"There are no links found"
1) Who told you that? Whoever they were, they were mistaken.

I told him that -- sort of.  I told him that the concept of "missing link" came
about in the early days of Anthropology when it was beleived that we descended
from Neanderthals.  I also told him that there are no significant gaps in the
fossil record such that a whole species needed to be found to make it make
sense... 
>
>That's just massively wrong, and the reply to this grotesque falsehood bears
>repeating as often as it gets promulgated.

Regardless of how false the "reply" is.

>Evolution requires that the vast bulk of all fossils
>should be intermediate forms.

No, Ted, *that* is massively wrong. Quotes have been provided from Gould,
Darwin, and others that clearly explain the falsehood of this claim of
yours. But you persist in spreading it.

>Every intelligent statement I have
>ever read on the subject refers to the lack of intermediate fossils as
>a major problem for evolution.

There is no "lack" of intermediate fossils. There isn't even a shortage.
Therefore, your alleged "problem" is pure vaporware.

>The only esception to this I have ever
>seen is the talk.origins FAQ. 

As well as several thousand books, papers, and articles on the subject.

>Stephen Gould, Eldredge, Mayr, and others have all been quoted to the effect
>that

  "I am absolutely delighted to report that our usually recalcitrant
  fossil record has come through in exemplary fashion. During the
  past fifteen years, new discoveries in Africa and Pakistan have
  added greatly to our paleontological knowledge of the earliest
  history of whales. The embarrassment of past absence has been
  replaced by a bounty of new evidence - and by the sweetest 
  series of transitional fossils an evolutionist could ever hope 
  to find. Truely we have met the enemy and he is now ours. Moreover,
  to add blessed insult to the creationist's injury, these 
  discoveries have arrived in a gradual and sequential fashion - a
  little bit at a time. step by step, from a tentative hint fifteen
  years ago to a remarkable smoking gun in 1994."

  "This sequential discovery of picture-perfect intermediacy in the
  evolution of whales stands as a triumph in the history of 
  paleontology. I cannot imagine a better tale for popular presentation
  of science or a more satisfying, and intellectually based,
  political victory over lingering creationist opposition."

  "The supposed lack of intermediary forms in the fossil record
  remains the fundamental cannard of current antievolutionists.
  Such transitional forms are scarce, 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 puncuated 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
  geneology."

  "Still our creationist incubi, who would never let facts spoil
  a favorite argument, refuse to yield, and continue to assert
  the absence of *all* transitional forms by ignoring those that
  have been found and continuing to taunt us with admittedly
  frequent examples of absence."

And let's not forget the most important:

  "It is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists--whether
  through design or stupidity, I do not know--as admitting that the fossil
  record includes no transitional forms.  Transitional forms are generally
  lacking at the species level but are abundant between larger groups.
  The evolution from reptiles to mammals ... is well documented.  Yet a
  pamphlet entitled 'Harvard Scientists Agree Evolution Is a Hoax' states:
  'The facts of punctuated equilibrium, which Gould and Eldredge ... are
  forcing Darwinists to swallow fit the picture that [William Jennings]
  Bryan insisted on and which God has revealed to us in the Bible.'"
   -- Stephen Jay Gould, _Discover_ magazine, May 1981, quoted in
      John R. Cole, "Misquoted Scientists Respond," _Creation/Evolution_
      issue 6, Fall 1981, p. 38
Russell Stewart   Albuquerque, New Mexico  diamond@rt66.com |
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