Ida, I think you've had enough

Well, well, well. Looks like the "swine flu" of primates has been outted as a fraud. Turns out, lemurs aren't people and they sure as hell weren't even close 47 million years ago, though you wouldn't know it from the original press release.

I said it from the start, though you wouldn't know it looking at this blog, but Ida (aka. Darwinius masillae) was taken by the media in a frenzy of stupidity, jumping the gun and rushed conclusions and turned into a missing link. Now, I'm all for a good transitional form, but if you are going to call something that you best back it up. It turns out that anyone who flipped out about Ida was incorrect (See: most people without a palaeontological or related background).

Seriously though, Palaeo is basically a discipline of comparative anatomy. So, to just call something a human ancestor based on it being a simian is kind of foolish. I can't say for sure why it was originally hailed as a 'missing link', but what I can say for sure is that due care wasn't taken before calling the heralds. To be fair, this should have been fairly obvious to any primate worker.

So to call everyone who flipped out an idiot is a little bit unfair; however, those in the know typically are more reserved about these things. Speaking of reserved and near as I can tell, (palaeo)anthropology is just about the most anally retentive field on this side of archaeology, so it really makes sense to cool the afterburners before declaring things one way or the other. This field is so politically charged that it really is foolish and rather embarassing to people who legitimately do this kind of work that people would flip out so readily- people like the bible bangers down in the states are very keen to pick apart any mistake made by the process of science and then declare that science is wrong on all fronts (but then be the first in line to get a vaccination, as typical hypocrites would indeed do) and then go immediately to deities, creation and blah blah blah.

Anyways, I digress. The whole point here is that I dislike media whores whoring actual science, and this includes H1N1, which appears to be rather milder and with a lower death rate than people keep claiming. I base this, of course, on heresay and personal communications from various people more in the know than I am...but I credit that with more than I would any news source until I see some real publication from a credible source. Anyways, the truely tragic thing is that the stupids will continue to harp on Ida, especially the creationists, even in light of the recent publication showing it really has no business in direct hominid ancestry.

In related news, the "earliest ape" has been outted as a Strepsirrhine liar as well:
Seriously lemurs, get the fuck out of my family tree.

Seriously folks, if you want something with some credibility as a very early ancestory animal of man, look no further than Purgatorius or Carpolestes, though at this point it really falls under the category of potential common ancestry for both man and lemur. That's the lovely part about evolution and palaeo- the further back you go, the more basal the finds tend to be.