Snake with legs and other transitional species
 

Don't you love it when creationists say there aren't any transitional fossils? It's like their ultimate trump card. Lets entirely overlook the fact that they are unequivocally wrong. They can't be wrong! The more ardently one bolsters his ludicrous notions of the universe, the more veracious! The logic is infallible! How did I not see it before.

Bahh. I could rant on and on about what creationists do and have to say. The important point is, I'm sure you've all heard that distinctive strident shriek that only comes from the creationist basking in his self-confidence. Nothing seems to inflate a creationist's self-confidence like his transitional fossil drivel. Since most of us aren't walking encyclopedias, it's no wonder that we can't name transitional fossils off of our head.

Anyway, today BBC has an interesting article about a transitional species of the sort whose existence is vehemently denied by creationists. Essentially, what it describes is a snake with hind legs. The species is known as Eupodophis descouensi.

Here are a few more common transitionals you may want to familiarize yourself with if you're into that thing:

Indohyus
Archaeopteryx
Tiktaalik

There are plenty of others. Here's a list on wikipedia. Of particular interest may be transitional species to human development. Talkorigins has a great article on the evolutionary history of the whale. Talkorigins is a great site as it is. I would recommend browsing it if you haven't.

Anyway, I just wanted to highlight the BBC article, and reemphasize that creationists are pretty full of shit.

The issue isn't whether or not there are a few in-between species. If species evolved over millions of years, as you claim, there should be thousands upon thousands of fossils illustrating the complete line of evolution from one species to another. You're arguing that samples
A-----B-----C-----D
prove
AefghiBjklmnoCpqrstD
when to prove that, you have to produce all (or at least most) of the samples in-between. Since each step lasted hundreds of years and should have consisted of many animals, that shouldn't be too much to ask, no?

Most organisms will not fossilize. They are either consumed or decomposed. The fossilization of the carcasses of those who don't meet this grisly fate are then contingent on multiple geological and morphological factors. Almost perfect conditions must be met for a carcass to be fossilized. For instance, most fossils depict an organism with some hard parts. Furthermore, carcasses should be covered with sediment almost immediately. The fossil record will reflect these factors. The majority of fossils we have are species with hard parts that lived in an environment conducive to rapid burial. In other words, the majority of the fossils that we have are of near-shore marine organisms.

Also, we must be able to actually discover fossils. This only happens if the sedimentary rock containing it is at the Earth's surface. At any given time, you will only have access to a tiny fraction of the number of fossils that exist.
Lastly, the fossil must survive long enough to be discovered. Generally, that is tens or hundreds of millions of years. Considering the geological isolation of many species, along with the statistical rarity of being fossilized, and then surviving long enough to be discovered, it's a wonder that they the variety of fossils that they do.

And in contrast to your claim that there should be thousands upon thousands of fossils (of which there are . . . practically all fossils are transitional fossils), if we were created then there should be precisely 0 transitional forms.

Question: If humans evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?

I'm not sure if this is sarcasm or serious.

Spector: I think that these transitional species lived at the same time as the creatures they evolved from as well as the creatures that evolved from them. Let's take the Archaeopteryx, for example. It was around during the Jurassic Era, which was dominated by lizard-type dinosaurs, but I am pretty sure it was around during the time of the later species of birds as well. Monkeys and humans would follow this same pattern, except for the fact that we seem to have a nature for preserving the life of all species on the planet. Monkey's have been able to survive just as they are, because humans haven't interfered with their natural habitat enough to cause them to evolve to survive or just die off.

I hope that makes sense.

It's not quite accurate to say humans evolved from monkeys. Monkeys and humans share a geologically recent common ancestor. From this ancestor, monkeys have evolved just as much as humans have. It would be equally (in)correct for a monkey to say, if we evolved from humans, why are there still humans?

I don't really argue about religion anymore because it

a) Pisses people off
b) You find religious people don't need facts or evidence, it's faith based. It's like you're trying to argue a point in C++ while they're using PASCAL. I know it's not a good analogy but you get the point.

And I will say this and not much more on the subject. Science has theories on how we evolved. Religion says that we cannot understand such things, so we must attribute it to a higher creator. Which is effectivelly reiteration, because you can inquire indefinitely as to who created that, then who created that, then who created that, etc...

You'd be best not to openly argue about religion with someone even if they start the argument. Just usually be the bigger person and let them "know" they are right. Because this isn't the Middle East, and we can agree to disagree without killing one another. The only sad part is that as much as it shouldn't, religion plays an active role in our government (stem cell, abortion, etc...).

Wow. You used to be more militant than me. I'm a bit surprised, honestly.