Eventually the media will get burned by over-enthusiastic scientists enough times to make them chary about hyping every new fossil primate as a portentous discovery for the evolution of human beings. These stories, it seems, follow a predictable pattern: A fossil is found that generates exuberant media coverage and intemperate claims from the discoverers only to have further study of the find reveal that it's nothing at all special. The original discovery is trumpeted on the front pages and on all the news networks. The more sober assessments are buried somewhere around page ten.
Such is the case, evidently, with "Ida" (Darwinius masillae):
A fossil that was celebrated last year as a possible "missing link" between humans and early primates is actually a forebearer of modern-day lemurs and lorises, according to two papers by scientists at The University of Texas at Austin, Duke University and the University of Chicago.
In an article now available online in the Journal of Human Evolution, four scientists present evidence that the 47-million-year-old Darwinius masillae is not a haplorhine primate like humans, apes and monkeys, as the 2009 research claimed.
They also note that the article on Darwinius published last year in the journal PLoS ONE ignores two decades of published research showing that similar fossils are actually strepsirrhines, the primate group that includes lemurs and lorises.
"Many lines of evidence indicate that Darwinius has nothing at all to do with human evolution," says Chris Kirk, associate professor of anthropology at The University of Texas at Austin. "Every year, scientists describe new fossils that contribute to our understanding of primate evolution. What's amazing about Darwinius is, despite the fact that it's nearly complete, it tells us very little that we didn't already know from fossils of closely related species."
When you just know that Homo sapiens has evolved from more primitive primates then your faith and your zeal will cause you to see confirmation of your belief in the most ambiguous evidence, or even where there's no confirmation at all.
RLC