If evolution is true, why are there no transitional fossils?

Question

There are millions of fossils in our world. Why are there none that show a gill turning to lungs, a feather turning to legs ect?

Answer 1

Jeanmarie, your question is very reasonable, but misguided. There are *many* such fossils. I suspect your sources are to blame.

What would you expect such a fossil to look like? In other words, what makes you think no such thing exists? Or is it--again--just something you read?

As you may know, you have to be careful to consider the source if you really want to know the truth (about anything). Those who make that claim about fossils often have an agenda, and it's not scientific.

At best, they seek the truth but use sloppy reasoning. At worst, they're not interested in the truth; they seek to delude. I'm trying to be kind when I say they are--in a word--unreliable.

I've written my answer assuming you really do want to know, and aren't merely parroting what you've read elsewhere.

There is always a bit of detective work involved in determining what certain fossil features mean. If you were to look at one single frame of a movie you never saw, could you tell what action was taking place? Each fossil is like that -- a snapshot of one creature. So there will be no overt evidence of the changes taking place over time. That has to be deduced. Unfortunately, the body parts in the rocks don't come with labels as to their use and lineage. Uncritical thinkers and those who just don't want to know fail to see beyond their own humanly-limited perceptions of time. If the answers don't leap out at them from the rocks, they deem evolution to be ridiculous.

There is an abundance of fossils depicting features associated with more than one "Class" of animal (for example, a bird and a mammal, a fish and an amphibian) -- transitional fossils, as you put it. They've been finding them for years.

In fact, you can follow one or two of the links below to see news articles (the top one only two days old) which tell of another recently discovered one: a primitive fish "whose middle ear and limbs resemble those of land vertebrates," and "could be one of the missing links between fish and four-legged land vertebrates."

The Guardian article describes the find as, "the first complete evidence of an animal that was on the verge of the transition from water to land" and "one of the most important fossil finds in history: a missing link between fish and land animals, showing how creatures first walked out of the water and on to dry land..."

So the timing of your question is interesting.

Another part of the answer to your question is that fossils are rare, compared to the number of creatures that have lived. Most animals from the past left no record of their existence because fossils don't usually form from soft tissue such as muscle and internal organs, and cannot form at all unless the animal was buried by sediment. I'm impressed that we've found as many links in the chain as we have.

Also, nobody (especially a scientist) claims that science has all the answers about the *details* of evolution. But science is the *only* way to find out, and it has done a remarkable job, so far. We are learning about significant new pieces in the puzzle with amazing regularity.

Those who claim that evolution isn't proven do not understand science. It's that simple. Worse, to then claim that *their* beliefs are true because science hasn't yet been able to draw the entire picture, these people are hippocrits, to say the least, and illogical thinkers, as well.

Unlike evolution theory, the Intelligent Design ideas are untestable and unfalsifiable, meaning ID and creationism are NOT science. (Scientific theory is more than just a whim, or an idea. It is a body of reasoning and knowledge which has come to be the best accepted explanation for the available evidence. A scientific theory has stood up against any attempt to prove it false.) This common misunderstanding of the word 'theory' has been a handicap for the acceptance of evolution, by implying that even scientists don't accept it. They most certainly do.

The very fact that they don't *call* it a fact demonstrates beautifully how *careful* and rigorous the scientific method is... and why it is the best tool we have for uncovering the truth.

In contrast, the average person flings information around, carelessly, and *calls* it fact, despite it being nothing more than a vague memory, a feeling, or an opinion. (You see it here on Y!A all the time.)

Evolution is as close to fact as is the theory of gravity. Intelligent design "theory" (I don't wish to dignify it) is nothing more than wishful or hopeful thinking...based largely, I believe, on the personal agenda for convincing oneself of life everlasting. While certainly understandable, an agenda or bias of any kind is not the way to find the truth about anything.

In a nutshell, evolution theory is based on incomplete, but overwhelming evidence. ID is based on an idea -- period.

The debate about creationism and evolution will (sadly, I think) go on for decades. But I urge you to consider the sources in whatever research you do. Please don't ask a clergyman -- or a politician, such as Utah State Senator D. Chris Buttars -- for information about science.

In researching the answer to your question, I ran across Senator Buttars' naive and self-righteous comments in USA Today -- which you can find online but which were not worthy of a link. Why? Because he speaks about science from a gut feeling point of view, and from blatant ignorance. If science depended on people like him, we would still be living in the Middle Ages, dying of diseases (believed caused by evil spirits) in our forties, and exchanging this information by candelight and parchment paper.

Be careful even what you believe here. Science questions should ideally be answered by scientists.

Answer 2

Do you realize that it's not simply fossil evidence that constitute the strongest evidence for evolution? Even if we had not a single surviving fossil, ERVs (for example) would constitute rock-solid evidence for evolution. As does simple genetics. Then there's homology. Funnily, all of these different lines of evidence are strikingly consistent. Any theory that isn't evolutionary in nature has some gigantic hurdles to overcome. In any case, your assertion is false. There are plenty of transitional fossil for the elephant and have been lots since before I was born (and I'm no spring chicken). There are in fact some for the giraffe too. On the other hand, there will always be *some* creatures for which reasonably complete transitional fossil series don't exist. That's not in any way a problem for evolution, since we would never expect to have near complete series for *everything*. Fossilization and then the preservation of those fossils is far too rare a process for that. Your problem isn't that you might be able to find some creatures for which the evidence of transitional fossils is poor, it's that there are so many animals for which the evidence is fantastic. Or are you going to posit that ONLY those animals for which the transitional fossil series is a bit sketchy were created and all the rest evolved? And then as new fossils are discovered, you're going to take them back off god? No, I didn't think so - which means this is not an honest argument. You're asserting big fat creationist fibs and clutching at straws.

Answer 3

There are actually tons of transitional fossils. They've found fossils of species with both lungs and gills, fins and legs, etc. But each new transitional fossil is it's own species, so creationists always ask, were is the transitional fossil for that. It shows a lack of understanding on the subject.

Answer 4

Think about what you are saying. a gill turning into lungs? a gill doesn't just magically turn into lungs. Over millions of years, mutations take place which cause small changes. Those small changes add up to BIG changes over millions years.
Now for a good example of these small changes adding up to a big change google the word "fishapod" and you can read about a recent fossil discovery, part fish, with four legs and human-like wrists and primitive fingers.

Answer 5

Gills and lungs are internal soft tissue and do not fossilize. Feathers didn't evolve into legs; instead scales evolved into feathers. Again, these are relatively soft tissue, and although external, they would be difficult to fossilize. However, some examples have been found, such as described at the following website:

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s256326.htm

Answer 6

How exactly would that look in a fossil? My suggestion is you ask this in the science category to get the information you want. I'm not an archaelogist. Oh WAIT, you didn't really want an answer did you? Aren't you a clever one, nobody has ever asked a question just to make a point! You're a freakin genius.

hopefully you can pick up the sarcasm here

Answer 7

Not only are there transitional fossils there are complete fossil records of entire species showing the evolutionary changes they have undergone. This is just another creationist red herring I'm afraid.

Answer 8

Although I do not agree with Darwinian evolutionary theory, the fact is that the entirety of the fossil record represents far less than 1% of all the species that ever existed. Therefore, just because a so-called 'transitional' fossil has not been found means nothing.

Lack of evidence is not the same as evidence of lacking.

Answer 9

I've never understood this. You can find within the homo genus dozens of fossils showing a gradual process from one thing to another completely different thing.

What would a 'gill turning to lungs' look like exactly?

Answer 10

*sigh*
The major functional difference between the ancient, large amphibians and the first little reptiles is the amniotic egg. Additional differences include stronger legs and girdles, different vertebrae, and stronger jaw muscles. For more info, see Carroll (1988) and Gauthier et al. (in Benton, 1988)

Proterogyrinus or another early anthracosaur (late Mississippian) -- Classic labyrinthodont-amphibian skull and teeth, but with reptilian vertebrae, pelvis, humerus, and digits. Still has fish skull hinge. Amphibian ankle. 5-toed hand and a 2-3-4-5-3 (almost reptilian) phalangeal count.
Limnoscelis, Tseajaia (late Carboniferous) -- Amphibians apparently derived from the early anthracosaurs, but with additional reptilian features: structure of braincase, reptilian jaw muscle, expanded neural arches.
Solenodonsaurus (mid-Pennsylvanian) -- An incomplete fossil, apparently between the anthracosaurs and the cotylosaurs. Loss of palatal fangs, loss of lateral line on head, etc. Still just a single sacral vertebra, though.
Hylonomus, Paleothyris (early Pennsylvanian) -- These are protorothyrids, very early cotylosaurs (primitive reptiles). They were quite little, lizard-sized animals with amphibian-like skulls (amphibian pineal opening, dermal bone, etc.), shoulder, pelvis, & limbs, and intermediate teeth and vertebrae. Rest of skeleton reptilian, with reptilian jaw muscle, no palatal fangs, and spool-shaped vertebral centra. Probably no eardrum yet. Many of these new "reptilian" features are also seen in little amphibians (which also sometimes have direct-developing eggs laid on land), so perhaps these features just came along with the small body size of the first reptiles.