Question 1: The Fossil Record

[Simon]

According to Darwin, the absence of intermediate fossil forms "is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory." What new fossil finds, if any, have occurred since Darwin wrote these words nearly 150 years ago? Do they overturn Darwin's bleak assessment of evolutionary theory? If the absence of intermediate fossil forms holds as much today as it did back then, why should anyone accept evolution?

[potwalloper.]

Simon wrote

If the absence of intermediate fossil forms holds as much today as it did back then, why should anyone accept evolution?

A definition of an "intermediate" or "transitional" fossil form still appears to be rather lacking here. So I repeat Gaunt's question once again:

Simon, perfessor asked but you may have missed it. How do you define a transitional fossil? What would you need to see in a fossil that you could call it transitional? without a firm definition, anything that is shown can be dismissed on the grounds that it isn't really a transitional fossil, it's just an odd chimp or whathaveyou.

[Lotan]

It's difficult for me to debate with someone so bigoted and ignorant as to imply that creationists are by definition excluded from the field of paleontology.

Well, you certainly didn't waste any time getting straight to the ad hominem portion of your argument! Have you read the Debate Rules?

Yes, a tiny minority of paleontologists are also creationists (although the term 'creationist' negates any sense of scientific objectivity). I managed to find 5 of them. In an attempt to alleviate my ignorance and bigotry I have researched their claims:

1. Kurt Wise - Here's a quote from Dr. Wise...
"Although there are scientific reasons for accepting a young earth, I am a young-age creationist because that is my understanding of the Scripture. As I shared with my professors years ago when I was in college, if all the evidence in the universe turns against creationism, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a creationist because that is what the Word of God seems to indicate. Here I must stand."
That's what I call science!

2. Harold Coffin - Dr. Coffin prefers Jesus over science, as he testified under oath...
During the Arkansas trial, Harold Coffin, a Creation Research Society member from Loma Linda University, was asked about the Burgess Shale fossil site, which has been dated to the early Cambrian period:

Q: The Burgess Shale is said to be 500 million years old, but you think it is only 5,000 years old, don't you?
COFFIN: Yes.
Q: You say that because of information from the Scriptures, don't you?
COFFIN: Correct.
Q: If you didn't have the Bible, you could believe the age of the earth to be many millions of years, couldn't you?
COFFIN: Yes, without the Bible." (Trial transcript, McLean v Arkansas, cited in Berra, 1990, p. 135)

3. Jack Cuozzo - OOPS! Dr. Cuozzo isn't a paleontologist, he's an orthodontist! Still, that doesn't stop him from boldly claiming that all of the fossil Neanderthal specimens he has personally examined have been "post flood Neanderthals"! From a review of his book, "Buried Alive"...
"Cuozzo refers to evolution as "dogma." As is often the case with other biblically based attacks on evolution, the author does not know his subject matter. Dogma refers to tenets or beliefs, an arrogant assertion of opinion all proclaimed without proof. Dogma is usually applied to religious beliefs that are based upon faith - the acceptance of "truth" without proof. The mistake made by Cuozzo in using "dogma" in reference to evolution is that evolution is an observed fact, life forms on this planet have changed over time, period."
Just for fun, here's a link to Dr. Cuozzo's website.

4. Pete DeRosa - Front man for CreationExpeditions ministry, he likes to take home-school kiddies on dino digs. His mission is "to have everyone experience God's glory firsthand. To do so, we have taken a proactive approach to teaching Creation Science." Not exactly a heavyweight.

5. Joachim Scheven - This paleontologist has single-handedly amassed a collection of ‘living fossils’ in a Flood geology display at the LEBENDIGE VORWELT museum in Hagen, Germany. The museum "aims to trace the course of the history of the earth from a Biblical perspective". This guy seems to be the best of the lot, but that isn't saying much.

In light of my new-found knowledge I am forced to retract my earlier statement; "Fortunately, paleontologists don't have this problem."
My new, more informed position on this subject; "Fortunately, paleontologists who are not blinded by their religious beliefs and are actually worth listening to don't have this problem."

The examples you provided are infered to be intermediate examples .. but where are the transitional fossils?

This is the 'shifting goalposts' argument that perfessor mentioned earlier. Unless you can define the term 'transitional fossil' as he requested, you can dismiss any example you please. This doesn't mean that there are no transitional fossils as defined by paleontology though. Here's the appropriate response from the TalkOrigin FAQ.

[As an aside .. We've got 7 specimens of Archaeopteryx .. 8 if you count a feather .. and some people are thinking that the whole thing is a hoax motivated by money, and that eventually it will be exposed as such - replacing the Piltdown man as the biggest hoax scientists ever fell for.]

Who are "some people"? Do they go to your church?

[Nyril]

The questions remain, What new fossil finds, if any, have occurred since Darwin wrote these words nearly 150 years ago?

Alright. Here's a list.

Fossil transitions between species and genera:


Human ancestry. There are many fossils of human ancestors, and the differences between species are so gradual that it is not always clear where to draw the lines between them.


A gradual transitional fossil sequence connects the foraminifera Globigerinoides trilobus and Orbulina universa [Pearson et al. 1997]. O. universa, the later fossil, features a spherical test surrounding a "Globigerinoides-like" shell, showing that a feature is added, not lost. The evidence is seen in all major tropical ocean basins. Several intermediate morphospecies connect the two species, as may be seen in the figure included in Lindsay [1997].


The fossil record shows transitions between species of Phacops (a trilobite; Phacops rana is the Pennsylvania state fossil.). [Eldredge 1972; 1974; Strapple 1978]


Planktonic forminifera [Malmgren et al. 1984]. This is an example of "punctuated gradualism." A 10-million-year foraminifera fossil record shows long periods of stasis and other periods of relatively rapid but still gradual morphologic change.


Fossils of the diatom Rhizosolenia are very common (they are mined as diatomaceous earth), and they show a continuous record of almost 2 million years which includes a record of a speciation event. [Miller 1999, 44-45]


Lake Turkana mollusc species [Lewin 1981].


Cenozoic marine ostracodes [Cronin 1985].


The Eocene primate genus Cantius [Gingerich 1976, 1980, 1983].


Scallops of the genus Chesapecten show gradual change in one "ear" of their hinge over about 13 million years. The ribs also change. [Ward and Blackwelder 1975; Pojeta and Springer 2001]


The horns of titanotheres (extinct Cenozoic mammals) appear in progressively larger sizes, from nothing to prominence. Other head and neck features also evolved. These features are adaptations for head-on ramming analogous to sheep behavior. [Stanley 1974]


Gryphaea (coiled oysters) become larger and broader but thinner and flatter during the Early Jurassic [Hallam 1968].

Fossil transitionals between families, orders, and classes:


Human ancestry. Australopithecus, though its leg and pelvis bones show it walked upright, had a bony ridge on the forearm, probably vestigial, indicative of knuckle walking. [Richmond and Strait 2000]


Dinosaur-bird transitions.


Haasiophis terrasanctus is a primitive marine snake with well-developed hind limbs. Although other limbless snakes might be more ancestral, this fossil shows a relationship of snakes with limbed ancestors [Tchernov et al. 2000]. Pachyrhachis is another snake with legs related to Haasiophis [Caldwell and Lee 1997].


The jaws of mososaurs are also intermediate between snakes and lizards. Like the snake's stretchable jaws, they have highly flexible lower jaws, but, unlike snakes, they don't have highly flexible upper jaws. Some other skull features of mososaurs are intermediate between snakes and primitive lizards. [Lee et al. 1999; Tchernov et al. 2000; Caldwell and Lee 1997]


Transitions between mesonychids and whales.


Transitions between fish and tetrapods.


Transitions from condylarths (a kind of land mammal) to fully aquatic modern manatees. In particular, Pezosiren portelli is clearly a sirenian, but its hind limbs and pelvis are unreduced [Domning 2001a, 2001b].

Fossil transitionals between kingdoms and phyla:


The Cambrian fossils Halkiera and Wiwaxia have features which connect them with each other and with the modern phyla of Mollusca, Brachiopoda, and Annelida. In particular, one species of halkieriid has brachiopod-like shells on the dorsal side at each end. This is seen also in an immature stage of the living brachiopod species Neocrania. It has setae identical in structure to polychaetes, a group of annelids. Wiwaxia and Halkiera have the same basic arrangement of hollow sclerites, an arrangement which is similar to the chaetae arrangement of polychaetes. The undersurface of Wiwaxia has a soft sole like a mollusc's foot, and its jaw looks like a mollusc's mouth. Aplacophorans, which are a group of primitive molluscs, have a soft body covered with spicules similar to the sclerites of Wiwaxia. [Conway Morris 1998, 185-195]


Cambrian and Precambrain fossils Anomalocaris and Opabinia are transitional between arthropods and lobopods.


An ancestral echinoderm has been found, intermediate between modern echinoderms and other deuterostomes [Shu et al. 2004].

Humans

Intermediate fossils include:


Australopithecus afarensis, from 3.9 to 3.0 million years ago (Ma). Its skull is similar to a chimpanzee's, but with more human-like teeth. Most (all?) creationists would call this an ape, but it was bipedal.
Australopithecus africanus (3 to 2 Ma); its brain size, 420 to 500 cc, was slightly larger than A. afarensis, and its teeth yet more human-like.
Homo habilis (2.4 to 1.5 Ma), which is similar to Australopithecines, but which used tools and had a larger brain (650 cc average) and less projecting face.
Homo erectus (1.8 to 0.3 Ma); brain size averaged about 900 cc in early H. erectus and 1100 cc in later ones. (Modern human brains average 1350 cc.)
A Pleistocene Homo sapiens "morphologically and chronologically intermediate between archaic African fossils and later anatomically modern Late Pleistocene humans." [White et al. 2003]
A hominid combining features of, and possibly ancestral to, Neandertals and modern humans. [Bermudez de Castro et al. 1997]

Dinosaur-Bird

Sinosauropteryx prima. A dinosaur covered with primitive feathers, but structurally similar to unfeathered dinosaurs Ornitholestes and Compsognathus [Chen et al. 1998; Currie and Chen 2001].


Ornithomimosaurs, therizinosaurs and oviraptorosaurs. The oviraptorosaur Caudipteryx had a body covering of tufted feathers and, on wings and tail, feathers with a central rachis [Ji et al. 1998]. Feathers are also known from the therizinosaur Beipiaosaurus [Xu et al. 1999a]. Several other bird-like characters appear in these dinosaurs, including unserrated teeth, highly pneumatized skulls and vertebrae, and elongate wings. Oviraptorids also had birdlike eggs and brooding habits [Clark et al. 1999].


Deinonychosaurs (troodontids and dromaeosaurs). These are the closest known dinosaurs to birds. Sinovenator, the most primitive troodontid, is especially similar to Archaeopteryx [Xu et al. 2002]. Byronosaurus, another troodontid, has teeth nearly identical to primitive birds [Makovicky et al. 2003]. Microraptor, the most primitive dromaeosaur, is also the most birdlike; specimens have been found with undisputed feathers on their wings, legs and tail [Hwang et al. 2002; Xu et al. 2003]. Sinornithosaurus also was covered with a variety of feathers and had a skull more birdlike than later dromaeosaurs [Xu et al. 1999b, 2001; Xu and Wu 2001].


Protarchaeopteryx, alvarezsaurids, Yixianosaurus and Avimimus. These are birdlike dinosaurs of uncertain placement, each potentially closer to birds than deinonychosaurs. Protarchaeopteryx has tail feathers, uncompressed teeth and an elongate manus (hand/wing) [Ji et al. 1998]. Yixianosaurus has an indistinctly preserved feathery covering and hand/wing proportions close to birds [Xu and Wang 2003]. Alvarezsaurids [Chiappe et al. 2002] and Avimimus [Vickers-Rich et al. 2002] have other bird-like features.


Archaeopteryx. This famous fossil is defined to be a bird, but it is actually less birdlike in some ways than some genera mentioned above [Paul 2002; Maryanska et al. 2002].


Shenzhouraptor [Zhou and Zhang 2002], Rahonavis [Forster et al. 1998], Yandangornis and Jixiangornis. All these birds are slightly more advanced than Archaeopteryx, especially in characters of the vertebrae, sternum, and wing bones.


Sapeornis [Zhou and Zhang 2003], Omnivoropteryx, and confuciusornithids (e.g. Confuciusornis and Changchengornis) [Chiappe et al. 1999]. The first birds to possess large pygostyles (bone formed from fused tail vertebrae). Other new bird-like characters include seven sacral vertebrae, a sternum with a keel (some species), and a reversed hallux (hind toe).


Enantiornithines, including at least 19 species of primitive birds such as Sinornis [Sereno and Rao 1992; Sereno et al. 2002], Gobipteryx [Chiappe et al. 2001] and Protopteryx [Zhang and Zhou 2000]. Several birdlike features appeared in enantiornithines, including twelve or fewer dorsal vertebrae, a narrow V-shaped furcula (wishbone), and reduction in wing digit bones.


Patagopteryx, Apsaravis and yanornithids [Chiappe 2002; Clarke and Norell 2002]. More birdlike features appeared in this group, such as changes to vertebrae and development of the sternal keel.


Hesperornis, Ichthyornis, Gansus and Limenavis. These birds are almost as advanced as modern species. New features include loss of most teeth and changes to leg bones.

Mesonychids to whales

Pakicetus inachus: latest Early Eocene. [Gingerich et al. 1983; Thewissen and Hussain 1993]
Ambulocetus natans: Early to Middle Eocene, above Pakicetus. It had short front limbs and hind legs adapted for swimming; undulating its spine up and down helped its swimming. It apparently could walk on land as well as swim. [Thewissen et al. 1994]
Indocetus ramani: earliest Middle Eocene. [Gingerich et al. 1993]
Dorudon: The dominant cetacean of the late Eocene. Their tiny hind limbs were not involved in locomotion.
Basilosaurus: middle Eocene and younger. A fully aquatic whale with structurally complete legs [Gingerich et al. 1990]
an early baleen whale with its blowhole far forward and some structural features found in land animals but not later whales. [Stricherz 1998]

Tetrapods to Fish

A fossil shows eight bony fingers in the front fin of a lobed fish, showing that fingers developed before land-going tetrapods [Daeschler and Shubin 1998].


A Devonian humerus has features showing it belonged to an aquatic tetrapod which could push itself up with its forelimbs but could not move it limbs back and forth to walk [Shubin et al. 2004].


Acanthostega, a Devonian fossil, about 60 cm long, which probably lived in rivers [Coates 1996]. It had polydactyl limbs with no wrists or ankles [Coates and Clack 1990]. It was predominantly if not exclusively aquatic: it had fishlike internal gills [Coates and Clack 1991], and its limbs and spine could not support much weight. It also had a stapes and a lateral sensory system like fish.


Ichthyostega, a probably amphibious tetrapod from Devonian streams, about 1.5 m long. It had seven digits on its rear legs (its hands are unknown). Its limbs and spine were more robust than those of Acanthostega, and its rib cage was massive. It had fish-like spines on its tail, but fewer and smaller than Acanthostega's. Its skull had several primitive fish-like features, but it probably did not have internal gills. [Murphy 2002]


Tulerpeton, from estuarine deposits roughly the same age as Acanthostega and Ichthyostega, had 6 digits on its front limbs and seven on its rear limbs. Its shoulders were more robust than Acanthostega, suggesting it was somewhat less aquatic, and its skull appears to be closer to later Carboniferous amphibians than to Acanthostega or Ichthyostega.

Lobopods to arthropods

Anomalocaris, from the Cambrian and Precambrian, has a pair of segmented appendages, indicating arthropod affinities, but it also seems to have lobopod legs. The related Opabinia also apparently had lobopod legs. Other rare Cambrian and Precambrian fossils show some promise of shedding more light on relationships. For example, Spriggina, another Precambrian animal, has a head shield similar to trilobites. [Conway Morris 1998, 184-185]

From: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC200.html

[Simon]

You cited 5 people with whom I personally have a serious philosophical disagreement. That doesn't help your argument with me; at best, it's useless information; at worst, it's a straw man.

You broke rules 1 and 12 in every post so far, and you did it in a very specific way - you assume that I am a creationist, you assume that I think the earth is 6,000 years old, and you define paleontologists as eo ipso not creationists.. but if they are, they're aren't good ones; that makes you bigoted and ignorant. Go cry about it.

I want to ask you as an aside, how do you know that a "tiny minority" of paleontologists are "creationists"? But suppose that no paleontologists at this time; would that justify your claim that paleontologists are by definition not creationists? Would it justify the implication that Christians are not interested or qualified in doing science? Of course not, and this is what makes you a bigot and ignorant. I resent the claim and the implication, and it is proven to me once again that atheists and agnostics on who post messages on the Internet are, by and large, disrespectful and uninformed.

The three examples provided are pathetic.

You want to show that there are transitional forms, so your inclination is to point out that the fossil record contains organisms that can be placed in a progression suggesting gradual change. But that the fossil record contains organisms that can be placed in a progression suggesting gradual change does not mean that you’ve got transitional forms that are examples of one species evolving into another. In fact, most of the progressions you want to cite are the result from arbitrary picking and choosing among the totality of fossils. With millions of fossils to choose from, it is likely that some gradual progressions will be found.

As Dembski points out: "Such progressions invariably come from organisms with the same basic body plan. In the "evolution" of the horse, we are always dealing with horse-like organisms. And even with the "evolution" of reptiles into mammals, we are dealing with land-dwelling vertebrates sharing many common structures. What we don't see in the fossil record is animals with fundamentally different body plans evolving from a common ancestor. For instance, there is no fossil evidence whatsoever that insects and vertebrates share a common evolutionary ancestor. The challenge that here confronts evolution is not isolated but pervasive, and comes up most flagrantly in the Cambrian Explosion. In a very brief window of time during the geological period known as the Cambrian, virtually all the basic animal types appeared suddenly in the fossil record with no trace of evolutionary ancestors. The Cambrian Explosion so flies in the face of evolution that paleontologist Peter Ward wrote, "If ever there was evidence suggesting Divine Creation, surely the Precambrian and Cambrian transition, known from numerous localities across the face of the earth, is it." Note that Ward is not a creationist.

Evolutionists sometimes argue that the necessary transitional fossils are there but haven't been found or that they've all been destroyed. But this is wishful thinking. The challenge of the fossil record that Darwin identified 150 years ago has not gone away."

And here is where we come to what Stephen Jay Gould said, one of the foremost spokesman of evolution in the last century: "The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils."

The question then is whether this inference is reasonable at all.

[Jose]

Ah, what fun! I really like the transitional fossil argument. The creationist always wins. Here's how the conversation goes:

Me: I have fossils 1 and 100, and suspect that 1 is an ancestor of 100.
YEC: But you have no transitional fossils! You have no proof.

Me: I have found fossil 50. This provides support for the idea that 1 is an ancestor of 100.
YEC: But you have no transitional fossils! You have no proof.

Me: I have found fossils 25 and 75. This provides support for the idea that 1 is an ancestor of 100.
YEC: But you have no transitional fossils! You have no proof.

Me: I have found fossils 12 and 37 and 68 and 83. This provides support for the idea that 1 is an ancestor of 100.
YEC: But you have no transitional fossils! You have no proof.

Me: I have found fossils 6 and 19 and 42 and 57 and 79 and 94. This provides support for the idea that 1 is an ancestor of 100.
YEC: But you have no transitional fossils! You have no proof.

Me: I have found fossils 1.1, 1.2, 1.237, 1.238, ... 99.95, 99.999, 99.9991...

and so it goes, forever. It's really a cute strategy.

As has been said, we've found gagillions of fossils since Darwin made his comment. We've found many since Gould lamented the same problem, although in terms of rarity rather than absence. For those who have followed the literature, it has been very exciting. But are any of them transitional fossils, or are they just examples of the genetic variation that existed at the time? Or are they both?

Eventually, we're up against what a transitional fossil really is. We're up against the actual biology of how evolution works. Genetics and mutation can produce changes only in specific ways, as dictated by the molecular mechanisms. The transitional fossils must look the way these mechanisms make them look. Perfessor said it correctly:

how do you define a transitional fossil? What would you expect one to look like? I think, Simon, we really need to hear your answer to this question. Otherwise, we can't answer your question about them.

[Simon]

I'm not a YEC.

You didn't respond to my previous post.

[Jose]

I'm not a YEC.

No problem. My imagined conversation applies to YECs. It may or may not apply to you...we'll have to see how the discussion goes. Nonetheless, it's a nifty argument. It's like trying to reach zero by taking some number and reiteratively dividing by two.

You didn't respond to my previous post.

I dunno...I responded to a sort of "mental average" of the preceding conversation. I reiterated the response that there are zillions of new fossils that were not available to Darwin. I can't address the question about transitional fossils until I know what you mean by the term. If I respond using my definition, we may end up talking about different things, which would not be at all productive.

The question then is whether this inference is reasonable at all.

Actually, Gould's statement that you quoted has been addressed in another post in another thread, but that's OK. As Gould went on to say, the inference is quite reasonable. In fact, it would be unreasonable to point to any particular individual fossil and say "I know this is the direct ancestor of X" because, after all, it might have been the direct ancestor's third cousin. There is plenty of reasoning that supports the "trees that adorn our textbooks," but that's really a different question than the one you raised in the initial post, which was about transitional fossils. This gets us back to the question that has been asked several times: what do you expect a transitional fossil to be? Once you can describe the characteristics by which you wouild recognize one, we can discuss whether none exist, or whether many have been found.

[Lotan]

You cited 5 people with whom I personally have a serious philosophical disagreement. That doesn't help your argument with me; at best, it's useless information; at worst, it's a straw man.

I disagree. If you feel that I am "so bigoted and ignorant as to imply that creationists are by definition excluded from the field of paleontology", then why should you cry when I defend myself by quoting 'creationist paleontologists' who so effectively exclude themselves? If you don't like the examples that I have provided, why don't you suggest someone with whom you do not have "a serious philosophical disagreement"? It is hardly a useless distinction because, as you have failed to do, paleontologists define what is meant by 'transitional' fossils.

you assume that I am a creationist, you assume that I think the earth is 6,000 years old, and you define paleontologists as eo ipso not creationists.. but if they are, they're aren't good ones; that makes you bigoted and ignorant. Go cry about it.

If you're not a creationist, you do a good imitation. Who else uses the term 'Darwinist'? Since you quote Dembski it's possible that you are trying to argue an ID position. And of course there's that bit about "Darwin's bleak assessment...". Was that ripped from Dembski too?
I have no idea how old you think the earth is, nor have I implied as much, nor do I care.
If creationists didn't have their conclusions already written for them, they could be as good as any other scientists, I guess, but then they wouldn't be creationists anymore. The examples that I provided illustrate the problem pretty well.

I want to ask you as an aside, how do you know that a "tiny minority" of paleontologists are "creationists"?

I don't really. I kind of took that for granted. Feel free to prove me wrong. As a consolation prize here's The Paleontological Society Position Statement on Evolution:
"Evolution is both a scientific fact and a scientific theory. Evolution is a fact in the sense that life has changed through time. In nature today, the characteristics of species are changing, and new species are arising. The fossil record is the primary factual evidence for evolution in times past, and evolution is well documented by further evidence from other scientific disciplines, including comparative anatomy, biogeography, genetics, molecular biology, and studies of viral and bacterial diseases. Evolution is also a theory – an explanation for the observed changes in life through Earth history that has been tested numerous times and repeatedly confirmed."

Would it justify the implication that Christians are not interested or qualified in doing science? Of course not, and this is what makes you a bigot and ignorant.

Not all Christians, that's for sure. But then, I never said that, did I?

I resent the claim and the implication, and it is proven to me once again that atheists and agnostics on who post messages on the Internet are, by and large, disrespectful and uninformed.

Yes. I am a disrespectful, uninformed, ignorant, bigot. At least I'm not a hypocrite. Does your pastor know that you speak to people this way?

The three examples provided are pathetic.

At least it's not me this time. Would you like to explain why you think they're pathetic? They all fit the criteria you requested:

The questions remain, What new fossil finds, if any, have occurred since Darwin wrote these words nearly 150 years ago? Do they overturn Darwin's bleak assessment of evolutionary theory? If the absence of intermediate fossil forms holds as much today as it did back then, why should anyone accept evolution?

This argument is flawed anyway. Darwin's assessment wasn't 'bleak' when he wrote it (even less so today) and there is no 'absence of intermediate fossil forms'. Anyone who chose not to 'accept' evolution on this basis would be in error.

The question then is whether this inference is reasonable at all.

This time I'll quote Gould:
"The supposed lack of intermediary forms in the fossil records remains the fundamental canard of current anti-evolutionists. Such transitional forms are scarce to be sure, and for two sets of 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 geological 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 "
Really, what this argument boils down to, is that you believe the bible more than you believe the paleontologists. A supposed lack of transitional fossils is just an excuse to justify your belief, contrary to the evidence at hand.

[Simon]

My beliefs regarding the fact that we have no evidene in the fossil record of one species evolving into another have to do with the fossil record, and have nothing to do with the Bible. It's funny how evolutionists are the ones who always bring the Bible into the conversation. Also, you keep referring to my church and my pastor. It's extememly disrespectful. You're implying that I'm not doing my thinking for myself. It is like me asking you, "Do you think your evolutionist father knows you speak to me this way?" This makes you not worth talking to. My conversation with you is over.

[Nyril]

My beliefs regarding the fact that

One or the other, not both.

It's funny how evolutionists are the ones who always bring the Bible into the conversation.

I don't know, you're the first person to bring it up. I mentioned the age of the Earth earlier in a discussion of YEC's without mentioning the bible, and someone else quoted an interview with a YEC in which it was mentioned, but it hasn't been brought up as a topic of debate...until now.

Also, you keep referring to my church and my pastor. It's extememly disrespectful. You're implying that I'm not doing my thinking for myself.

Well...In my honest opinion, I do believe that many people who post anti-evolution material have not taken the time to read it. Of those that read it, I feel that most of those failed to give it second thought (a la, 2nd Law of Therm argument, which even Answers In Gensis has asked people to stop using).

In that instance, I would suggest that those specific people are not thinking for themselves.

As for you personally...well, the 5 questions you posted have tilted me slightly in that direction. So, prove me wrong.