She's being heralded as "the eighth wonder of the world" and the "common ancestor of all later monkeys, apes, and humans." She's Ida, and she's got most of the scientific world up in a hoot that her remains further give credence to the theories of macro-evolution.
It's interesting to note the fervor in which the mainstream press, or at least the tabloid portions of it, trump Ida as "the missing link." Of course, anyone with some research knows that finding a solid and consensual chain of remains of supposed primate ancestors to human beings still stands as elusive task. In short, there are a whole bunch of "missing links".
Ida doesn't prove anything, unless you like to base your reasoning with a good portion of speculation and a big dallop of flashy marketing.
Here's an excerpt from a piece on Ida from the Wall Street Journal:
"The discovery has little bearing on a separate paleontological debate centering on the identity of a common ancestor of chimps and humans, which could have lived about six million years ago and still hasn't been found. That gap in the evolution story is colloquially referred to as the "missing link" controversy. In reality, though, all gaps in the fossil record are technically "missing links" until filled in, and many scientists say the term is meaningless.
Nonetheless, the latest fossil find is likely to ignite further the debate between evolutionists who draw conclusions based on a limited fossil record, and creationists who don't believe that humans, monkeys and apes evolved from a common ancestor."
And here are a few more critical pieces on the finding:
Poor, Poor Ida
Scientists Doubt Ida Is Your Ancestor
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