It's funny because I have argued before with evos that they claim all fossils are transitional be definition, thus making their claims of transitionals completely unfalsifiable and meaningless, but the evos just argue they aren't saying that, and then when you respond to their bogus claims of "superb transitionals" with more detail, you get someone like you saying they are all transitional again.
So let's quit with the semantics. The actual transitions are not shown, period.
I guess it depends how you think of a transitional. Technically all species are transitional:
It should be pointed out that there is no requirement for intermediate organisms to go extinct. In fact, all living organisms can be thought of as intermediate between adjacent taxa in a phylogenetic tree. For instance, modern reptiles are intermediate between amphibians and mammals, and reptiles are also intermediate between amphibians and birds. As far as macroevolutionary predictions of morphology are concerned, this point is trivial, as it is essentially just a restatement of the concept of a nested hierarchy.
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: Part 1
I think the way people often use the word transitional here is to refer to a fossil that appears to be a link between two known species. For examples of this definition look here:
Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ
However, it doesn't really matter. Keep in mind that the term SPECIES is just a definition created by biologists. What REALLY happens in evolution is that POPULATION GROUPS change over time. There is no magical Species X suddenly becoming Species Y. In fact all we have are population groups. If we start with population group A all creatures directly descended from that population group will be able to trace there lineage back to population group A. Now, group A may certainly split into multiple groups, but if we concentrate on a chaine instead of a tree we can pick out one distinct population group. This group changes over time and WITHIN THIS GROUP ALL MEMBERS ARE ALWAYS OF THE SAME SPECIES. There is no change from one species to another within a population group! (biologists, please correct me if I am off-base slightly here). So in effect, not only ever species, but EVERY creature that has ever existed is transitional (unless you want to throw out those creatures that died before reproducing).
The term transitional is simply a human construct that helps us understand the process of evolution. We may say, "wow species 2 is a transition from species 1 to species 3"... but in realiaty that is just a human term to help us understand the process. The term transitional is not relevant to the process of evolution. A population group changes over time.... when we look back we can classify the changes into species, but again this is JUST TO HELP US UNDERSTAND. It is actually irrelevant to the group in question as they reproduce from generation to generation.
You, randman... believe it or not.... are a transitional life form.
The question of how many transitionals there should be seems like a red herring. How could we possibly know every single change that occurred within population group over time. All we can see are the high level results of millions of years of change.
Imagine you are driving from the east coast to California. If you stop and buy a postcard every so often we will have some idea of the route you took. The postcards are just like us finding fossils. However, we can't know the EXACT route you took.
What we do know is that you started somewhere on the east coast... exactly where you stopped along the way and where you ended up.
This message has been edited by Mini_Ditka, 12-29-2005 01:17 PM
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