Here is a very interesting discussion of the various issues for YEC and TE science. I was the blue and I think Buck72 was the black. I think it covers a lot of the bases and I thought it would be a good topic starter for further discussion.
Coming in where the discussion got down to brass tacks:
If this were the case, then innumerable intermediate species should have lived during the immense period of time when these transformations were supposedly occurring.
Well, yes and no. There would never be a species which was simply a "transitional" or an "intermediate". Each species at a given point in time would be a complete species in and of itself. It is not species X, then a series of intermediates, then species Y. This is a common misconception about how evolution works.
For instance, there should have lived in the past some half-fish/half-reptile creatures which had acquired some reptilian traits in addition to the fish traits they already had. Or there should have existed some reptile/bird creatures, which had acquired some avian traits in addition to the reptilian traits they already possessed. Evolutionists refer to these imaginary creatures, which they believe to have lived in the past, as "transitional forms".
Well, no, they dont. We would definitely have species which showed traits of earlier forms and the beginnings of traits of later forms in the process, but each species along this progression would have every trait be something useful for itself. These forms would be transitional only in the relativistic sense if you picked two spots, one before and one after, you could then say the one in between shows the transition between the two. But no, we would not expect to see a species that we call a Transitional between two real species. In reality EVERY species in the fossil record is a transitional between the earlier forms and the later forms. And, yes, we do have tons of examples of fossils which show the transition between one form and another in a clear progression over time. Lucaspa has a good list of them, I will ask him to put it up.
If such animals had really existed, there would have been millions, even billions, of them. More importantly, the remains of these creatures should be present in the fossil record. The number of these transitional forms should have been even greater than that of present animal species, and their remains should be found all over the world. [discussion of Darwin clipped]
This shows a lack of understanding of the transitional issue. This is an example of how YECs make a mistake and then build a theory around it. Again, every species that has ever been found in the fossil record is, when viewed in evolutionary terms, a transition. So, they are found all over the world. The YECs are looking for something that evolution never says would exist.
The only explanation Darwin could come up with to counter this objection was the argument that the fossil record uncovered so far was inadequate. He asserted that when the fossil record had been studied in detail, the missing links would be found.
And they have been, although they are not really missing links as much as ongoing links in the extended chain. [long quote listing transitional species was placed here].
Believing in Darwin's prophecy, evolutionist paleontologists have been digging up fossils and searching for missing links all over the world since the middle of the 19th century. Despite their best efforts, no transitional forms have yet been uncovered.
Not true, again for the reasons listed above. They set up the strawman and knock it down. Scientists have not been looking for any "missing links" because evolution does not predict their existence. What we have found is numerous species showing transitions into other species. Given the extremely unlikely even that fossils will form, it is amazing that we have found as many as we have.
All the fossils unearthed in excavations have shown that, contrary to the beliefs of evolutionists, life appeared on earth all of a sudden and fully-formed.
Well, this is a flat out lie. The fossils show no such thing. The fossils show progression over time, and we have the evidence to prove it. I would assume you are talking about some quotes from scientists which have been taken out of context and presented for a proposition other than intended, and actually contrary to the conclusions of the speaker ("quote mining"). Ask any of the scientists who have made statements regarding "suddenness" whether he thinks evolution is correct and he will look at you oddly and wonder what you are talking about.
A famous British paleontologist, Derek V. Ager, admits this fact even though he is an evolutionist:
The point emerges that if we examine the fossil record in detail, whether at the level of orders or of species, we find-over and over again-not gradual evolution, but the sudden explosion of one group at the expense of another.
Sudden, in evolutionary terms, yes. This means hundreds of thousands of years. The pace of evolutionary change does indeed speed up as the pressures which cause evolution become greater, that is perfectly in accord with evolutionary theory. Another evolutionist paleontologist Mark Czarnecki comments as follows:
A major problem in proving the theory has been the fossil record; the imprints of vanished species preserved in the Earth's geological formations. This record has never revealed traces of Darwin's hypothetical intermediate variants - instead species appear and disappear abruptly, and this anomaly has fueled the creationist argument that each species was created by God.
True, and what is missing from this mine-quoting is his explanation of why the Creationists are wrong in this regard. As I explained above, YECs often do this, it is called "quote mining" and it is taking evolutionist quotes out of context and using them as sound-bites to support their own theories. Yes, some new species seem to arise more quickly than others and in doing so, leave less evidence of their immediate predecessors behind. Then a species which has become fairly well-established in its environmental niche may evolve VERY little over a long period of time, providing a LOT of fossils of this form. Then pressures change due to incoming population groups or weather, etc, and change is forced again, and again this happens in a relatively short period of time (relative to how long the "stabilized" form of the species had been around), etc.
In short, the fossil record is very much what they have expected to find, which is why these two gentlemen, along with the other 99.9% of the scientists in their field are still convinced that the theory is correct.
Again, a better explanation is as follows:
Although gradualism is generally considered the Darwinian view (and seemed to be the dominant view held by his successors), Darwin himself wrote of stasis and relatively rapid change as well as the likelihood of the fossil record tending to amplify the appearance of such.
It is a more important consideration . . . that the period during which each species underwent modification, though long as measured by years, was probably short in comparison with that during which it remained without undergoing any change. [Darwin, Ch. 10, "On the imperfection of the geological record," p. 428]
"It has been asserted over and over again, by writers who believe in the immutability of species, that geology yields no linking forms. This assertion, as we shall see in the next chapter, is certainly erroneous. As Sir J. Lubbock has remarked, "Every species is a link between other allied forms." If we take a genus having a score of species, recent and extinct, and destroy fourfifths of them, no one doubts that the remainder will stand much more distinct from each other. If the extreme forms in the genus happen to have been thus destroyed, the genus itself will stand more distinct from other allied genera. What geological research has not revealed, is the former existence of infinitely numerous gradations, as fine as existing varieties, connecting together nearly all existing and extinct species. But this ought not to be expected; yet this has been repeatedly advanced as a most serious objection against my views. [p. 428]
When we see a species first appearing in the middle of any formation, it would be rash in the extreme to infer that it had not elsewhere previously existed. So again, when we find a species disappearing before the last layers have been deposited, it would be equally rash to suppose that it then became extinct. We forget how small the area of Europe is compared with the rest of the world . . . when we see a species first appearing in any formation, the probability is that it only then first immigrated into that area. (p. 423)
". . . varieties are generally at first local; and that such local varieties do not spread widely and supplant their parent-form until they have been modified and perfected in some considerable degree. According to this view, the chance of discovering in a formation in any one country all the early stages of transition between any two forms is small, for the successive changes are supposed to have been local or confined to some one spot. (pp. 427-428) Once species are well-adapted to an environment, selective pressures tend to keep them that way. A change in the environment which would assert the selective pressure to change would tend to end the "stasis" (or lead to extinction).
These gaps in the fossil record cannot be explained by saying that sufficient fossils have not yet been found, but that they one day will be. Another American scholar, Robert Wesson, states in his 1991 book Beyond Natural Selection, that "the gaps in the fossil record are real and meaningful". He elaborates this claim in this way:
The gaps in the record are real, however. The absence of a record of any important branching is quite phenomenal. Species are usually static, or nearly so, for long periods, species seldom and genera never show evolution into new species or genera but replacement of one by another, and change is more or less abrupt.
Puncuated Equilibrium.
Life Emerged on Earth Suddenly and in Complex Forms
When terrestrial strata and the fossil record are examined, it is to be seen that all living organisms appeared simultaneously. The oldest stratum of the earth in which fossils of living creatures have been found is that of the Cambrian, which has an estimated age of 500-550 million years.
A full discussion of the Cambrian Explosion concept is found here, and I cant really improve upon it:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC300.html
