Marcosll writes:
But since many (if not most) forms of life become extinct prior to evolving it can also be inferred that most fossils represent extinct species that did not transition.
This does not make sense: at what point does an organism evolve? You imply here (correct me if I'm wrong) that an organism must evolve before it dies for evolution to take place.
This is wrong: simply put the organism needs to breed before it dies to be able to pass on it's genetic information which is different from it's parent.
There is no point at whic the organism 'evolves'.
Allele frequency changes occure in the population not the individual. If the population is wiped out by some catastrophy then the populations genetic information cannot propogate through time and this is often picked up in fossil records and genetic bottle necks.
Sorry to pick on this point but individual organisms do not evolve at a certain point in their life.
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