Transitional Fossils

 

According to the evolution theory, why are the (expected) countless millions of transitional fossils missing?


Blogger at LetsRunWithIt.com (2013–present)Jan 4

Oh - gotta love a “Strawman” question - state a lie as a truth and then ask why it’s true!

Sorry - doesn’t work!

Fossils do not form easily - the VAST majority of living things that die do not form fossils. Hence fossils are VERY rare (as a percentage of all living things).

Then, the odds of a fossil being found and properly recognized and cataloged are even smaller.

With many known species, the only evidence we have that the species existed at all may be a single tooth or a jaw-bone or something.

Given that, there will be a great number of species for which no fossil is ever found.

Then, our questioner uses that dead-giveaway term: “transitional”…this is word that only a creationist would use in this context.

What happens is that the creationist will ask for a “transitional” species between a Dinosaur and a modern Bird.

We we dig around some wildlands and find one. Behold, the Archaeopteryx:

Then the creationists demand a transitional species between Archeopteryx and a modern bird - and we find Xiaotingia - and (predictably) the creationist will demand a transitional species between Xiaotingia and modern birds.

...and we find Jeholornis…

…and then we find Balaur…

…and we find Sapeornis

…and then, and then, and then…

The Creationists just keep on with the same argument…”Where is the transitional species between…”

It’s like that annoying children’s “thing” when you say “Go to bed” - and they ask “Why” and when you tell them, they just ask “Why?” again - and again - and again - until you eventually tell them to shut the f**k up and stop being annoying!

The kid doesn’t care that you just explained how the endochrine and immune systems depend on sleep - they just don’t want to go to bed yet!

And so it is here.

This tells us that our tame creationist here doesn’t want an answer - they’re just hoping to start a big debate and have their fellow idiot creationists rush in to agree with them…and to hope that non-creationists wonder about the HORROR that scientists haven’t found “transition species”…when in fact (a) they have and (b) the concept itself is kinda dubious.

<sigh>

The idea that creationists have is that there are species that hang around for a very long time - and then rapidly “transition” to another species.

That’s not how it works.

Evolution is a process that happens in TINY increments…each step far too small to measure. Hence there is continuous variation between one “species” and another - there is no single point where you can say “THIS is a Palaeoloxodontina and THAT is an Elephant”. If you could somehow watch that evolution happen - it would be SO gradual that at no point could you definitely say that these two related individuals were of different species.

So there are no sudden transitions - just a continual change with every single individual of the species.

If you look at human evolution, for example - over the past 10,000 years - we’ve evolved to be lactose tolerant (a valuable thing when you’re switching from hunter-gatherer to large mammal farmer) - and we’ve evolved the sickle-cell gene that makes people in malaria-ridden places be significantly more immune to the disease (but at the price of a percentage of the population getting sickle-cell anemia).

These two human evolutionary steps are found predominantly in different groups of people - those modern people who are primarily descended from places where large animal farming never developed tend to be lactose intolerant - and those who are primarily descended from places where mosquitoes are a problem - tend to have a risk of sickle-cell disease.

As it turns out, the merging of these communities has not resulted in any new species of human emerging - just a general mix of differences within one species.

There aren’t “intermediate species” here - just humans with subtly different evolutionary traits.

CONCLUSIONS:

<sigh>…creationists…very nearly as smart as flat earthers!

When someone doesn’t WANT to hear the truth - they won’t hear it.

This question of “intermediate” fossils has been asked and comprehensively answered a thousand times (at least a hundred times by me!) - and yet the creationists still trot out this as one of their favorite “proofs” of the impossibility of evolution.

Why?

  • Are they so terminally stupid as to not be able to follow the explanations? (Maybe)
  • Do they somehow have disproofs of the arguments presented? (Certainly not!)
  • Do they just not care about the answers - but are throwing shit at the fan in the hope that SOME of it will stick (Almost certainly).

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