:
Originally posted by PinkHaired Mudokon CWR:
Evidence #1
There are no transitional links and intermediate forms in either the fossil record or the modern world. Therefore, there is no actual evidence that evolution has occurred either in the past or the present.
|
Richrd Dawkins explains this excellently in Climbing Mount Improbable.
Scientists classify every fossil they find as either one species or another. We have foundmany intermediates, but because our animalian classification system leaes no room for them, they are thrust on one side or another of a line. To this day, scientists are arguing about whether to classify certain creatures as an X or a Y.
Also, dead animals rarely fossilise. Our fossil record is extremely incomplete, so there could have been many intermediates that have existed and will never be discovered. Soft tissues of animals often rot or are eaten by other animals, and so fail to get preserved. Also, you have to die in the right kind of environment to get fossilised, ususally in a silty or muddy place.
And as for the skull, as Stattik pointed out, carbon dating is more inaccurate than we think, and carbon decomposition and presence is not constant. There is also the possibility of forgery. I'd like to add another theory; it is possible that the skull fell or was washed into a crevice in a rockface, thus ending up in older rocks.