If things evolved and it took millions, billions of years for things to evolve, where are the transitional...?

Question

How many different transitional forms would have had to occur during these millions, billions of years of evolution? Are there any fossils or any evidence to support any transitional forms?

Three hostile answers so far...LOL...let's just say I am studying evolution and am curious to know.

Answer #4 gives me 3 web sites that have nothing to do with providing proof of transitional forms...Is there anybody that can help me understand. Is there anybody wise in the field of evolution?

Opinions!!!.....all I have gotten so far is opinions...no more opinions. I seriously want to learn where I can find these evidences transitional forms.

Answer 1

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/lines/IAtransitional.shtml

Answer 2

You actually have gotten some pretty good answers, including references to molecular as well as whole-body fossil evidence for evolution. The point is that transitional forms do not always exist, some live at the same time as species that formed from the transitional ones (because they are now in different environments...which is what allowed the speciation to proceed in the first place), but most may die out without a good fossil record. Remember, it is very difficult to get good fossils in a planet like ours with an eroding and reforming crust...it is actually pretty amazing we have found the clear lineages we have. The presence or absence of clear transitional forms in the fossil record is not at all required to show relatedness among groups and evolutionary pathways...they help...but not required.

Answer 3

Where are the records or fossils of things we remember because of recorded history to have existed? Sometimes they get wiped away by catastrophic events such as flood, quakes, volcanic activity. Some million year old fossils are still there untouched while fossils of stuff written about is completely gone. A chain of evolution can be shown by the empirical evidence from the observable fossil record. Maybe a couple steps are missing, but any educated person can see what the sequence should be. We know that cars of today evolved because the needs of people changed from the very first automobiles, but not every intervening model is still in existence. Species have adapted because of needs to survive in their respective environments, even if each and every example isn't available in fossil form. If one STILL wants to prove a divine creator, then a better question to ask instead of how we got to be like we are today would be to ask just what makes some combinations of the chemical elements have "life" while other combinations of the very same elements don't.

Answer 4

If you could accept the first species to walk on land, this monumental/extraordinary transitional fossil was unearthed a few years ago and published in Nature, so you can read about it here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2089873.stm

There are thousands more if you take the time to look using something as simple as a google search. Here is link to Talk Origins, it contain a non-comprehensive but very impressive list of transitional fossils.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html

Just copy and paste into your web browser, hit enter. Then go to Contents Part I in the middle of page and click on each of the links from 2 to 9 to read about the many transitional fossils with explanations (references are on the main page at #16). Then to read about the mammalian transitional fossils go back to the main page and look at Contents Part II. Follow each of the links for 1 through 14 to learn about these important transitional fossils (hundreds) and also to get some perspective. REMEMBER, on the main page there is a link to references so there is no excuse for you to not examine the sources to satisfy your own skepticism.

Here's an opinion for you too; considering how likely it is for anyone to find a particular "transitional fossil" that survived relatively intact for tens or hundreds of millions of years of geologic processes without being sure where to look, I find it amazing that so many have been found.

If you have any questions about this post please put them up, I would be happy to reply to all of them. However, I can't force you to take the time to read up on the sources provided or even know definitively if you went to these sites which have specifically the answers you are seeking. This is up to you and will come across any reply you post. Be warned. Be forewarned.

Answer 5

yes your question is right. IF the concept of evolution is right and if it is a slow moving process, then all living forms are transitional forms. Even the current human form could be a transitional form, for we see that people "change" generation after generation, "physically". I narrate an example. While doing breeding experiments with silkworms (Bombyx mori), we used to cut open the cocoons to fecilitate easy emergence of the moth from the cocoon shell, which is used as a parent for breeding. After a few generations we could see that the experimental animals gradually loose the ability to pierce the cocoon shell on their own. I think the nature is a great economiser. For a few generations if the animal could manage without piercing the shell, why waste precious resources on the enzymes which dissolve the "silk shell"? I hope you got my point.

Answer 6

There are numerous transitional fossils, showing a wide variety of intermediate forms. No transitional fossils are required. fossilization is a rare event. The definition of a transitional form is vague, as every living thing is an imperfect copy of its parent(s). In general, it refers to forms between major groups. That said, of the vast amounts of creatures that ever lived, perhaps one in a billion qualify as transitional. That does leave well over a trillion. Of course, that same rare fraction is comparable to those that leave fossils. The thousands of known transitional fossils that have been found paint a strong picture of evolution.

Answer 7

Transitional forms have been demonstrated in the fossil record. All organisms that didn't go extinct are transitional to other forms. It is ignorance of the basics of biology to assert otherwise. Transitional forms don't exist as a means to get to something else. Rather existing forms use what is available to create what is needed to solve whatever environmental pressure dictates. It is driven by selection of the most fit animals. Transitional forms must be able to survive existing conditions and should be thought of in terms of specific features or it becomes a bit complicated to understand and explain.

Answer 8

We now speak of transitional features and we have many of them and more coming on line all the time. The molecular genetics evidence is just as, or more powerful than the fossil evidence. I could go on all night about the lines of corroborating evidence in support of evolutionary theory, but I am going to bed. So, go here.

http://www.talkorigins.org

http://www.aboutdarwin.com

http://www.accessexelence.org

You are being disingenuous, as the first web site alone has much on transitional forms. You are wasting our and your time.

It is rather obvious that you do not know opinion from your a**. Why don't you go back to religion and spirituality, where you belong. Evidence trumps opinion and your ignorant assertions do not change that.

Answer 9

watch the old pictures of dogs.. you will recognize the transition forms leading to modern dog breeds.

the fossil evidence is sparse, we only have the solid tissues to work with - the bones and body imprints, occasionally. most of the mammal evolution is based on TEETH comparisons.
Most of the so called "transitional" species, who in fact were the end-of-evolution species by their time simply left no fossil evidence.

sources cited are part of" sources cited" from Rocek, Z. History of vertebrata, ISBN80-200-0858-6
these are in English the History is in czech. Do your best.

The dolphins and whales have documented transition forms.
further more scout any study on pachyderms - mamooths, deinotheridae, etc. plenty of the transition forms, too.

Answer 10

Let me try a question on you. You started out in kindergarten doing little scribbles and an occasional capital letter. Then you transitioned to first grade and could write all those letters including lower case ones. Then you transitioned through the grades to high school where you have learned enough to consider yourself quite smart.

Where are all those homework papers that represented all those stages in the transitions? Surely they are all around somewhere in case someone wants to question whether they existed. If you can't find them all during those dozen years what are the chances that billions of years of things transitioning will be found to satisfy you?

Answer 11

Yes, scientists have found numerous skeletal remains of transitional species which exhibit ape-like and human-like qualities in varying degrees. Carbon dating establishes which species appeared at which times, allowing us to view a rough chain of events of our evolutionary past. Of note is that some of these transitional species do not in fact lead from ape-man but are infact evolutionary dead ends where a species died out rather than continuing the process of adaptation and change in response to the environment around them.

That's merely for humans, who have existed in ever changing environments and have continued to adapt, though mostly on a minor scale as of late. Other species continue to reside in the same habitats they lived in and have not undergone any more evolution. This explains why many species that have been around for millions or thousands of years continue to be around today. Evolution is adaptation to a changing environment, and with no change comes no real evolution.

Sadly, many transitionary forms are lost to the ages due to lack of preservation when they died. Not all creatures that die become fossilized, so it is very likely we will never fully be able to understand the complete genetic history of our (or any) species.