By SCHRODINGER'S CAT
Updated: Mon, 03 Oct 2011 11:29:09 UTC

In an interview with Richard Dawkins, Wendy Wright of Concerned Women For America several times makes the comment " There is no evidence of evolution going from one species to another species."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFjoEgYOgRo

There's actually a clear logical refutal of this creationist red herring concerning lack of transitional species. It is so simple and irrefutable, yet I rarely see it used and I wish Richard Dawkins had had the time to raise it in the above interview.

Imagine that a species evolves, over time, from species A to species Z. The creationist will demand evidence of a 'transitional' species in between A and Z. But of course ... there really isn't any such thing as a 'transitional species'. One day species H is found, and is shown to be a 'transition' state between A and Z. But crucially, it is not a 'transitional species' ... it is a species in its own right.

Because species H is a species in its own right, as will be the case with any and every fossil discovered......the creationist deviously shifts to arguing that there is no evidence of a 'transitional species' between A and H, and between H and Z....thus giving the impression that there is now double the transitional evidence required.

Of course, once again any species that do fill those gaps will be fully fledged species in their own right. There simply won't be any marked 'transitional species'.....for the very simply reason that every single organism that has ever lived has been a member of a distinct species.

Thus the entire creationist 'transitional species' argument is a devious and illogical red herring very similar in nature to the 'God of the gaps'.

TAGGED: CREATIONISM, EVOLUTION