“The fossil record has absurd numbers of missing links,” she said, expressing an opinion that is common enough among those opposed to an evolutionary model of physical history. However, that statement makes sense only if we should expect to find those fossils and yet come up empty. In other words, is it appropriate to call those fossils “missing” if we are not really expecting to find them in the first place?
“But,” she responds, “if evolution were true, we should expect to find them. There should be no gaps.” And thus she fails to realize how that does not follow. Given what we know about evolution as descent with modification from a common ancestor, we should expect lots of transitional forms. But then given what we know about geology—and also the tricky process of fossilization—we should expect very few transitional forms, that is, significant gaps in the fossil record of phylogenetic continuity, and not because evolution is false but because geology is true. It’s hell on fossils.
