Can someone explain the missing link?

Question

I understand that there are no fossil records covering certain periods so there is no physical proof of an evolutionary transition occuring. But over what period(s) is this? Is this missing period over thousand or millions of years. How significant is it. Do we go from looking like an ape to then suddenly appearing as a homosapien?

Answer 1

There is no "missing link." This is a completely false concept promoted by creationists, and based on complete (and deliberate) misrepresentation of evolutionary theory, and of the fossil record. It has no scientific validity at all.

Here is a good summary of the human fossil record (including a timeline).
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/species.html

It's dangerous to try and understand 7 million years of evolution from a single picture ... but there are a few things you can note from the timeline at the bottom:

1. Evolution is not a *chain* (with "links") ... it is a constantly branching *bush*. It is not always clear at first when we discover a new fossil in a deeper (older) layer of the fossil record, whether it is an *ancestor* to another species, or another *branch* (a "cousin"). That's why species overlap. But the picture becomes more an more clear, as we find more and more fossils. It's a giant jigsaw puzzle ... but the picture it tells is quite clear ... and getting clearer all the time.

2. There are no significant "gaps" in the evolutionary record of humans in the last 4 to 5 million years.

3. Images like these don't do justice to the details of the fossil record. For example, the species Ardipithecus ramidus is shown spanning only as far back as about 4.6 million years, but if you read the text description, we have specimens going back as far as 5.8 million years ... so that "gap" between Orrorin and Ardipithecus is due to the illustrator's hesitance to include fossils that are still being debated (as to whether they are the same or a different species).

4. If you look at the fossil record *AS A WHOLE* the patterns of evolutionary development become clear. (Evidence of incremental bipedalism and increase in cranium size as we work forward in the fossil record.) Creationists would have you believe that a single "gap" invalidates the entire record. "There is NO evidence." "There are NO transitional forms." "Where's the 'missing link'?" Such comments could only come from people who have never actually *looked* at the fossil record for more than five seconds.

In short, fossil experts quite readily admit to when they do and do not have fossils. But creationists try to expolit that honesty by focusing *entirely* on the gaps, never on the *WHOLE PICTURE*.

When scientists say "We know about species A B C D ... F G ... but we're still looking at the fragmentary evidence of E (is it a new species or a subspecies of D or F?)" ... the creationists go "Aha! Those scientists can't explain the "gap" between D and F ... so all of evolution must be a LIE!!!" This is either complete deliberate deceit, or complete ignorance of how paleontology works!

... and let's not forget

5. EVEN IF NOT A *SINGLE* FOSSIL HAD EVER BEEN FOUND, the evidence of human evolution is *UNDENIABLE*. The evidence from DNA *alone* solidifies the knowledge that humans are related by common ancestry to all other primates, and all primates to all mammals, and all mammals to all living organisms.

There is no "missing link."

Answer 2

The missing link is a concept, just that. It is an organism that shares the qualities of 2 groups of living beings, generally something like sea-mammals and terrestrial mammals, or vertebrates and invertebrates. It can be plants, animals, any living thing.

Because it is just a concept, the period of time in which the missing link is considered to have lived, varies, and is not determined in periods of time or years. It is only referred to as time. Also, the missing link is more or less the same as saying the missing fossil, but not necessarily so. The missing link can be a found and studied fossil, like Archaeopteryx. Archaeopteryx was first considered as the missing link between dinosaurs and birds, and is now considered to be the first bird.

So, some missing links are not found fossils, some are found and researched fossils and some cease to be called missing links.

Answer 3

Chas_Cha.. has got it absolutely RIGHT, and the rest of you who support, with such 'blind faith', the theory of evolution, are hopelessly wrong, and I'm NOT a creationist, nor any other religionist.
I find it really amazing that so many, seemingly intelligent people still cling "religiously", even "cultishly", to the unfounded, unproven 'suggestion' for the "goo to you" origin of mankind. There is not one single shred of fossil evidence, out of the massive abundance so far discovered, that supports, UNEQUIVOCALLY, the theory of evolution. The evidence, thought provoking that is undoubtedly is, instead, points to the fact that every single species of man, animal, fish or plant is now, and always has been, totally separate from from each other. The whole situation needs to be addressed from a completely new angle, using the actual and factual evidence available, and dropping the now unacceptable, "theories".

Answer 4

> Do we go from looking like an ape to then suddenly appearing as a homosapien?
We're classified as "great apes." I don't know about you, but I look a lot like an ape. When I go to the zoo, the chimpanzees point at me and laugh. They recognize me as a distant relative, albeit hideously deformed.

Read about great apes here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominidae

==
If you want to look for missing fossils, go back a bit further, to about 500 million years ago, prior to the so-called "Cambrian Explosion." We don't have a lot of good fossils from multicellular critters before then; some "small shelly fauna." Bring your microscope.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian_explosion

Answer 5

It is not true to say that because there isn't a specific fossil record, that there is no proof that an evoluationary transition has occured.

If I look at your family photo album, I might find a picture of you when you at say two months, four months, ten months, two years, seven years, thirteen years, etc. That is evidence that you grew up fairly gradually over those thirteen years.

The fact that I don't have a picture of you between seven and thirteen does not mean that you 'suddenly' grew a foot and a half at age nine and a half. You could have, but logic says that if I take pictures spread over your life and you don't look the same in any two pictures, chances are you not doubling in size over-night. In order to prove that I would need to find a picture of you at nine and ten with you doubling in size at ten.

In addition, pictures of you in the photo album might not show all of you in each picture. I might only see a head in one, a body shot in another, etc. I might have to look at different aspects of the pictures to see if they are both of you. Finally, the album might contain pictures of your siblings or cousins. I am the not sure if I'm looking at a picture of you or of your sibling -- especially if I don't have a lot of other pictures of your siblings or full pictures of them -- say the head.

The fossil record is pretty much the same. There is always some period of time for which we do not have a fossil for a specific species. All you have to do is pick any specific year and chances are we can't find a fossil it -- same as your family photo album.

However, we do have early human fossils going back a long way. Modern humans to 100,000 years, archaic homo (up to 1.5 million), homo erectus (1.5-2 million), and homo habilis (2 million). There are hundreds of fossils over this period of time, so it is fairly evident that these species evolved from each other.

Beyond that we get into issues of whether the species is related to homo habilis. Was australopithecines (Lucy) an ancestor of homo habilis? We don't know. Using the photo album analogy, I find a picture which looks like you in some ways, but has the wrong hair color. Well, it could be a picture of one of your siblings?

As we go back further and further in the fossil record, we get more siblings, cousins, and other relations. The debate isn't whether we have fossils showing various earlier forms, it is whether that form became homo sapiens. Imagine a number of folks looking at your family album and you have lots of pictures of siblings and cousins in the same album. The debate isn't that the pictures do not show various folks growing up, but is a specific picture showing you growing up?

Answer 6

Evolution is pretty much proven nowadays, but this isn't an argument I feel like getting into on a Saturday afternoon. However the concept doesn't state that we evolved from apes, just that we would have shared a common ancestor with them.

Answer 7

You are correct - the fossils do not show evidence of transition from any type of animal to any other type of animal.
The evolutionary 'tree' so often seen in textbooks in fact consists only of leaves - the branches are made up by wishful thinking!

http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3832

There is absolutely no evidence that we have a comman ancestor with apes. this is evolutionary philosophy. Every hominid fossil found is neither human or ape - with nothing in between. History is full of examples of evolutionists foisting hoaxes and wishful thinking on us - Piltdown man, nebraska man, java Man, etc.
Even autralopithcus is still promoted as human like, with human feet and hands, when it is known that it had ape-like feet and hands.
Check an alternative point of view before believing you're a monkey :)
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3048/

Secretsauce is talking absolute nonsense. Of course evolution of man from ape is deniable - and many people do deny it. What is surprising is that so many people believe it in spite of the lack of evidence.

Answer 8

there's actually like 4 different stages of apes turning to man, I can't remember the name though. You should look it up because it's clearly defined in the transition, we wactched a discovery program on this in school and everything.

Answer 9

There is no proof of evolution. It remains just a theory. Nothing has been proven for species evolving into another. It has not been witnessed obviously, and it purely speculation.

The only missing links are the ones thatgo on my cuffs that I keep loosing.