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== Claims of a lack of transitional forms ==

== Claims of a lack of transitional forms ==

Creationists claim that there there are no transitional forms between the various [[baraminology|created kinds]].

It is a commonly claimed misconception by critics of evolution that there are no transitional fossils.<ref name="CC200">{{Cite web | url = http://www.toarchive.org/indexcc/CC/CC200.html | title = Claim CC200 at www.talkorigins.org | accessdate = 2007-06-19}}</ref><ref name="NS2645" /><ref>[The Scientific Case for Creation http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences27.html], Life Sciences, 23. Fossil Gaps</ref>  Such claims may be based on a misunderstanding of the nature of what represents a transitional feature,<ref name="CC200" /> or according to Donald Prothero, may be a tactic actively employed by [[creationist]]s seeking to distort or discredit evolutionary theory.<ref name="NS2645" /> Prothero has called that claim the "favourite lie" of creationists and further said that it was "manifestly untrue".<ref name="NS2645" />

Even leading evolutionists have admitted that transitional forms do not exist as expected:

The late paleontologist [[Stephen Jay Gould]] said in 1977:

A common, though fallacious, [[creationist]] argument is that no fossils are found with partially functional features. Vestigial organs are common in whales for example.<ref name="whalelegs">{{Cite web | url = http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/data/2001/11/01/html/ft_20011101.4.html | title = Evolution of Whales @ nationalgeographic.com | accessdate = 2008-11-07}}</ref>. Also, there is evidence that a complex feature with one function can adapt to a wholly different function through evolution in a process known as [[exaptation]]. The precursor to, for example, a wing, might originally have only been used for gliding, trapping flying prey, and/or mating display. Nowadays, wings may still have all of these functions, while also being used for active flight.

{{QuoteBox|The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology.<ref>Gould, S.J., Evolution’s erratic pace, Natural History 86 (5):14, 1977 (quoted in Sarfati, Jonathan [http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/2610 15 ways to refute materialistic bigotry].)</ref>}}

In 1979, the senior palaeontologist at the [[British Museum of Natural History]], [[Colin Patterson]], agreed with Gould, when asked why he didn't have any illustrations of transitional forms in his book:

Although transitional fossils elucidate the evolutionary transition of one life-form to another, they only exemplify snapshots of this process. Due to the special circumstances required for preservation of remains, only a very small percentage of all life-forms that ever have existed can be expected to be represented in discoveries. Thus, the transition itself can only be illustrated and corroborated by transitional fossils, but it will never be "caught in the act" as it were. Creationists often argue against this, claiming it is merely a convenient way to explain the lack of 'snapshot' fossils that show crucial steps between species. However, progress in research and new discoveries continue to fill in such gaps, and in modern thinking evolution is pictured as a bush of lines of development, not the simplistic ladder of progress that was common before Darwin published his theory and still influences popular opinion.

{{QuoteBox|I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. ... Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. I will lay it on the line- there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.<ref>Sunderland, Lewis, ''Darwin's Enigma'', 1988, pp. 88-90 (Quoted in [http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/1918 Those fossils are a problem], ''Creation'' 14(4):44–45, September 1992).</ref>}}

The theory of [[punctuated equilibrium]] developed by [[Stephen Jay Gould]] and [[Niles Eldredge]] and first presented in 1972<ref>Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould, 1972. "Punctuated equilibria: an alternative to phyletic gradualism" In T.J.M. Schopf, ed., ''Models in Paleobiology.'' San Francisco: Freeman Cooper. pp. 82-115. Reprinted in N. Eldredge ''Time Frames.'' Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press. 1985.</ref> is often mistakenly drawn into the discussion of transitional fossils. This theory, however, pertains only to well-documented transitions within taxa or between closely related taxa over a geologically short period of time. These transitions, usually traceable in the same geological outcrop, often show small jumps in morphology between extended periods of morphological stability. To explain these jumps, Gould and Eldredge envisaged comparatively long periods of genetic stability separated by periods of rapid evolution.

{{QuoteBox|The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution.<ref>Quoted in Sarfati, Jonathan, [http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3832 Refuting Evolution], chapter 3.</ref>}}

 

{{QuoteBox|The supposed lack of intermediary forms in the fossil record remains the fundamental canard of current antievolutionism. Such transitional forms are sparse, to be sure, and for two sets of good reasons—geological (the gappiness of the fossil record) and biological (the episodic nature of evolutionary change, including patterns of punctuated equilibrium, and transition within small populations of limited geographic extent). But paleontologists have discovered several superb examples of intermediary forms and sequences, more than enough to convince any fair-minded skeptic about the reality of life's physical genealogy.<ref>Gould, Steven Jay, [http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_leviathan.html Hooking Leviathan by Its Past] ''Natural History'' 103 (May 1994): 8-15.</ref>}}

==See also==

==See also==