re: #320 Charles

I can certainly agree that it is indeed his opinion. Since he is probably not the only scientist in the field that has that opinion, I think that for the time being, until more research (and hopefully more fossils) are found, the “IDA is a human ancestor” talk should be taken with the appropriate caveats for the sake of scientific accuracy.
I don’t want you to think that I am merely bringing up the New Scientist article to be contrary; there are plenty of fossils showing many creatures in transitory forms covering a wide swath of the fossil record. There is no need to insist on a connection where there might not be one, especially when it comes to human evolutionary lineage. In fact, I believe there needs to be even MORE care when doing this in the event the connection is later found to be wrong (even if it is from a very closely related branch).