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]

[Lemonvariable72]

[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]

[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.