Cut from article (75% of text):
- Missing transitional forms are a serious obstacle for the theory of evolution. Some 100 million fossils are stored in museums around the world, and yet no fossil has ever been found to be intermediate between two species. Since there are estimated to be about 100 million species in existence, and since evolutionists assert that a species last on average about 1 million years, given a history for life of just 200 million years, clearly there is at least one fossil for every 200 species. So why are the transitions between species not exhaustively recorded?
- The question posed here is one of an editorial, not an encyclopedia. It sets up a straw man that is unanswered. Transitions may happen in a small population or over a rapid time. If the animals do not die in conditions for fossilization, they are not recorded at all. How many intact T-rex fossils have been discovered? How many archeoptrix fossils? Instead of looking at the big name ones where we have precious few fossils to begin with find where the entire range of species is well documented - sea creatures with hard parts, such as the trilobite[1]. --Mtur 16:35, 5 April 2007 (EDT)
- Instead, when a fossil cannot clearly be assigned to a known species, scientists generate a new species to accommodate the new specimen. This has the obvious consequence that two more missing links between species exist, where once there was one. As a result, since Darwin first proposed his theory, the number of missing links has actually grown. Where in his time there was a single missing link between fish and amphibians, now there are dozens. Where there was one alleged missing link between apes and humans, now there are at least twenty. Clearly the number of missing links is increasing with ever new "intermediate" discovery and Darwin's credibility is being degraded over time, reductio ad absurdum.
- There are a large number of morphological features that separately the ape from the human. Do you want to find one fossil that has half way marks with all the features? Chances are, thats not how it went. The changes didn't happen all at once. Additionally, there is no claim that humans descended from apes, but rather humans and apes have a common ancestor. --Mtur 16:35, 5 April 2007 (EDT)
- Clearly, eventually a set of "intermediates" will be found spanning the entire course of the "evolution" of a species from another, at which point it can be seen that the entire alleged sequence consists of missing links, and at no point will a specimen exist which can be seen not to belong unambiguously to a species, whether the first, last or some species name invented to accommodate an "intermediate" stage.
- Just as clearly, one should be able to find every grave of every ancestor of every person alive today. --Mtur 16:35, 5 April 2007 (EDT)
All this looks good, but (1) this was a deleted article and (2) It sounds like what we'd call "original research" at Wikipedia. So give us sources! --Ed Poor 16:01, 5 April 2007 (EDT)
I removed some stuff about gradualism and punctuated equilibrium. It was not useful. Also, I removed a statement that all serious scientists believe that Lucy is a human ancestor. There is a lot of doubt about it. RSchlafly 02:43, 5 July 2008 (EDT)