Fossils Show Stasis and No Transitional Forms
The fossil record reflects the original diversity of life, not an evolving tree of increasing complexity. There are many examples of "living fossils," where the species is alive today and found deep in the fossil record as well.
According to evolution models for the fossil record, there are three predictions:
1. wholesale change of organisms through time
2. primitive organisms gave rise to complex organisms
3. gradual derivation of new organisms produced transitional forms.
However, these predictions are not borne out by the data from the fossil record.
Trilobites, for instance, appear suddenly in the fossil record without any transitions. There are no fossils between simple single-cell organisms, such as bacteria, and complex invertebrates, such as trilobites.
Extinct trilobites had as much organized complexity as any of today’s invertebrates. In addition to trilobites, billions of other fossils have been found that suddenly appear, fully formed, such as clams, snails, sponges, and jellyfish. Over 300 different body plans are found without any fossil transitions between them and single-cell organisms.
Fish have no ancestors or transitional forms to show how invertebrates, with their skeletons on the outside, became vertebrates with their skeletons inside.
Fossils of a wide variety of flying and crawling insects appear without any transitions. Dragonflies, for example, appear suddenly in the fossil record. The highly complex systems that enable the dragonfly's aerodynamic abilities have no ancestors in the fossil record.
In the entire fossil record, there is not a single unequivocal transition form proving a causal relationship between any two species. From the billions of fossils we have discovered, there should be thousands of clear examples if they existed.
The lack of transitions between species in the fossil record is what would be expected if life was created.
Furthermore please explain this. I am dying to know where these transitional half species fossils can be found.
The fossil record does not produce a fossil for every individual. As was shown in the microbe study I linked earlier in the thread, a number of changes in the genetic record can develope without changing the organism, but then they can be switched on all at once.
IIUC: Fish did not evolve from exoskeletal invertebrates. Something like flatworms -> roundworms -> segmented worms -> chordates -> vertebrates.
Have you noticed that there are transitional animals still alive today? Like the coelecanth, which is a lobe-finned fish, transitional between the fish and tetrapods.
How do you account for vestigial organs, if not a sort of transitional evolution?
There are no fossils between simple single-cell organisms, such as bacteria, and complex invertebrates, such as trilobites.
Lol at expecting there to be fossils of microscopic bacteria. Do you want some fossils of oxygen as well?
Actually, there are plenty of fossils of microbes. But not all microbes form fossils. Many animals leave very few fossils. Like frogs: there are very few fossils of frogs, but the few fossil frogs found show that they have been around a long time.
I would point out that, independent of other evidence, it's an unsound leap to claim the fossil record is evidence of evolution. Evidence is "that which is apparent," and using the fewest assumptions, we could at best say fossils are evidence of...fossils.
As soon as we interject even a single assumption, e.g. a particular fossil was once a living thing, we immediately jump from "sound" to "plausible." Science seeks to gain the most accurate understanding of something by changing as many of these plausible assumptions to sound ones as is possible through logical deductions based on evidence (e.g. things that have DNA were alive, this fossil has DNA, this fossil was alive). What science can't do is prove its own assumptions. Because philosophy *is* capable of exploring these and other assumptions, we quickly find that there is a lot that can be known that is beyond the scope of science. This is commonly known as 'the problem of induction' in science; science cannot explore beyond its empirical limits even though its own assumptions reside there. Science cleverly states conclusions to a certain degree of probability to avoid this problem, but it's unfortunate how almost every scientist -- and certainly all of those I've met -- dismiss the problem of induction as an afterthought.
In short, here are the scientific methods weaknesses that make absolute scientific proof an impossibility:
1) Science cannot escape the problem of induction.
2) Science cannot incorporate a purely abstract proof into any theory it produces.
3) Science cannot account for rare cases (e.g. brute forcing a private key)
4) Science cannot account for extremely small (e.g. quantum-level) or extremely large (e.g. the Universe as a a single system) cases.
It's interesting to note that a known probability of brute forcing a private key is born of a purely abstract, mathatical proof, and that this proof acts as the foundation upon which scientific tests can be performed. But, conclusions produced by those tests could never produce a known probability of an event. Actually, it would be impossible for science to ascribe a known probability to *any* event, for even if you simulated a billion coin-flips, you're conclusion would include a degree of uncertainty (and no peer-reviewed journal would publish claims of absolute certainty).
BitchicksHusband actually made a guy cry that was trying to sell us one because he got so frustrated with us. (He was trying to tell us that we had "pride of ownership" and my husband said that we considered pride a bad thing and that it was stupid to buy something for the "pride" of it if it was cheaper to rent it and the guy was so ticked he just took off from our table.)The manager said he had "never seen that happen before" and that the guy was his "top salesman" so I guess we can think for ourselves. 
