Almost everything you quoted here is false.
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However, actual observations in nature have indicated that there is no such continuity as claimed.
On the contrary, all life uses almost identical cell processes. Humans share an astounding number of their genes with plants. All life uses DNA as the method of heredity. Even when you look at organs, there are similarities between species.
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Evolution is a process alleged to have taken place in the past,
No, it is seen to be ongoing.
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...and fossil discoveries are the only scientific source that can tell us about the history of life.
Not true, either. Studies of modern animals can tell us much about how they came about, how far two species are from a common ancestor...
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That being the case, countless numbers of "intermediate forms" must have emerged and lived over the long process of transition in question. And a few of them must certainly have been fossilized.
Yes, a few. Very few animals and plants ever get fossilized, for many reasons. However, what we do see in the fossil record is numerous transitional forms.
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For example, half-fish, half-amphibian creatures that still bore fish-like characteristics but which had also acquired certain amphibious features must have existed.
They did, we already found fossils of that.
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And reptile-birds with both reptilian and avian features must have emerged.
That has been found too.
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Since these creatures were in a process of transition, they must have been deformed, deficient and flawed.
Every single individual creature is part of that transition. What we are talking about are mostly small variations, not sudden monsterous mutants, although that could have happened from time to time.
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If any such living species really did exist, then they should number, in the millions, or even billions. Abundant traces of them should be found in the fossil record, because the number of intermediate forms should be even greater than the number of animal species known today. The geologic strata should be full of the remains of fossilized intermediate forms. Darwin himself admitted this. As he wrote in his book, The Origin of Species:
This statement is a contradition. There are only traces, but the traces should be plentiful? Which is it, traces or plenty?
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Yet Darwin was aware that no intermediate forms had yet been found, and regarded this as a major dilemma facing his theory.
That is true, but since Darwin's time, many fossil discoveries have been made that confirm the existence of transitional forms. Many were the result of improper initial classification.
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In the face of this difficulty, the only explanation Darwin could offer was that the fossil records of his time were insufficient. He claimed that later, when the fossil records had been examined in detail, the missing intermediate forms would definitely be found.
As I said, they have been.
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All living things on Earth came into existence suddenly with all their complex and superior features. In other words, they were created. Absolutely no scientific evidence suggests that living things are descended from one another, as evolutionists maintain.
Absolutely untrue. This statement is based only on religious faith, not science.
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Species are usually static, or nearly so, for long periods, ... genera never show evolution into new species or genera but replacement of one by another, and change is more or less abrupt.
We have little way of knowing what changes were taking place other than obvious physical form. It is true that there are periods of relative stability, probably corresponding with stability in the environment.
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A 24-million-year-old caterpillar fossil embedded in amber is proof that caterpillars have always existed in exactly the same form—and never underwent evolution.
That's a load of bull. The fossilized caterpiller is proof that it was a successful form. This one could have been the ancestor of all existing ones, and there are millions of species of them. The fact is insects evolved to live on land sooner than most other taxa.
What happens is that even when new species emerge, the existing ones don't necessarily disappear, they just move into new ecological niches. Ants are common in amber, but they evolved from wasps. There is a difference between a primitive ant and modern ants.
The argument between gradualism and punctuated equalibrium is a valid scientific question, but know that even if gradualism is false, it still took millions of years for new species to evolve.
03 Oct 2008, 11:51 pm
