Page 224 - The Evolution Impasse 2

222 Transitional Forms, The (The Transitional Species)

high er lev el of com plex i ty. The ‘mi nor 2) Sudden ap pear ance—in any lo cal
im prove ments' in suc ces sive gen er a - ar ea, a spe cies does not arise grad u al ly
tions should be as read i ly pre served as by the steady trans for ma tion of its an -
the spe cies them selves. But this is ces tors; it ap pears all at once and "ful -
hard ly ev er the case. In fact, the op po - ly formed." 257
site holds true, as Darwin him self com -
In gen er al, ev o lu tion ists de lib er -
plained; "in nu mer a ble tran si tion al
ate ly use the con cept of tran si tion al
forms must have ex ist ed, but why do
forms to mis lead. The term "tran si -
we not find them em bed ded in count -
tion al form" re fers to a de vel op ing
less num bers in the crust of the
crea ture mid way be tween two spe -
earth?" Darwin felt though that the
cies with in suf fi cient and part ly
"ex treme im per fec tion" of the fos sil
formed or gans. Sometimes, be cause
record was sim ply a mat ter of dig ging
up more fos sils. But as more and more they mis un der stand the idea of a
fos sils were dug up, it was found that tran si tion al form, Darwinists im pute
al most all of them, with out ex cep tion, tran si tion al-form char ac ter is tics to a
were very close to cur rent liv ing an i - crea ture that is not tran si tion al at all.
mals. 256 For ex am ple, the fact that one group

The fos sil record shows that liv - of liv ing crea tures ex hib its char ac -
ing spe cies came in to be ing all at ter is tics com mon ly found in an oth er
once, ful ly formed in all their va ri e - group, does not im ply that the first
ty, and re mained un changed group is a tran si tion al form.
through out long ge o log i cal pe ri ods. A fine ex am ple is the Australian
A not ed ev o lu tion ist pa le on tol o gist plat y pus. This crea ture is a mam mal
at Harvard University, Stephen Jay but lays eggs like a rep tile, and al so
Gould, ac knowl edg es this fact: has a beak like a duck's. Scientists
call the plat y pus and oth er such an i -
The his to ry of most fos sil spe cies in -
cludes two fea tures par tic u lar ly in con - mals "mo sa ic crea tures." Noted pa le -
sist ent with grad u al ism: on tol o gists such as Stephen Jay
Gould and Niles Eldredge state that
1) Stasis—most spe cies ex hib it no di -
ev o lu tion ist pa le on tol o gists do not
rec tion al change dur ing their ten ure
count the plat y pus as an ex am ple of
on earth. They ap pear in the fos sil
258
record look ing much the same as when a tran si tion al form. (See Platypus.)
they dis ap pear; mor pho log i cal change
is usu al ly lim it ed and di rec tion less;

The Evolution Impasse II