What is the missing link, and why is it a myth?

The concept of the missing link is a myth present in popular culture when talking about evolution.

When will the missing link be found, and if it has already been found, 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.The idea, or rather, the myth of the missing link, has had a great impact both in the scientific community and in popular culture, although it is an idea that arises from a somewhat simplistic interpretation of evolution as a process.

Many have gone in search of it, but each time they have "found" it, they have ended up discovering that there was more to it. Next we will see more in depth the controversy of the missing link, its origins and its repercussions at popular level.

The missing link: what exactly is it?

Colloquially, the expression "missing link". refers to fossils of intermediate forms between two species of which remains do exist and which are known to be descended from each other.. In other words, a missing link, understood in popular culture, the media and sectors with a non-expert knowledge of the evolutionary thesis, 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 on the basis of what is known today about evolution. The idea of the missing link implies thinking that species develop in a linear fashion, and that they pass from stage to stage, all of them more or less defined, in an abrupt and clearly delimited manner. 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 set of individuals, which will be passed on to the next generations depending on how adaptive they are to the demands of the environment in which the species lives.

With this in mind, if one takes the fossil remains of two individuals that are thought to have a direct evolutionary relationship, with the suspicion that one is descended from the other, then between 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 does not make sense to speak of missing linkssince 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, of which many of them we will never find their fossil, since of all the forms of life that have ever inhabited the planet, very few have the "luck" to leave remains.

Despite this scientific fact, there are many media outlets that tend to call any fossil recently found as the "missing link", especially if it has to do with the evolutionary history of human beings. As soon as a form is found between one hominid and another, television news, newspapers and the like have no qualms about using the "missing link" crutch to sell headlines. It is, without a doubt, a concept that had its origins in science and has transcended into popular culture.

Origins of the idea

Although Charles Darwin sensed that, once his work was popularized, many would desperately search for the link connecting primates to humans, the idea of the missing link was born in the early days of science, 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 strongly influenced by evolutionary theses and considered evolution to be a process of progress, in which all forms go from simpler to more complex structures and functions, the human species being at the top of the evolutionary line. On the basis of 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 ranging from the simplest of microorganisms to the human species.

Number 23 was striking, since it was an ape-like being, drawn with its back turned, and it was located between 22, the primates, and 24, the humans themselves. This figure 23 was his interpretation of the intermediate stage between apes and humans, the "missing link" that supposedly connected the world of humans with that of animals. He went so far as to give it a name: it 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 very much alive today in both scientific and not so academic circles.He speculated that first came bipedalism and the humanoid form, and then mental capacities were developed, which gave rise to language. He speculated that first came bipedalism and the humanoid form and, later, mental capacities were developed which gave rise to spoken communication. Thus, his missing link was a being similar to humans but lacking the ability to speak.

From the scientific circle to the world

The idea of the missing link and, also, the ideas of evolution itself 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 quite believe that species evolved 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 Darwinian ideas were true, then what were the proponents waiting for to accept that humans were descended from monkeys? what were the advocates waiting for to show the world that monkey-man that Haeckel had commented on? And as a consequence, many evolutionists embarked on a veritable 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 particularly striking is the case of a Dutch physician named Eugène Dubois.. This researcher went to Java in 1890 to carry out excavations there and was very lucky because he found the remains of a hominid, a fossil that today we know that corresponds to those of a Homo erectus.

This finding did not go unnoticed and, in fact, the media of the time gave it media coverage, baptizing it as Java Man. They had no qualms about calling it the missing link, and Haeckel himself even said that these remains were those of the Pithecanthropus alalus that he had predicted would one day be found. It had been found, apparently, which confirmed the thesis of Darwin and other evolutionists..

However, this was not convincing enough proof for many critics of evolution. In fact, the fact that such remains had been found did not quite prove the relationship between primates and humans. Yes, it was an apparently intermediate form, but it could also be a species of monkey 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 the creationists, became the best argument for the evolutionists. The search for new links went on and on and, in fact, it is thanks to this obsession with finding new links that the evolutionists were able to find more and more, it is thanks to this obsession with finding intermediate forms among what had already been found that has contributed to 20th century anthropology.. However, it has also contributed to gross misconceptions about the notion of evolution and has given strength to the myth that it occurs in a linear rather than a tree-like fashion 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 humans were like. The white man was seen as the most evolved example of the human species, while the rest were intermediate forms.The white man was seen as the most evolved example within the human species, while the rest were intermediate or poorly evolved forms.

But within popular culture it went even further. Many circus companies wanted to take advantage of the "boom" of the idea of the missing link to do business, and one of them succeeded with flying colors. Antonio the Great Farini, alias William Leonard Hunt, struck gold by introducing the world to what was called a living missing link: Krao. This was a Laotian girl with hypertrichosis, that is, more body hair than normal. The Great Farini presented her as the member of a simian tribe, all of them hairy and arboreal, taking advantage of a girl's sad medical condition.

Today the missing link still has a lot of resonance in our popular culture. It doesn't take much research to see that, at the slightest discovery of a hominid bone, the media can't resist running headlines like "Could this be the missing link?" because the idea of where we came from and who we might be descended from gets a lot of attention. De hecho, si ponemos “eslabón perdido” en nuestro buscador y especificamos que queremos buscar noticias nos saldrán unas 43.000 entradas que demuestran lo vivo que está este mito todavía.

Referencias bibliográficas:

• Gregory, T.R. (2009) Understanding Natural Selection: essential concepts and common misconceptions. Evolution: Education and Outreach 2:156–175
• Kjærgaard, P. C. (2010) The Darwin Enterprise: From Scientific Icon to Global Product. History of Science 48:105–22
• Kjærgaard, P. C. (2011) Ida and Ardi: the fossil cover girls of 2009. The Evolutionary Review 2:1–9
• Kjærgaard, P. C. (2011) Hurrah for the Missing Link!’: A History of Apes, Ancestors and a Crucial Piece of Evidence. Notes and Records of the Royal Society 65: 83–98
• Kjærgaard, P. C. (2018) The missing link and human origins: understanding an evolutionary icon. In Perspectives on Science and Culture. ISBN: 978-1-61249-521-7
• Richter-Boix, A (2018). The missing link: the construction of a myth. EvOikos. Retrieved from https: