To start down this rabbit hole, “missing link” is a term used only by Creationists to describe what all scientists term a (missing) “transitional fossil”. The issue of a “missing link” stems from the creationist’s need to have the entire proof of something immediately available or they won’t believe any part of it – despite the enormous amount that the available evidence does show.
The argument (from creationists) is that because scientists are unable to produce every single intermediary creature (e.g. via the fossil record) on the evolutionary path between proto-cells (billions of years ago) and human beings (today), the theory of evolution must be suspect, and for some reason, dismissed.
The argument (by creationists) goes something like this:
- Scientist: “We have two fossils: A and Z, and Z shows inherited characteristics of A”.
- Creationist: “Ah, ha! That can’t be right because you don’t have the missing link between fossils A and Z”.
- Scientist: “We have located the fossil M which shows inherited characters of A and which has characteristics that have been inherited by Z”.
- Creationist: “Ah, ha! The theory must still be wrong because you don’t have the missing link between fossils A and M”.
- Scientist: “We have located the fossil F which shows inherited characters of A and which has characteristics that have been inherited by M”.
- Creationist: “Ah, ha! The theory must still be wrong because you don’t have the missing link between fossils A and F”.
- Scientist: “We have located the fossil C which shows inherited characters of A and which has characteristics that have been inherited by F”.
- Creationist: “Ah, ha! The theory must still be wrong because you don’t have the missing link between fossils A and C”.
- Scientist: “We have located the fossil B which shows inherited characters of A and which has characteristics that have been inherited by C”.
- Creationist: “Ah, ha! The theory must still be wrong because you don’t have the missing link between fossils A and B”.
At this point the limitations of the alphabet will be apparent to the reader, but the point of the argument is made. It seems that only a complete fossil record from the first proto-cell organism to a life form resembling Elizabeth Hurley will suffice in silencing the argumentative creationist.
Here’s an analogy to help understand the argument. Let’s say that you were shown a series of photographs from distinctively different blocks of land, e.g. each from different states or countries:
- Photo 1: An old house.
- Photo 2: A pile of rubble containing obvious pieces of an old house.
- Photo 3: A cleared block of land.
- Photo 4: A series of dug channels in the soil.
- Photo 5: Channels filled with concrete foundations.
- Photo 6: Wooden wall frames erected above the concrete foundations.
- Photo 7: The frame of a roof attached to the wall frames.
- Photo 8: Cladding placed on the internal wall frames.
- Photo 9: Bricks assembled as walls on the outside of the house.
- Photo 10: Tiles placed on the roof frames.
- Photo 11: Windows and doors fitted.
- Photo 12: A finished brand new house with: pathways, a driveway, landscaping, fences, and a letterbox.
Note that at no point in any photo did you see: a person, or a truck, or any sort of documentation (e.g. to do with planning, design, delivery, inspection, sign-off, etc.), or anything to do with plumbing or electrical wiring, or any sort of governance around the building of houses, or anything to do with the construction and finishing of the inside of a house.
What are you to deduce from the photos? Would you deduce that a god must have zapped the various discrete stages into existence or would you deduce that there is a continuum of states between the photos that must exist so that one (photographed) state can transition to the other?
If you had many more photos (e.g. from all sorts of angles), could you start to deduce quite intricate details about the steps needed to build a house? Yes, you could.
Another analogy is to do with star formation. Scientists are not able to create stars in the laboratory, however they know the process and life cycle of stars very well. They know it because all stages are visible somewhere in the universe and have been observed, measured, and studied. Here are the major steps:
- The origin of gas and dust
- Primordial Gas: The universe began mostly with hydrogen and helium created during the Big Bang.
- Heavy Elements and Dust: Heavier elements (like carbon, oxygen, and iron) and solid dust grains are forged inside stars through nuclear fusion. When massive stars die, they spread these materials into space (via supernova explosions).
- The birth of a star
- Nebular Collapse: Giant clouds of gas and dust (nebulae) are triggered to collapse by disturbances like shock-waves from supernovas or galactic collisions. Gravity pulls the material into denser, hotter clumps.
- Protostar Stage: As a clump collapses, it flattens into a spinning disk and its core becomes a hot, dense protostar.
- Ignition: The core eventually reaches extreme temperatures (around (7) million Kelvin). Nuclear fusion begins, fusing hydrogen into helium, which releases massive amounts of energy and creates an outward pressure that stabilizes the star.
- Main Sequence: Then begins the longest phase of a star’s life, where it remains stable for a large number of years.
- Massive blue stars (O and B-type) (20 to over 100 times the mass of our Sun) burn for 3 to 20 million years.
- Mid-sized yellow stars (G-type, like our sun) burn for about 10 billion years.
- Red Dwarfs (M-type) (ranging from 0.08 to 0.5 times the mass of our Sun) burn for 100 billion to over 1 trillion years.
- The death of a star
- Average stars (like our sun): Once hydrogen runs out, they expand into red giants. Eventually, they shed their outer layers, creating a glowing planetary nebula. The exposed hot, dense core becomes a dead white dwarf.
- Massive stars: They fuse heavier elements up to iron and grow into massive red super giants. With no more fuel to fuse, the core collapses under gravity and explodes in a massive supernova (which can lead to the birth of new stars, see above). The remaining core forms either an incredibly dense neutron star or a black hole.
Scientists know all of the above steps (and many more intermediate stages) are real because they have been observed via light that has arrived at Earth from many different stages in the development of the universe.
Is anyone seriously going to suggest that the above process doesn’t happen because we don’t have video footage of the 10 to 11 billion years it takes for the life cycle of a star like our sun to occur?
The fact is that an enormous number of transitional fossils have been discovered by scientists – so many in fact that it’s frankly ridiculous to have to continue this explanation. The reader is encouraged to study a list of transitional fossils for themselves (a Wikipedia article). There is a page on this site that provides a table listing 38 steps in the evolutionary history of human beings: A dog can only give birth to a dog, and the reader is encouraged to investigate the tremendous message uncovered by the table on that page.
Perhaps the problem of missing links stems from the “advanced” level of reading that the average proponent of the “missing link” “problem” has performed – which is to say: none. When Darwin proposed his theory of evolution (in 1858), the fossil record was poorly known and he (honestly) acknowledged that fact as a problem. Since then, a huge number of fossils have been discovered that show the transitions between any number of species. For an obvious reason, it suits some creationists to argue this subject as if the sum total of knowledge on the topic is as it was when Darwin first published. That’s intellectual dishonesty.
It must be admitted that there are still gaps in the fossil record, and it is likely that important gaps will remain. Paleontologists estimate that less than 0.1% (one-tenth of one percent) of all the creatures that have ever lived have fossilized. For individual animals, the odds are even lower – between one in a million and one in a billion. Some animals are much less likely to fossilize because of the era and area in which they lived, and also because they may have had softer bodies that don’t lend themselves well to becoming fossils. That’s just the nature of the situation and scientists have to find ways to work around the limitations.
Hundreds of millions of fossils have been discovered, and not one of them has cause the theory of evolution to be discredited. Think about that. At best, discovered fossils have cause the theory of evolution to be refined. That’s the scientific process.
However one of the strengths of the scientific process is the ability of theories to make predictions. In that regard, Darwin’s theory is a tremendous success. “Missing links” have been predicted, and then discovered. Here are some examples (with links to Wikipedia):
- Tiktaalik (fish to land animals).
- The prediction: It was believed that around 375 million years ago life made the leap from water to land. Scientists predicted the existence of a creature with a flattened head like an amphibian, which had gills and scales like a fish, along with sturdy fins capable of navigating shallow water.
- The discovery: The fossil of such a creature (Tiktaalik) was discovered in 2004, and it was discovered exactly in the environment that supported its existence.
- Archaeopteryx (reptiles to birds).
- The prediction: Shortly after Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, scientists hypothesized that because birds evolved from reptiles, there must have been an ancient creature featuring a mix of traits of both reptiles and birds.
- The discovery: In 1861, just two years after Darwin’s theory was published, a nearly perfectly preserved fossil of Archaeopteryx was unearthed in limestone quarries in Bavaria, Germany. It featured feathers and wings like a bird, but teeth, a long bony tail, and claws like a dinosaur.
- Ambulocetus natans and Pakicetus (Land Mammals to Whales).
- The prediction: Evolutionists predicted that whales must have evolved from land-dwelling mammals. They expected to find an intermediary ancestor that possessed four legs but showed the early skull and ear features of an aquatic animal.
- The discovery: In the 1980s and 1990s, expeditions to Pakistan (once an ancient ocean coastline) found fossils of Pakicetus (a land-walking mammal with a whale-like ear) and Ambulocetus natans (“the walking whale,” which had fully functional legs and feet adapted for swimming).
- Australopithecus afarensis “Lucy” (Apes to Humans)
- The prediction: Anthropologists predicted the existence of an early hominin that walked upright on two legs but retained a smaller, ape-like brain.
- The discovery: In 1974, scientists discovered “Lucy” (Australopithecus afarensis) in the Awash Valley of the Afar Triangle in Ethiopia. The skeleton proved she walked upright (bipedalism) but possessed a braincase the size of a chimpanzee’s, fulfilling the prediction that upright walking predated big brains in human evolution.
Why is it that proponents of the “missing link” theory can’t read beyond what was written over 150 years ago? Luckily, you can; but have you? And why is it that just because a transitional fossil between two species hasn’t been discovered (yet), creationists believe that the entire theory of evolution collapses and therefore “god dunnit”™?