"Missing Link" Extra Credit Assignment

All research in this article is from the source : http://io9.com/5954898/humanity-never-had-a-missing-link-to-apes and http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100302131719.htm

The sources from both articles believe that the term and whole idea of a “missing link” between humans and apes is false. Humans never swung from tree branches or walked on all fours like monkeys did or leap from trees to find a new home to exist on ground. Over millions of years, the transition happened gradually and “instead of believing our transition to walking as a ‘missing link’, it would be more accurate to say the transition was a long chain, in which one kind of life shaded into the other very gradually.” The fossil record of the relations are discontinuous, so in the gaps between fossils are easy to fill saying they are “missing links” even though it is false and impossible to prove.

I personally agree with these sources and their beliefs. First and foremost, like every other human being it is very difficult to believe and even imagine seeing ourselves as coming from apes and having similar mannerisms as them. The fossil record for the time period of the apes is sparse and it is said to be impossible that we will ever find a specific fossil to be the “missing link” so I will not get my hopes about it or spend my life searching for or tracking it. But it is interesting how we do have similarities and I was curious to find out when exactly the transition took place.

The main idea is that the term “missing link” is inaccurate because in fact there are several missing links – not just one.