Aim of the website
The aim of this website is to answer the question; “Where are the transitional fossils?” This question is commonly asked by opponents of the theory of evolution, as if transitional fossils did not exist. In fact, there are many, as will be documented in this website.
The purpose of this website is to extract and organize information about transitional fossils from the vast scientific literature that deals with the whole gamut of evolutionary history. However, the intention is not to duplicate the literature by entering into the details of the changes that occurred during the development of life. Rather, the idea is to provide a visual display that illustrates the gross morphological changes that can be seen by comparing transitional fossils.
The result should be a readily accessible resource that will provide documentation in the form of the names, geological age and, if images are available in the public domain, photographs of the fossils that record the major transformations of life through geological time. The website is designed with the following types of user in mind:
At this point I present the main conclusions derived from the data presented in this website.
The purpose of this website is to extract and organize information about transitional fossils from the vast scientific literature that deals with the whole gamut of evolutionary history. However, the intention is not to duplicate the literature by entering into the details of the changes that occurred during the development of life. Rather, the idea is to provide a visual display that illustrates the gross morphological changes that can be seen by comparing transitional fossils.
The result should be a readily accessible resource that will provide documentation in the form of the names, geological age and, if images are available in the public domain, photographs of the fossils that record the major transformations of life through geological time. The website is designed with the following types of user in mind:
- Educators seeking teaching materials
- People seeking a visual depiction of how fossils illustrate the evolution of life
- Those looking for data with which to assess the arguments in the continuing debate regarding evolution and creation.
At this point I present the main conclusions derived from the data presented in this website.
Main conclusions
- The principal assumption on which this website is based is that published phylogenetic trees (equivalent to family trees), which display relationships between ancestor and descendant fossil organisms, are generally correct. To assume this is to say that the theory of evolution is at least partially correct.
- Any clear inconsistency between any tree and the fossil evidence would indicate that the tree is not correctly representing ancestor-descendant relationships.
- The work presented in this website has found very few examples of such inconsistencies. These occur only in groups of organisms for which no transitional fossils are known. Wherever the inconsistencies appear, it is difficult to reconcile the likely age of the unknown transitional fossils with the known age of related organisms. There are two possible explanations for these inconsistencies: either incompleteness of the fossil record of organisms related to the unknown transitional fossils, or the phylogenetic tree in question is incorrect.
- In the great majority of cases, there is no obvious inconsistency between the phylogenetic trees and the fossils on which the trees are based.
- As a result of the general coherence of the phylogenetic trees and the fossil record, it has been possible to assemble data from more than 1,500 transitional fossils. (Data on all of these can be found under the "Data" tab of the website.)
- I therefore consider that the opinion, expressed by some of my fellow Christians, that transitional fossils do not exist is disproved by the data presented in this website.
Photo credits
Header (Grand Canyon seen from Yavapai Point on the South Rim on August 1st, 2019): Grand Canyon NPS, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Header (Grand Canyon seen from Yavapai Point on the South Rim on August 1st, 2019): Grand Canyon NPS, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons