When will the missing link be found? What if they have already found it? How many could there be?
The idea, or rather the myth of the missing link, has had a great impact both in the scientific community and in popular culture despite the fact that in itself it is an idea that arises from a somewhat simplistic interpretation of what evolution is as a process.
There are many who have gone in search of it but, every time they have “found” it, they have ended up discovering that there were more. Below we will look in more depth at the missing link controversy, its origins and its repercussions at a popular level.
Colloquially, the expression “missing link” refers to fossils of intermediate forms between two species of which there are remains and it is known that one could descend from the other That is to say, a missing link, understood in popular culture, the media and sectors with non-expert knowledge of evolutionary theses, is that intermediate stage in the fossil record that has yet to be discovered.
This expression is very controversial in the scientific field because it is not at all appropriate based on what is known today about evolution. The idea of the missing link implies thinking that species develop in a linear way, and that they go from stage to stage, all of them more or less defined, in an abrupt and clearly delimited way. That is to say, It implies thinking that one species evolves to another and then to another but suddenly, being able to establish a very clearly visible before and after
Although it is clear that within an evolutionary lineage there will be organisms very different from the previous ones, it should not be understood that evolution has occurred suddenly. Evolution is a gradual process which takes place over thousands of years in which subtle modifications are introduced in a group of individuals, which will be passed on to the following generations depending on how adaptive they are with respect to the demands of the environment. in which that species lives.
Taking this into account, if the fossil remains of two individuals are taken from which it is believed that they could have a direct evolutionary relationship, suspecting that one is descended from the other, among them There will not be one or two “missing links”, but as many as generations have passed since one lived until the other lived The descendants of one and the ancestors of the other would all be “missing links”, individuals who staged the evolutionary process that gave rise to the most modern individual.
It is for this reason that, From a scientific point of view, it makes no sense to talk about missing links, since there would be a practically endless number of them. Charles Darwin himself already spoke that between two forms there could be an endless number of intermediate forms, many of which we will never find a fossil since of all the life forms that have ever inhabited the planet, very few have the “ lucky” to leave remains.
Despite this scientific fact, there are many media outlets that tend to call any recently found fossil the “missing link,” especially if it has to do with the evolutionary history of human beings. At the very least that a form is found between one hominid and another, news programs, newspapers and others have no qualms about using the phrase of the “missing link” to sell headlines. It is, without a doubt, a concept that had its origins in science and that has transcended popular culture.
Origins of the idea
Although Charles Darwin sensed that, once his work became popular, many would desperately search for the link that connected primates with humans, We owe the idea of the missing link to the German naturalist Ernst Haeckel Without wanting it or drinking it, this scientist gave the world a concept that would become a myth widely spread both by the scientific community of the 19th century and by popular culture and the media.
Haeckel was greatly influenced by evolutionary theses and considered that evolution was a process of progress, in which all forms range from simpler to more complex structures and functions, with the human species being at the top of the evolutionary line. Based on these ideas, Haeckel dared to make a diagram in which he described an evolutionary sequence for the human being In it he drew 24 figures that ranged from the simplest of microorganisms to the human species.
The number 23 attracted attention, since it was an ape-like being, drawn from the back and found between number 22, the primates, and number 24, the humans themselves. This figure 23 was his interpretation of the intermediate stage between apes and men, the “missing link” that supposedly connected the world of human beings with that of animals. He even gave him a name: he is the Pithecanthropus alalus or speechless ape-man.
For Haeckel, the human trait that most differentiated us from animals was language, an idea that is still quite current today, both in scientific and non-academic circles. He speculated that bipedalism and the humanoid form came first and, later, mental abilities developed, which gave rise to spoken communication. Thus, his missing link was a being similar to humans but who did not have the ability to speak.
From the scientific circle to the world
The idea of the missing link and, also, the ideas of evolution themselves aroused conflicting opinions within the scientific community. Due to different social and cultural factors, even among the most meticulous and rigorous scientists there were some who did not fully believe that species were evolving over time and, much less, wanted to accept that human beings descended from monkeys, Although it is true that we are not directly descended from them, but we are related.
Scientists less supportive of evolution insisted that if Darwin’s ideas were true, then What were the defenders waiting for to show the world that ape-man that Haeckel had commented on? And as a consequence of this, many evolutionists embarked on a true paleontological fever in search of the missing link, the connection between primates and humans.
The list of people who embarked on the hunt for the missing link is very long, and many of them found remains of both possible hominids and other mammals, but The case of a Dutch doctor named Eugène Dubois is especially striking This researcher moved to Java in 1890 to carry out some excavations in the place and was very lucky because he found the remains of a hominid, a fossil that today we know corresponds to those of a Homo erectus.
This discovery did not go unnoticed and, in fact, the media of the time gave him media coverage, calling him the Java Man. They had no qualms about calling it the missing link, and Haeckel himself even said that these were the remains of the Pithecanthropus alalus that he had predicted would one day be found. Apparently, what confirmed the theses of Darwin and other evolutionists had been found
However, this was not convincing enough evidence for many critics of evolution. In fact, the fact that these remains had been found did not fully demonstrate the relationship between primates and humans. Yes, it was an apparently intermediate form but it could also be a species of ape that had nothing to do with humans. If it is related to our species, there should be other intermediate forms that look a little more like humans.
This, which, apparently, could be a criticism of creationists, became the best argument for evolutionists. The search for new links went further and, in fact, It is thanks to this obsession with finding intermediate forms between what had already been found that has contributed to the anthropology of the 20th century However, he has also contributed to very misconceptions about the notion of evolution and has given strength to the myth that it occurs in a linear way rather than in a tree with different lineages.
Impact on popular culture
At the beginning of the 20th century there were very racist and supremacist ideas about “savages”. Even within the scientific community it was thought that the tribes of Africa, Asia and the Amazon were a clear example of what the ancestors of modern human beings were like. The white man was seen as the most evolved example of the human species while the rest were intermediate or little evolved forms.
But within popular culture things went even further. Many circus companies wanted to take advantage of the “boom” of the missing link idea to do business, and one of them succeeded with flying colors. Antonio the Great Farini, alias William Leonard Hunt, made gold by introducing the world to what was called a living missing link: Krao. She was a Laotian girl with hypertrichosis, that is, more hair on her body than normal. The Great Farini presented her as a member of an ape-like tribe, all of them hairy and arboreal, taking advantage of a girl’s sad medical condition.
Today the missing link continues to have a great impact on our popular culture. It is not necessary to do a very in-depth investigation to see that, the moment a hominid bone is discovered, the media cannot resist publishing headlines like “Could this be the missing link?” since the idea of where we come from and who we could descend from attracts a lot of attention. In fact, if we put “missing link” in our search engine and specify that we want to search for news, we will get around 43,000 entries that show how alive this myth still is.
