missing link' blah-blah-blah. I figured there was some tricky anagram in the name or something that I was missing.

I was doubly tricked when I found out it was real.

Posted by: raven | May 20, 2009 12:59 PM

The real importance of this fossil is becoming apparent.

The TV show and book are just the first step. The big money will be in media tieups. There will be Ida coffe mugs, T shirts, and dish towels. Matel will come out with a Paleontologist Barbie with a rock hammer and replica fossil lemur monkey. Stuffed toy reconstructions will be must haves.

The action figures will be big at Xmas time. The video game will be wildly popular. It features a heavily armed Ida battling it out with evil creationists who are attempting to put the genie back in the bottle, or in this case, the fossil back into the ground.

Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 20, 2009 1:22 PM

Ida had a Texas cage match with Chuck Norris--and won!

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592

Posted by: John Phillips, FCD | May 20, 2009 3:32 PM

Glen Davidson #37 FTW.

Posted by: Thanatos | May 21, 2009 3:20 AM

The fucking Myers fan club. Pathetic. You all fail.

Posted by: Barry | May 21, 2009 9:20 AM

#30:
Sarcasm? All of the hard evidence is right there in the fossil. You must now accept the fact of an Aryan lemur. Admittedly, it is disappointing that the holotype is now based on a female. However, both I and Vox Day are confident that additional excavations at Messel will correct this problem. And soon yield the even more complete, and more spectacular fossil of a male (and obviously, it will command a price much higher than the paltry million dollars paid for Ida). Once the new specimen is found, as I’m sure you are aware: there are ways within the framework of the taxonomic code that allow for corrections to be made. Indeed, the controversy already surrounding the type should prove to make the necessary changes in designating a new type an easy task. And only require the services of an average taxonomist. Furthermore, have you never heard of Otto Ammon of Freiberg? For just as it took the genius of Freiberg’s August Weismann to at last set Darwin straight in biology; so too did it require the heroic efforts of Otto Ammon’s genius to fix the flaws of anthropology. You must read his many peer reviewed journal papers - especially: Naturliche Auslese beim Menschen ,1893. You’ll find it all there in his superb papers (they wholly eclipse the idle anthropological speculations of Darwin). You’ll see the evidence for the long-head/round-head dichotomy, and his correct prediction that a fossil like Ida would eventually be found (he even suggested the geographical location). For unlike the religious fraud, Nostradamus, when it came to predictions: Otto Ammon was the real scientific deal.

Posted by: Silverwhistle | May 27, 2009 2:45 PM

Whatever her ultimate importance, Ida's a lovely wee creature, and yes – I want a cuddly toy one!