Monday, April 19, 2010

The Christian Post on Australopithecus sediba

Eric Young of The Christian Post has an article on their site addressing Australopithecus sediba. The article is very quick to land on the popular press for some misinformation. He writes:
Two fossils that were discovered in South Africa nearly two years ago are causing a stir today after two articles published recently in the journal Science introduced them as members of a new species that “might help reveal the ancestor” of the genus Homo. While some – mostly media – have been quick to hail the species as the “missing link,” many more have cast their doubts over the discovery, which some say might not even be a new species.

Some critics further say the find expands the cloud of uncertainty rather than “cast new light,” as Science claimed in its introduction of the papers.
It is unfortunate that scientists cannot disabuse the popular media of the term "missing link" which has no biological reality whatever. Its use then forces scientists to explain what a particular find really means. This "backpeddling" gives ammunition to those who would suggest that evolution does not occur or that palaeontologists do not know what they are doing. Neither is the case.

While not having much new information, the article is reasonably fair in portraying the views of both the YEC and evolutionary biologists' sides.

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