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Apr. 29, 2006 There are no transitional fossils - besides these very famous fossils, as well as many others, of course. ;) The first one was found rather recently: Fish to amphibian: Tiktaalik roseae Dinosaur to bird: Archaeopteryx Land mammal to sea mammal: Ambulocetans natans The last one helps show the link between whales and land animals. We don't actually need to find any more “transitional” fossils, however, for evolution to remain a valid theory; we're long past that point. This is the best evidence for evolution according to many, it concerns viruses, and has nothing at all to do with fossils. That evolutionists are holding their breath to find fossils to confirm their theory is a gross misunderstanding of evolution, often perpetuated by Creationists. The notion that we don't depend wholly on fossils goes against common sense, I will be the first to admit. But then again, so does gravity. When in orbit, are you floating or falling? You are falling, perpetually. Is a minute here a minute there and everywhere? No, the faster one travels, or the closer one is to a great source of gravity, the slower time goes relative to someone going slower or not close to source of great gravity. Does that make any sense in a normal, human, intuitive way? Of course not. Here are two more ways to understand transitions in animals via. evolution. First, look at LIVING animals. We have vestigial organs – stuff we don't need. Some snakes still have remnants of leg bones. Many sea mammals still have disconnected bones where hind legs used to be, and so forth. We've also fiddled with bird DNA and found that all birds have recessive teeth genes. Turn them off in a bird-fetus, and, bingo, a bird is born with teeth. We can see transitions in living animals, not just animals that turned to rock ages ago... Next we have the notion of pre-adaptation. How amazing is it that a fish suddenly, boom!, was able to breathe and walk around out of water! So amazing as to be impossible, of course – evolution doesn't work that way. Many fish walk right now. They don't walk with some intent of future land-love, but rather, because it helps them do what they need to do underwater, steady themselves in current, or feel around in the mud for prey. However, should the evolutionary opportunity exist, they will already be pre-adapted for walking on land. The famous mud skipper fish already goes out onto land, without the use of legs. Fish already have an organ similar to lungs in at least some respects called an air bladder. This sack helps them float in the water – it allows them to hang motionless and, by pumping gas in and out of this sack, they can rise or sink using a technique very similar to submarines. Fish require oxygen as we do of course, and when it runs out underwater they are in trouble. There is already a fish living in the mangroves that can take oxygen from its air bladder instead of its gills when the water turns foul – which it does in this case when the tide recedes. Such a fish is pre-adapted to breathing on land. There are sea crabs that live out of water simply by storing a bit of water near their gills and running it over their gills. As they breathe in, they suck in a bit of water along with good-old air and therefore, oxygen. There are many many examples of such pre-adaptations today. One need only imagine that in the past, several came together fortuitously in the same animal and then the transition to land doesn't seem like much of a leap after all. Say, a fish that already walks on fins, already goes out of the water from time to time for various reasons like the mud skipper and one which uses its air bladder to breathe when required. What about walking? It turns out that chimps use the very same muscles when they climb as we do when we walk – many apes and related animals do. A slight change in bone shape and bingo, walking using the same muscles and motions. Nature is loaded to the brim with such pre-adaptations. So it is actually intuitive for me to see why we would “lack” some transitional fossils - many seemingly major transitions aren't all that major at all, depending on how one looks at it. Not that it matters, of course, as fossils aren't all that crucial for evolution as a theory these days. Another interesting idea, seemingly contradictory to my opening bit, is that there really are no transitional fossils. Or, considered another way, every creature is a transitional fossil. Evolution isn't goal oriented – each creature, at the time that it exists, is evolved up to that point for that environment. Is a seal “transitional”, or is it simply a happy animal, surviving as it needs too? Does a seal WANT and NEED to ditch its walking ability all together and remain in the sea? No. However, a fossilized seal from today might, in a million years, be mislabeled by future generations as “transitional”. The final problem with transitional fossils is that the Creationist, anti-evolution types are never satisfied. They invent an issue that doesn't really exist and will remain forever open-ended in their view. For example, consider the whale-transition fossil above. For years, Creationists harped that we lacked such a creature (it wasn't found until 1994, and the theory was as solid then as it is today). Now that we have found it, they complain that they lack the creature right “before” and right “after”. The “gaps” will never be closed but like I said, it is not required that they be closed. Transitional fossil FAQ Finally, the clash between Christianity and evolution is more phony-baloney. It was invented by certain American fundamentalist Christian sects with political ambitions. Most of the world's Christians have no problem at all with evolution and only in America is there even a major movement to teach “alternatives” in public education. Last I checked, there are a billion Christians world-wide and the population of America is somewhere around 300 million. In other words, that I'm an atheist is totally irrelevant to the validity of evolution as a theory. For any healthy skeptic, atheist or otherwise, talkorigins.org lists 29 major evidences for macro evolution, including “transitional” forms. “Macro” is of course another term coined and propagated by the Creationist crowd, but that's another article. ------------ About the author Frederick Smith: I enjoy writing about the positive virtues of humanism - humanists are the good guys. I now have a blog that I will start to increasingly maintain and update. Here is the link: fredsuberview.blogspot.com/ About my personal background and life: I was born, I got some education, worked, ate, and had some kids. It seems I like to write � something that was unknown to me until relatively recently...How's that for detail? ;) Hate mail is welcome unless you are from the Army Of God. Please! It's not that I mind seeing pictures of aborted fetuses in my inbox, but once you've seen one you've pretty much seen them all... Email: dahlek65@gmail.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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