Page 158 - The Transitional Form Dilemma

THE TRANSITIONAL-FORM DILEMMA

an explanation of this animal in terms
of their theory. The fact that a bird has a
long tail is no proof that it evolved from
dinosaurs. The creatures the theory of
evolution needs to find as proofs are
genuine transitional forms, not mo-
saics. Transitional forms should have
organs which are deficient, missing,
half-formed or not fully functional. By
contrast, all the organs of mosaic crea-
Stephen Jay Gould
tures are fully formed and flawless.
Jeholornis, for instance, is a com-
plete, powerful flying bird. Furthermore, this fossil was identified as
being 100 million years old. Some 50 million years before this bird, there
were other flying specimens, such as Archaeopteryx. To maintain that
birds’ half-dinosaur, half-bird ancestors lived 50 million years after
them is not, of course, logical.

In January 2003, a 130-million-year-old fossil called Microraptor gui
was announced to the world. It was suggested that this fossil belonged
to a four-winged dinosaur which glided from tree to tree, and that this
discovery confirmed that birds had evolved from dinosaurs. However,
scientists soon announced that the new species did not constitute evi-
dence to support this claim.
For example, “Lord of the Wings,” an article by Christopher P.
Sloan that appeared in the May 2003 edition of National Geographic mag-
azine, stated that Microraptor gui continued to puzzle evolutionists and
that many scientists took the view that this creature was flightless. Sloan
writes:
But the Chinese team that studied M. gui, led by Xu Xing and Zhou Zhonghe

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