> Most of the criticisms by young-earth creationists of the supposed lack of
>transitional fossils is argumentation against a straw man of the
creationist's
>own devising since they don't understand what evolutionists mean by the term
>"transitional fossil" (one thinks of Ken Ham from Answers in Genesis, whom I
>saw giving a talk at a church in Champaign, Illinois a couple of years ago,
>where he mocked evolution by saying we never see cogs or dats -- transitions
>between dogs and cats).
I think you are doing a gloss here, Steve. You shold know as well as
anyone this is a serious problem for evolutionary theory. It is the basis
for Gould and Eldridges proposal of PE, and Gould himself concedes this in
his more cogent moments. Just because Ken Ham doesn't know the first thing
about evolutionary theory (cogs and dats! Give me a break. The license of
ignorance is broad indeed!), doesn't invalidate the problem for evolution.
And the development of a few respectable lineages only exacerbates the
problem of the absence of all the rest.
Art
http://chadwicka.swau.edu