L' anello di congiunzione tra la scimmia e i pirloni

clipped from scienceblogs.com Poor, poor Ida, Or: "Overselling an Adapid" Ida has become a victim of a sensationalistic media that values audience size over scientific substance. This shoddy scholarship is matched by a weak attempt to show that Darwinius has more anthropoid-like traits than tarsiers or omomyids do. In order for the authors of the paper to make a convincing case they would have to undertake a careful, systematic analysis of the anatomy of Darwinius in comparison to other primates, yet they did not do this. Instead they combed the literature for 30 traits that might help ascertain the placement of Darwinius in the primate family tree and filled in whether each trait was present or absent in Ida's skeleton. What the authors do, then, is a little tricky. They say that Darwinius (and hence other adapids) are haplorrhine primates, the group that presently contains tarsiers and anthropoids.

"Overselling": rifilare in modo truffaldino, sopravvalutare.

"Media sensazionalistici che valutano più l'audience che l'attendibilità scientifica".

"Avrebbero dovuto fare un'analisi sistematica per essere convincenti. Invece hanno scelto (combinato) quei 30 tratti utlii a favorire la loro interpretazione".

"Quel che hanno fatto gli autori, dunque, è un po' una porcata (tricky)"...