Missing Link or Missing Think?

There's much media chirping about this fossil creature alleged to be a missing link leading to humans. Unfortunately for many in the media, there are so many problems with the fossil record. Even if this lemur-like creature were some kind of major link, a barrage of serious gaps would still remain.

Explore Evolution, a balanced textbook on the major issues in evolution, quotes paleontologist David Raup of the University of Chicago.  He said that instead of finding this gradual sequence of fossils predicted by Darwin, "What geologists of Darwin's time and geologists of the present day actually find is an uneven or jerky record; that is, species appear in the sequence very suddenly, show little or no change during their existence in the record, then abruptly go out of the record." Hardly the stuff of linkage.

By the way, you may have noticed that Google is participating in this hype by putting the fossil as their banner. Even when I googled the link for "Explore Evolution," the very first hit was for a group dedicated to stopping school kids from hearing any of  the abundant questions plaguing neo-Darwinism. 

That group is the National Center for Science Education. For a response to the NCSE's constricting approach, take a look at this article from Stephen Meyers of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture.

In any case, there remains one definite missing link -- between reality and the enthusiastic endorsements of this fossil as the Rosetta Stone of proof for evolution.