The Case of the Missing Links

The Case of the Missing Links

But just as experts can jump to the wrong conclusion with regard to criminal evidence, so in the world of paleontology, a tooth, jaw, or piece of skull has often created premature headlines of “Missing Link Found.” Paleontologist Michael Boulter summarizes the problem with identifying fossils correctly:

It’s very hard to piece together a few broken bones from a fossilized group of differentially aged primates scattered over a desert or cave floor and to be sure that they come from the same animal….It follows that the reliability of any description that attempts to recognize an actual species cannot be totally objective.¹

Boulter is alluding to the fact that, being human, most scientists look at a fossil through the lens of their own presuppositions. For example, those who wanted to make a case for humans descending from apes were quick to jump with joy over the supposed discovery of the “missing link” called Piltdown Man. Featured in the London Times, New York Times, and various science journals, they made it a textbook example of the connection between apes and humans. However, forty years later, in 1953, it was revealed as a fraud.

Frauds like the Piltdown Man are rare, and although objectivity is often lacking, there is actually a wealth of fossil evidence depicting the history of life on our planet.

So in order to see what the forensic evidence says about Darwin’s theory, we need to hear from paleontologists themselves about the evidence they have gathered during the nearly 150 years since he launched his theory.

Our starting point is to clearly understand the predictions Darwin made regarding his theory and the fossils that should have resulted.

DARWIN’S TWO THEORIES

Charles Darwin was not the first to believe that life could arise by purely natural processes. In fact, the idea can be traced back as far as ancient Greece. And surely long before Darwin, people made the casual observation, “Hey, that guy kind of looks like a chimp.” But it was Darwin who gave the ideas intellectual teeth, or viability, through his observation and hypothesizing of several processes, including adaptation and natural selection.

Few people realize that Darwin’s theory of evolution predicts two different results: microevolution and macroevolution. We will look at microevolution first.

His micro-evolutionary theory states that variations within a species (cats, dogs, humans) can produce radical changes over time. He stated that sometimes these changes are accelerated by environmental conditions. For example, while on the Galapagos Islands, Darwin observed finches that had apparently grown slightly longer beaks during drought conditions. This confirmed his belief that creatures adapt to their environments.

Evolutionist Niles Eldredge explains the importance of adaptation to Darwin’s theory: “Adaptation is the very heart and soul of evolution. It is the scientific account of why the living world comes in so many shapes and sizes: how the giraffe got its long neck, why porpoises look so much like sharks … how birds fly.”² Back / Next