Evolution is just not that into "Lucy" anymore. Instead brings "Ardi" to the big dance.

Scientists today announced the discovery of the oldest fossil skeleton of a human ancestor. The find reveals that our forebears underwent a previously unknown stage of evolution more than a million years before Lucy, the iconic early human ancestor specimen that walked the Earth 3.2 million years ago.

The centerpiece of a treasure trove of new fossils, the skeleton—assigned to a species called Ardipithecus ramidus—belonged to a small-brained, 110-pound (50-kilogram) female nicknamed "Ardi.".

The fossil puts to rest the notion, popular since Darwin's time, that a chimpanzee-like missing link—resembling something between humans and today's apes—would eventually be found at the root of the human family tree. Indeed, the new evidence suggests that the study of chimpanzee anatomy and behavior—long used to infer the nature of the earliest human ancestors—is largely irrelevant to understanding our beginnings.

Ardi instead shows an unexpected mix of advanced characteristics and of primitive traits seen in much older apes that were unlike chimps or gorillas. As such, the skeleton offers a window on what the last common ancestor of humans and living apes might have been like.

Perhaps I have been covering Sarah Palin and her crazy Creationists followers too long, but whenever I read something like this I cannot help but imagine them jamming their fingers in their ears and going "LALALALALALALALALA" as loud as they can until the all the "sciencey" talk is over.

You see whenever Creationists make the argument that "scientists argue with each other about Evolution" this is the kind of thing they are talking about. Since challenges to their version of reality are not allowed they believe that since there is disagreement between scientists, which then cause changes in the direction of Evolution, that it means the theory is flawed.

But what they miss, is that it is that very flexibility which makes the theory of Evolution so strong. And which allows it to grow stronger with each new discovery. Once scientists believed that our more primitive ancestors were chimpanzee-like and now with the discovery of "Ardi" they have discovered a different path toward modern man. That in no way damages the concept nor the validity of Evolution. Instead it reinforces it and validates that Charles Darwin was one of the greatest minds of the scientific age.

Science is like a living breathing entity, which like all living breathing entities, continues to evolve. And I don't know about you, but I can hardly wait to see what it evolves into next.