There is no such thing as "missing" links.<p>We have a theory about descent with modification, and we have a theory about the age of the earth and together they make useful predictions about where you are likely to find bones similar to older and younger bones.<p>So far these theories have not been falsified.<p>Missing links on the other hand, are pure media made up, attention grabbing fud.
"Study co-leader White sees nothing about the skeleton "that would exclude it from ancestral status." But he said more fossils would be needed to fully resolve the issue."<p>Headline is misleading, this species isn't officially a human ancestor.
There are two missing links, one between us and this thing, and another between this thing and something else. And it will keep getting worse the more missing links we find.
I may be misunderstanding this, but are they saying they found a common ancestor to chimps and humans? Are they saying this common ancestor walked upright? If so why would chimps change from walking upright, to that awkward walking on their knuckles deal? That doesn't really make sense to me.
There seems to be a lot of speculation involved. And what was the point of the randomly inserted "sex for food" paragraph? My respect for National Geographic just went down several notches.