Creationists have been fond of citing what they call “missing links” in the fossil record as if these tiny gaps are proof that scientific theories of biological evolution through natural selection are on their last legs. Of course, it’s important to keep in mind that the Creationists have been saying that scientific theories of evolution are on their last legs for well over a hundred years now.
So, it must be particularly humiliating and frustrating for Creationists to see, year after year, more of those missing links found. Just this week it was announced that a fascinating fossil of a crocodile-sized creature transitional between fish and amphibian was found in, appropriately, Newfoundland.
What do creationists do with this news? Nothing, as it turns out.
Two main sites devoted to the promotion of Intelligent Design Theology and other forms of Creationism, Origins.org and AnswersInGenesis.org, don’t have any news about the discovery. In fact, at both sites, the news abruptly ends in the second half of 2005. Not so coincidentally, the second half of 2005 is when it became clear that intelligent design nonsense had been solidly refuted by scientific research, by legal review, and by public opinion as well.
It seems that, for Creationists, the news stops existing when they’re proven to be full of baloney. It’s not a surprising reaction, really, when you consider that Creationists regard all significant matters of truth to have been finally settled just a little less than two thousand years ago.
So, now it’s up to the philosophers of religion to settle this remaining question: What do Creationists call a missing link when it is found?
We do already have various fossil links between reptiles and birds…
Then again, those two groups are so similar that they’re likely to be classified as one group (i.e. vertebrates will be divided into onl 4 main subgroups; fish, amphibians, mammals and birds/reptiles)