There are many transitional fossils. The only way that the claim of their absence may be remotely justified, aside from ignoring the evidence completely, is to redefine "transitional" as referring to a fossil that is a direct ancestor of one organism and a direct descendant of another. However, direct lineages are not required; they could not be verified even if found. What a transitional fossil is, in keeping with what the theory of evolution predicts, is a fossil that shows a mosaic of features from an older and more recent organism.
(
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC200.html , emphasis mine)
The astounding feature of this clever piece is that it attempts to redefine the word "transitional" to a much more broad definition that is actually possible to satisfy. You see, now that they don't need to actually find anything clearly transitional (because it only needs to exhibit a "mosaic of features" from older and more recent organisms), all they really need to do now is to look for is similarities in fossils. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of the remainder of the page is a list of fossils that meet this broad re-definition of the word transitional.
It is not a "redefinition" of transitional. Creationists redefine transition such that it is impossible to have one. You claim that the transitional should be proven to be a direct ancestor of an individual organism. Tell me, if that is the creationist definition of transitional, what would be the features of a particular fossil that would show it to be "transitional". Even the turtle fossil that Bex has shown us cannot be shown to be direct ancestors of the North American Box Turtle or the Loggerhead Sea Turtle. By your definition of transitional, that turtle fossil could never be shown to be related to the modern turtles at all.
So, in truth, we're no longer looking for transitional fossils. We're simply looking for fossils with similar features.
Fossils with similar features to two other fossils that are not the same type of creature, and one of those fossils is found in earlier sediments and the other is found in later sediments.
In short, they've redefined the question.
This is not intelligent nor is it scientific. It's not even honest.
No. Creationists have redefined what they accept as a transitional such that it is impossible (short of time travel) to find one. Then they say that since science has not found any "transitionals", that evolution did not happen. That is dishonest, in my opinion.
Within their own opening statement is an admission that, if transitionals (which they've deceptively redefined as "directly lineage transitionals") were found, they could not be verified. Of course, this is a concession they have to make to maintain the appearance of integrity because this fact is well known.
So then you agree with the creationist definition that "transitional" means "proven to be of direct lineage"?
Most interesting is the phrase, "even if found". Reader, are you hearing this?
The point they were making is that there is no way to show that a fossil is a direct ancestor of another fossil. That is, unless you have come up with a method of doing so.
The talk origins intellectual dishonesty does not stop there. It continues:
Transitional fossils may coexist with gaps. We do not expect to find finely detailed sequences of fossils lasting for millions of years. Nevertheless, we do find several fine gradations of fossils between species and genera, and we find many other sequences between higher taxa that are still very well filled out.
(emphasis mine)
This piece claims that we do not expect to find finely detailed sequences.
The logical response to this vast assumption is, "Why not?"
The evolution story claims that mutations caused very small changes that lasted thousands to millions of years. So, considering the average lifespan of an organism, and thus considering the vast number of organisms that would have existed during this time exhibiting this very small change, then why on Earth would we "not expect to find" them?
Because the fossil record is not complete.
1. Not every creature that dies gets fossilized.
2. We haven't dug up every inch of sedimentary deposits.
Of course, the actual purpose for claiming that we do "not expect to find" them is because they don't exist; Because the talk origins website does not want the burden of admitting we haven't found any.
No. It's because they understand the limitations of reality.
If those fossils are not transitionals then why are they found in between (in the sediment time line) the creatures that they are categorized as the transitionals for? If there are no transitionals, the how is it that predictions can be made for the sediments in which they will be found, the morphology of the transitional being sought, and those predictions be show true through subsequent finds?
If there are no transitionals and all creatures were made in the beginning, then why can't we find rabbit fossils in the Pre-Cambrian sediments?
