The phrase "Living Fossil" is second to only "Missing Link" on my list of irks-me-to-no-end abuses of English language. Darren Naish now explains exactly what is wrong with the term, using as the case study the recent rediscovery of the Sumatran rhino. This is your Most Obligatory reading of the day!
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Today's falsehood1 is the idea of "The Missing Link." You've heard about The Missing Link. You'll hear that some palaeontologist has discovered something and they tell us it is "The Missing Link." Often, it is a supposed "link" between some ancestor of humans (a fossil ape, a monkey, whatever)…
A falsehood is an incorrect or muddled belief widely enough held to be notable, and possibly dangerous. A falsehood is also a potentially powerful teaching tool. Evolution generally, and human evolution in particular, is loaded with them.
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"False Pearls before…
"In today's lecture, I will be casting false pearls before real swine"
... I won't tell you who said that, but when he did say it, he was in front of a classroom of several hundred Harvard freshmen, and he was referring to the idea of telling little white lies to the unwashed masses in order to…
If you're reading a science story today, chances are you're going to see the name Australopithecus sediba in it. That's the designation of the hominid fossil discovered in South Africa in 2008, which is making its debut in tomorrow's edition of Science. And now that the embargo has been lifted, you…
The phrase "Living Fossil" is second to only "Missing Link" on my list of irks-me-to-no-end abuses of English language.
Well, if we're playing that game, here's one of mine: "to no end" means "to no purpose, for no reason". The phrase you want is "irks me no end", meaning "irks me endlessly".
Thanks...you know I am a furrinner...
Actually, I'm a bit embarrassed to be "correcting" your English, which is better than many native speakers', but you take evident care with it so I figured you wouldn't mind.
I've always had issues with the term "living fossil." On occasion, I'll see a press release that states something like "by 'living fossil' we mean..." and I tolerate that. But any organism that's alive today, no matter how much it resembles its 100+ million old ancestor, has gone through just as much evolution as you and me and everything else alive today.
Wait, you live in North Carolina and never heard of Jesse Helmes?
Does 'braindead' equal 'dead'? If so, he's been a fossil all his life.
Would a zombie Spinosaurus qualify as a living fossil?
Ha! I guess so! Scooby Doo where are you?
I am using the terms "living fossil" occasionally and "missing link" more often in hopes of drawing in people who think of evolution or taxonomy in those ways and even creationists who might be looking for yet another list of Gaps in the Fossil Record, and then hitting them with a snippet of information or a filled gap. It's an indexer's trick to think of the terms that your audience will use and not just your own favourites.
(Example here: Microscopic missing link)