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Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Sarah Palin meet Ida Paleo

I am not a paleobiologist, or a physical/biological anthropologist, but as a cultural anthropologist trained in a four fields approach (cultural anthropology, archaeology, linguistics and physical anthropology) and as a teacher of introductory courses in anthropology on the undergraduate level, I teach evolution.  

As an observer of things cultural, I find it hard to believe (shaking my head) that in a world filled with scientific marvels, right here in the USA, a world leader in science, that a percentage of our population insists on resisting evolution, and that a leading political figure who was a Vice Presidential candidate became a poster child for absurdist ideations about humans romping with dinosaurs.    

So it is with glee that I share with you the latest news in the world of “monkeys and bones” (as we dubbed the area in grad school)  

This fossil, dubbed “Ida” was not given a surname, so I am taking the liberty of naming her Paleo.  (In grad school some of us dubbed “Lucy”, Lucy Afro.)

In doing so, it reminded me of the opposition.  

So Sarah Palin meet Ida Paleo.  

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Ida

(Complete Primate Skeleton from the Middle Eocene of Messel in Germany: Morphology and PaleobiologyJens L. Franzen, Philip D. Gingerich, Jörg Habersetzer, Jørn H. Hurum, Wighart von Koenigswald, B. Holly Smith

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(Paliness Republicanis extinctis)

For those of you who have a passing interest or a passion for science, I’d like to suggest several places where you can read more about Ida.

A good starting point is Introducing Ida – the great-great-great-great-grandmother (or aunt)


The fossil, named Ida (the scientific name is Darwinius masillae, a new genus), was discovered in Messel Pit, Germany and lived around 47 million years ago. The fossil is 95% complete – an incredibly complete fossil for an early primate – and along with the skeleton also contains the outline of the body and the contents of the gut. From such rich information, the scientists were able to deduce that Ida was a herbivorous female of about nine months of age.

There is a wonderful multimedia/interactive site:

The Link

Who Is Ida?

Ida is a 47 million year old, perfectly preserved primate recovered from the Messel Pit in Germany.

Ida is the most complete early primate fossil ever found, and scientists believe that she could be one of our earliest

ancestors. She is a remarkable link between the first primates and modern humans and despite having

lived 47 million years ago, her features show striking similarities to our own.

Great site and should be shared with your children.

I am overjoyed that science will no longer be  on the back burner with our new administration, and it will be interesting in the days and years ahead to observe one segment of our populace becoming extinct:

Right-wingus Ignoramus.


Categories: General.

/ 20 Comments

20 comments

  1. John Allen

    Your field is fascinating to me. There was a time when I thought about becoming an archeologist. I think I would have enjoyed it immensely.

    About this:

    I am overjoyed that science will no longer be  on the back burner with our new administration, and it will be interesting in the days and years ahead to observe one segment of our populace becoming extinct:

    Right-wingus Ignoramus.

    Unfortunately, I’m afraid that will take another 47 million years.

  2. Chris Blask

    and he told me that the fossils in the ground were monsters that Satan had created trying to be like God, which he then buried in the ground to fool and frustrate us.  You can always weave a story to fit preconceived facts if you really want to.

    The “no transitional state” creationist argument often  talks about the eye and how no transitional state would provide an advantage, which is so purely refutable that it would seem the argument would go away.  But it doesn’t, because Creationists are not looking to discover the origins of life but rather looking to confirm the origin story they already believe.

    Here is a simple refutation of the eye argument, in case anyone ever needs one.

    The Creationist Problem

    Some Creationists argue:

    o  no transitional forms have been found with partial eyes.

    a partial eye would be useless. Any transitional creatures would have endured a disadvantage, rather than enjoyed an advantage.

    o  since eyes are hugely complicated, they could not arise by chance mutation.

    o  Darwin himself said that it seemed “absurd in the highest degree” that the eye could form by natural selection.

    The Scientist’s Answer

    The full Darwin quote in fact gives a prescription for how organs of great complexity can arise by slow degrees. A suitable sequence of events has been found, and there are numerous sea creatures alive today whose eyes are stages in that sequence.

    It has been calculated that a complete fish eye could have evolved in less than 350,000 years, with almost no mutations. Something that easy should have happened many times, and in fact, taxonomists think that eyes have evolved more than 40 times.

    Scientists consider their explanation of eye evolution to be a great triumph for Darwin’s idea of Natural Selection.

  3. Jjc2008

    I wish that when I was a younger woman I had known that it was possible for women to be anthropologists, archeologists etc.  Nuns were adamant that science and math were for men……not women.

    Anyway, it still boggles my mind when I run into people who buy into creationism or intelligent design or whatever else they are calling it these days.  

    Palin and her ilks’ ignorance is a sad commentary for all of us

  4. Peter Jukes

    You mustn’t mock people just because their ideas are different to yours – unless of course their ideas are dangerous and comically absurd.

    So by way of refresher:

    Sarah famously mentioned in the LA Times how she “she had seen pictures of human footprints inside the tracks”. Probably these pictures of the Paluxy Man Tracks near Glen Rose in Texas.

    Eerily convincing aren’t they.

    You go Sarah!


  7. vcalzone

    No evolutionist purports to tell anyone that there was no higher power initiating the process, at least not one without an agenda. It’s not only possible, but somewhat plausible, that a being of some sort started the big bang. Yet nobody wants to make a serious argument that evolution was just how things got done. The only conclusion can be that the leaders are unserious about actually creating a truce. But that’s nothing new.

    On an unrelated note, why the FUCK is there an ad for Dianetics on my page? Does anyone have a way to control what ads get put up?

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