Purple Monkey Dishwasher

I've had this claimed in a debate:

The number of transitional fossils found, compared to other fossils is extremely small.
Statistically you would expect to find as many transitional fossils as you would "normal" fossils and you don't, Not even close.

How true is it?

Kosh

All fossils are transitional fossils.

tronvillain

Why would you expect to find as many transitional fossils as you would "normal" fossils?

Purple Monkey Dishwasher

It comes back to the idea of "kinds". The guy is claiming that the "kinds" we see today are the ones we see in the fossil records and that any fossils that deviate from the "kinds" are much more rare. Is it true?

gallo

So, where is this guy seeing T. rex and trilobites?

Better yet, where is he seeing <I>Archaeopteryx</i>?

[ February 25, 2002: Message edited by: gallo ]</p>

owleye

Assuming for the sake of argument that a transitional fossil means a fossil that is transitional between kinds (i.e."species") the existence of them, regardless of their relative numbers, would seem to be evidence against the thesis that there are evolutionary barriers to the creation of species. That is, if creationism were true, one might expect that there could be no transitional fossils found.

I suspect the creationist has an answer to this. Perhaps transitional is a misnomer. Instead what are referred to as transitional is merely another kind (species) that was created in such a way that it looks like it evolved through a transition from an earlier species to a later one.

owleye

Peez

You might want to explain that so-called "transitional" fossils are fossils of individual members of actual species. They are indistinguishable from so-called "normal" fossils in and of themselves, as they are "normal" fossils. The only thing that may distinguish a "transitional" fossil from any other is having a fossil of its immediate ancestor species and its immediate descendant species. Ignoring for the moment the problems with defining species over time (chronospecies), and the rarity of fossils, there are many, many transitional fossils. As Kosh has pointed out all (or at least most) of fossils are transitional in the sense that they represent a snapshot of a species as it continues to evolve. In the more restrictive sense of a fossil for which we have the immediately "adjacent" fossils, there are still very many. There is certainly no reason to expect that most fossils would be "transitional" in the latter sense, especially if the punk-eek people are right.

Peez