How many fossils have been discovered?

[pineapplebunnybounce]

any evolutionary biologist worth their salt should know that every fossil and every animal (including human) is a transitional form.

[Jackalope]

Yes they are, but most ( even scientists) mean transitional forms are fossils reflecting change from one clade to another.

Do you know of a fossil species that doesn't?

That's the question that immediately came to my mind when I read that.

I suppose it depends on what one's expectation is. If one expects to find crocoducks, one will be disappointed (not that we should expect to find such a thing). Obvious examples like Archaeopteryx Lithographica are few and far between - and are hotly contested by the audience in question. If that's what someone's looking for, yeah, it's going to look like there are few.

The far more common examples are a tougher sell to persons not versed in biology, and a far, far tougher sell to those who have an agenda to protect.

That phylogenetic trees created from paleontological evidence substantially align with those created from genome sequencing seems to paint a pretty compelling case that the naysayers are wrong - though that line of evidence is pretty tough for the average Joe to digest.

[Lemonvariable72]

any evolutionary biologist worth their salt should know that every fossil and every animal (including human) is a transitional form.

I'm only referring to the colloquial use, which scientists do use in non peer review literature. Alas though you are right too.

---

Do you know of a fossil species that doesn't?

That's the question that immediately came to my mind when I read that.

I suppose it depends on what one's expectation is. If one expects to find crocoducks, one will be disappointed (not that we should expect to find such a thing). Obvious examples like Archaeopteryx Lithographica are few and far between - and are hotly contested by the audience in question. If that's what someone's looking for, yeah, it's going to look like there are few.

The far more common examples are a tougher sell to persons not versed in biology, and a far, far tougher sell to those who have an agenda to protect.

That phylogenetic trees created from paleontological evidence substantially align with those created from genome sequencing seems to paint a pretty compelling case that the naysayers are wrong - though that line of evidence is pretty tough for the average Joe to digest.

The devil is in the details.

[Mudhammam]

Lol @ crocoduck. So I understand that all fossils are transitional but I've generally gathered from reading Dawkins and Coyne that evolution occurs gradually, hencing blurring any long term differences with transitions that would look nearly identical from generation to generation. This seems pretty apparent among hominid fossils but how come there aren't more fossils that look more obvious to be "common ancestors"? Or are there and I'm just misinformed?

[Rahul]

Lol @ crocoduck. So I understand that all fossils are transitional but I've generally gathered from reading Dawkins and Coyne that evolution occurs gradually, hencing blurring the any long term differences with transitions that would look nearly identical from generation to generation. This seems pretty apparent among hominid fossils but how come there aren't more fossils that look more obvious to be "common ancestors"? Or are there and I'm just misinformed?

The problem with transitional fossils is that species can stick around pretty much without any obvious change, especially in fossilized form, for millions of years. But when their environments change you have a sudden burst of transition while that species adapts to the new conditions.

This can happen extremely rapidly.

This is something that a lot of people don't seem to understand. Yes, technically any fossilized species that isn't the last of the line of their branch of evolution is a transitional species.

But there are stable species and there are transitional species.

Let's put it this way. Let's say you have a shrew like species. It stays stable for 5 million years because it's environment is stable. Any fossils of these guys are technically transitional because they eventually evolved into another species. BUT they were a stable species for a really long time.

Then something happens to change their environment and over say 50-100 thousand years they undergo rapid evolution and turn into what humans would consider a different species. Then, since they are adapted well enough to the new variables of their changed environment they stabilize again for another 5 million years.

So 5 million years stable, 100,000 years of rapid evolution, then another 5 million years stable.

Technically they're all "transitional species" but the really interesting ones were those undergoing rapid evolution during the 100,000 years.

Like this guy:

"Most fossil giraffes have short necks and today's have long necks, but anatomist Nikos Solounias of the New York Institute of Technology's New York College of Osteopathic Medicine is preparing a description of a giraffe fossil, Bohlinia, with a neck that is intermediate in length. - See more at: http://www.livescience.com/3306-fossils-...ME4Dh.dpuf"

So the problem is you have in this example 10,100,000 years of potential fossils, but only a narrow window of 100,000 years of potential fossils they really smack you in the face with the facts of evolution.

[pineapplebunnybounce]

Lol @ crocoduck. So I understand that all fossils are transitional but I've generally gathered from reading Dawkins and Coyne that evolution occurs gradually, hencing blurring the any long term differences with transitions that would look nearly identical from generation to generation. This seems pretty apparent among hominid fossils but how come there aren't more fossils that look more obvious to be "common ancestors"? Or are there and I'm just misinformed?

There are a lot of common ancestors, it depends on how far back you're willing to go. Like you said, a lot of hominid fossils look alike, so we sort of know they belong to the same clade. But birds and crocodile share common ancestors that probably was a dinosaur. When you go really far back, the common ancestors don't look like modern animals anymore, because they've had time to gather more differences after diverging.

[Minimalist]

I've heard that we have discovered billions of fossils, though I can't find a reputable source that isn't Creationist to confirm it. Any idea? I'm pretty sure we possess hundreds of transitional fossils but I find that fairly suspicious (as Darwin predicted the Earth should be sprawling with them) if we literally have billions. What gives? Not doubting evolution but is there something in the process that would account for this?

What gives is that the concept of transitional species is spurious, at best with regard to the fossil record. ALL species are transitional.

Precisely, if you fall for that creatard "logic" of a transitional form you are merely playing in their ballpark.