47 million year old primate fossil

Some scientists are touting a 47 million year old primate fossil as potentially being a direct ancestor of humans, though they admit that there is a lot more work to do before making that conclusion with certitude.  What is not in dispute is that this lemur-like fossil is extremely well preserved.

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Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.

This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. Avatar of Planeten Paultje
    Planeten Paultje

    Errr, with the rate of dumbing down some sections of the human population try to inflict on themselves I guess it won't take another 47My for them to regress to a proto ape state 😉

  2. Avatar of Dan Klarmann
    Dan Klarmann

    Paultje: Let's not reinforce the misconception that evolution has direction; up or forward or toward overall "better" design. That is one of the powerful tools of counterknowledge used by the anti-science crowd to "prove" via common sense that evolution "up to" man is unlikely to the point of certainly impossible. Never mind the ever-growing mountain of evidence that it did happen.

    When intelligence (big brains) proves to be more of a cost than an asset, it will probably breed out. Same for the various cases opposable thumbs rather than a fifth parallel reinforcing finger.

    Or our awkward feet may "regress" to a more useful hand, or finish developing toward a better paw, or faster hoof. Which of these three is "better"? Depends on what you need it for.

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