THE ABSENCE OF TRANSITIONAL FOSSILS

Transitional fossils, often called missing links, should be found in the fossil record. These forms should document the gradual evolution between the various species and phyla (reptiles, amphibians, fish, mammals). However, many claim that they are non-existent. For example, David B. Kitts of the School of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Oklahoma wrote:

• Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them…" (Thompson B and Harrub B, eds. Apologetics Press, n.d. Accessed October 21, 2008)

Many evolutionists have gone on record to agree with this assessment.

• David Raup, who was the curator of geology at the museum holding the world's largest fossil collection (the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago), observed: "[Darwin] was embarrassed by the fossil record because it didn't look the way he predicted it would.... Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin, and knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much.... [W]e have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time." (David M. Raup, "Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology," Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin 50 (January 1979): 22-23, 24-25)

• One of the most famous proponents of evolution was the late Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. But Gould admitted, "The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life’s history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection, we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study. In a 1977 paper titled "The Return of Hopeful Monsters", Gould wrote: "All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt."

• The senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History, Dr. Colin Patterson, put it this way: "Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils." (CreationWiki)

Anthropologist Edmund Ronald Leach claimed that:

• Missing links in the sequence of fossil evidence were a worry to Darwin. He felt sure they would eventually turn up, but they are still missing and seem likely to remain so. ("Still Missing After All These Years." Evolution is Dead!, 2008 Accessed October 21, 2008.)

If one species descended from a parent species, a necessarily gradual process, we should be able to observe among the living species a gradual evolutionary continuum, and an entire array of transitional forms between cats, dogs, and cows. However, we do not! Even in the fossil record, we find no evidence of this. Evolutionist Michael Denton stated:

• It is still, as it was in Darwin's day, overwhelmingly true that the first representatives of all the major classes of organisms known to biology are already highly characteristic of their class when they make their initial appearance in the fossil record. This phenomenon is particularly obvious in the case of the invertebrate fossil record. At its first appearance in the ancient paleozoic seas, invertebrate life was already divided into practically all the major groups with which we are familiar today. (Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, 3rd rev. ed. Adler & Adler. 1986, p. 162)

The absence of transitional forms is a very contentious issue. Understandably, evolutionists claim that there are transitional fossils. However, this assessment is based on their presuppositions and willingness to identify transitional forms where these forms might simply represent entirely different and unrelated species:

·       They are based on a comparison of selected parts, while often ignoring bigger differences. Sometimes the various types are represented only by fragmented fossil evidence. Often they will use what are called cousins when they can not find a fossil in the right place to be able to call it an ancestor. The gaps recognized by evolutionists are often at critical parts in the fossil record. (CreationWiki)

Jonathan Sarfati adds:

·       "Many of the alleged transitional forms are based on fragmentary remains, which are therefore open to several interpretations, based on one’s axioms. Evolutionary bias means that such remains are often likely to be interpreted as transitional, as with Gingerich, and is also prevalent in ape-man claims. But when more bones are discovered, then the fossils nearly always fit one type or another, and are no longer plausible as transitional. It’s also notable that alleged intermediate forms are often trumpeted in the media, while retractions are usually muted or unpublicized." (Sarfati, Jonathan. Refuting Evolution, Greenforest AR: Master Books, 2002. (p136-137)

As serious evolutions are voicing severe doubts with the theory of evolution, the church is adopting what is still mainstream in a vain attempt to reach their culture. The church has routinely resorted to this self-defeating strategy, having adopted geo-centrism and the “steady state” theory of an eternal universe in accordance with the science of their day. By pandering to our culture, the church has rejected our glorious and prophetic calling to be the light.