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comment by b_b
b_b  ·  4528 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The Dangers of Creationism
There are several great examples of transitionary fossils. The two really famous ones are Archaeopteryx and Tiktaalik, the former a dinosaur-bird transition and the latter a fish-amphibian transition.

There are several reasons that transitional fossils are rare. Firstly, the chance of any organism being fossilized is small, given that the conditions need to be perfect for fossilization to occur. Second, once fossilized, the fossils need to be found, which is problematic, because this requires old rock getting pushed up near the surface in many cases, and then not, say, being under the ocean.

Furthermore, evolutionary transitions appear to happen relatively quickly (in geologic/evolutionary terms). This is due to the stability of ecological niches. It seems that transitions occur most readily when there is some disruption to the niche, which may happen because of a rare event such as a major volcano, asteroid impact, major river system being diverted, etc. In the mean time, it seems that slow genetic drift is dominant, which doesn't allow for radically different organisms to appear. Therefore, finding transitions is a rarity within a rarity.

If you are interested to learn more, I would suggest picking up Gould's Full House. Its a masterfully written and easy to understand book about why and how evolution occurs.





cgod  ·  4527 days ago  ·  link  ·  
But they are really going to need a direct line from bacteria to rottweiler to be satisfied, sorry.

Even if we have good transitional fossils for modern man they will insist that evolution is real and it happened by Gods hand and insist on teaching this as a fact in science classes. Despite the fact that I plan on teaching my daughter the most common bible stories (as a matter of cultural literacy, just like I'll read Shakespeare with her) I don't want her to be indoctrinated by others in what she should believe spiritually. It's sad, but really there is no evidence that will convince others that they shouldn't impose their spiritual belifes, this includes those of us that believe in science.

b_b  ·  4527 days ago  ·  link  ·  
You may be right, but the post specifically said they wanted to learn more. Otherwise, I wouldn't even tread into this kind of debate.