What is the missing link? scientists...?

Question

how would they (whoever "they" is) know that there is a missing link? what if there isnt? why do scientists or whoever have to make things so...i dont know, complicated, i guess. and make things out to be as complicated as it probably is?

~health_freak.com

Answer 1

WHEN we capture a BIGFOOT -we shall have a missing link -

Answer 2

Geoff G. gives an excellent example how evolution science works in that field. It starts from a preconceived idea that all living creatures evolved from "primitive" single cell life. All the fossil record was interpreted on this premise that was established without much scientific evidence. The main flaw in all this search of missing link is the belief that when we can observe micro evolution (adaptation) within families of species then this MUST be true also for macro evolution from one main family of living creatures to the other. (Invertebrate to vertebrate) Fact is that there is no evidence found for macro evolution. Therefore the search for the "missing links" - they simply do not exist. A lot was published in the popular science press in recent decades that missing links were found - but they were dismissed some years later - without much notice in the press.
Fact is that Darwinian macro evolution is a belief - shared by many. Almost 40% of the population believes that the evolution science knows the truth. The reason that still more than 60% of the educated population rejects Darwinian evolution as a fact is a result of a gross lack of proof from evolution science.
What also turns off many critical and thinking citizens is the unfair claim that evolution is proven science while creation is a myth or religious belief.
Fact is that macro evolution is a theory without convincing evidence and therefore a belief in a similar way as creationism.
But I believe in creation because the fossil record does not contradict creation.

Answer 3

Actually, the aim of science is to make things simpler, by exposing the underlying principles at work. Instead of dozens of random examples, we end up with a unified theory which describes many different situations.

In the early days of evolutionary theory, we had very limited data available: snapshots of ecosystems at very different times in the Earth's history. We'd see a fossil at point A and another fossil at point B, and hypothesize an intermediate form which should be found at a time intermediate between the two; this was called a "missing link".

As palaeontology advanced, more snapshots of different time periods became available, and many of these "missing links" were found; this was good confirmation that evolutionary theory was correct.

Nowadays, with a relatively complete fossil record available, there are very few "missing links" remaining, and evolutionary theory is thus well established. This is for two reasons: it is a relatively simple hypothesis which explains virtually everything we have found in the fossil record, and secondly, its predictions of "missing links" have proven accurate, showing that it has valuable predictive power.

Answer 4

The concept of the 'missing link' comes about because of the incompleteness of the fossil record. Man shares many characteristics with apes. Birds share many characteristics with reptiles. Are they connected? If they are then there will be some link between them, as species don't diverge overnight, so we go looking for it. This is the very essence of science: Make observations, form a hypothesis, then set out to test that hypothesis.

Of course, the link discovered then requires links either side to complete the story, and so on forever, but that's real science. It's not complicated, it's fundamental.

Answer 5

they think that there is a missing link but they are not sure... and they start to collect all the evidence they can find to proove it and they try to find the missing link

Missing link is all about what they think would make more sense.
It is just like a story...if you forget one part of story the story starts to look incomplete... it just the same thing but the same idea is used in Science in more modefied way...

Hope this definition helps you!!! :))))

Answer 6

What's complicated about it? There is no one "missing link". Lots of links have already been found. Since the chances of an organism being fossilised are remote, the full spectrum of "links" will probably never be found.

Answer 7

Scientist are working very hard in this area but George Bush believes in intelligent design and refuses to support this total nonsense...james h

Answer 8

robin williams