What would be an acceptable missing link so we can stop this evolution argument for good?

Question

Several types of hominids have been found, but no DNA can be extracted from fossils. Countless amounts of evidence that spread throughout all branches of science ALL show evolution to be truthful. So what is the magic bullet that it would take for the die-hard fundie to actually consider evolution as truth?

Answer 1

God would have to come down and explain to them.

Answer 2

Are you kidding? If you had the missing link on David Letterman, and he jumped up and down on his couch, the fundies still wouldn't believe it. But, they have no trouble believing in a 2000 year old book of myths and fables. Even Archaeologists have given up calling it Biblical Archeology, and have renamed it Mideastern Archeology. Why? because so many of the stories from the Bible don't check out. Case in point, Jericho was at best a small village and probably was totally uninhabited during the time of Joshua. There is also strong evidence that Joshua didn't exist. Why, is it so hard to realize that the whole Biblical tale took place in a country smaller than most of our states?. That the maximum population of Jerusalem in the first century was on the order of a few hundred thousand people. Compared with a modern city like L.A. it doesn't even make a decent suburb. Here we are 2000 years later still going on about this. If the Bible has just one mistake or contradiction, it invalidates all of it. We have no way of proofing any of it. It is full of mistakes and contradictions. How then can it be the word of God? He is supposed to be a perfect being, how can a perfect being make a mistake?

Answer 3

This is for Missy:
Good question, and it is easy to answer.
When an animal (or a human) dies, everything is recycled, including the bones. Everything is eaten, by various animals, insects and germs. Whales, for instance, slowly sink to the bottom and are consumed entirely (including the skeleton) within a few years. Otherwise, as you say, we'd be standing on mountains of bones. For an animal to be preserved, it has to be fossilized (which is essentially a mineralized casting of it), which is very unlikely to happen.

As for transitional fossils, there is no such thing. Every animal that ever existed was a complete creature in its own right, belonging to a species that existed back then. Only in hindsight can we define how it progressed from one species to another.

You have to ask yourself, what would a billion-year earth look like? Dusty? Worn down? It *is* worn down, but volcanic activity and tectonic plates moving creates new mountain ranges while life and the elements slowly wear them down. For instance, the Grand Canyon has slowly been created by a river flowing over hard rock. This is a process that requires a *lot* more than 6,000 years.

You also need to check out carbon dating. It actually works very well, and it is used in conjuction with other ways of determining age. People sometimes screw it up, but scientists are humans too.

Answer 4

I don't think any amount of evidence can convince a diehard fundie, because they have vested so much of their life in faith. Psychologically it would be devastating to realize that it was all just a delusion. Anytime a so-called missing link is found (and btw, evolutionists don't use that term, only creationists) the fundies want to see the missing link between it and the next..and so on.

The irony of it, is that there is nothing at all in evolutionary theory that says "god doesn't exist". Many religious types accept that evolution could well have been "god's way"

Answer 5

I think the evidence is there already to support that evolution has happened, and is still happening today.
In my opinion, the best way to get people to accept the argument for evolution is to somehow get them to accept a less literal interpretation of the bible. Instead of the earth being created in six days, with all the animals and humans created out of dust, god used evolution as a tool to bring abouth the creatures he wanted. Maybe he just told the prophets a simpler version that they could understand without any scientific knowledge.

Answer 6

I usually try to stay out of this debate, because I'm not well-studied on these issues. However, I find your question incredibly intriguing, and I'd like to add my 2 cents.

For me to be persuaded, it would have to be more than one isolated missing-link skeleton; it would have to be tons of them. How is it, if the earth is old, that so many billions of upright-walkers have existed, yet we're not standing on mountains of skeletons? I'm not criticizing you; I'm asking a legitimate question (in the answer section, aren't I smart). And of the skeletons we do have, they're pretty much one species or another -- there aren't a lot of transitional fossils out there. For me to believe the earth is billions of years old, I'd like for it to look billions of years old. And carbon-dating doesn't count.

*** Thanks for addressing my question, ThePeter.

Answer 7

You could walk in with the entire sucession of evolution and they still wouldn't buy it. Look at the record we have already

Answer 8

By definition, there is none. Fundamentalists are committed to literal reading of the creation story.

Answer 9

I don't believe any will ever suffice, as they will always claim that there is a link missing between what we know and what we have just found.

Of course, this while insisting in the "proven" existence of their invisible friend...

Answer 10

God to retroactively edit the bible and include a chapter on evolution.

Answer 11

If the wombat is proven to be the Mother of all homo sapiens.