fossils

Welcome to EvC, ogon.As Ned pointed out, fossils provide good evidence for evolution, but they are not a major part of the evidence. In fact, the theory of evolution was pretty much fleshed out and accepted long before the major transitional series were discovered. The evidence for evolution exists in all the branches of biology, not just paleontology. In fact, the relative timing and sequencing of important evolutionary events can often be determined in embryology and through cladistical analysis.That said, paleontology does provide good evidence for evolution (and does help in the absolute timing of key events, as well as elucidating details not obvious through other methods), but it is now a matter that there is so much evidence in other fields of biology that the fossils are just one more bunch of evidence added to a whole heap of evidence.The main importance of fossils is not that they offer evidence for evolution per se, but that they provide details about specific events in evolutionary history.- Huh. Confirm how? That such a thing is possible? But we already know such a thing is possible: animals with half-wings exist now:To confirm that birds evolved as a branch of theropod dinosaurs? But we already know that through cladistical analysis, which provides much stronger evidence for the evolutionary origins of birds than any fossil ever will.To provide easy to understand evidence to confirm the theory of evolution? No one seriously doubts that theory of evolution, and very few people doubt that birds evolved as a branch of theropod dinosaurs, except for creationists, and they will simply dismiss any fossil find as they have dismissed all other fossils showing "half-features".It would really, really be neat to find dinosaurs with half-wings, but the main interest would really be to answer some questions that remain about when and how flight evolved.

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Actually, if their god makes better pancakes, I'm totally switching sides. -- Charley the Australopithecine