Missing links - not missing anymore.

It's funny how creationists try to deal with the clear evidence of transitional fossils. Either they put it off by saying such fossils are a hoax or they start a mostly embarrassing layman treatise on the morphological and anatomical implications. Or they classify the fossil to be either the ancestral lineage or the descendant one.

We don't need to go into their layman treatises. It's too embarrassing to even read. Laymen tattling about highly specialized stuff which requires years of hard training are as shameful as the notorious smoker who starts elaborate medical treatises in order to call into question the hazardous effects of smoking on health.

Evolutionary hoaxes are based upon lying about the real import of some disputable cases in the biological literature or just exploiting the very rare real fraud. It never deals with the often dozens or even hundreds up to thousands of other specimen. Putting off 100 specimen because of one fraud is just too ridiculous to even take into serious consideration. It also flagrantly and poignantly contrasts the hundreds of hoaxes and frauds made by creationists. Like the Creationist's museum where little children are depicted riding saddled dinosaurs, as if you are stuck in a Fred Flintstones episode.

The third argument is actually the funniest one. It is always most endearing to behold creationists being stuck in the noble act of taxonomy.

Now classifying fossils is a highly specialized trade which always requires years of training. Not particularly to be left to untrained laymen all creationists are.

Also professional taxonomists often have great difficulty in classifying fossils though.

When the first specimen of Homo erectus was found by the Dutch explorer and palaeoanthropologist Eugène Dubois, he coined it "Java man". It started a decades long dispute within palaeontology how to classify this find. Was it a hominid? Or more likely an ape ("pithicus")? Or a human who suffered of some deforming anomaly?

The last argument, was it some kind of maybe genetic anomaly, can be discarded very easily. First of all in the meantime we found dozens of new Homo erectus specimens. Fossil finds are extremely rare. The odds that DOZENS of such rather rare specimens ALL happen to originate from unfortunate individuals who suffered some malformation, can be statistically ruled out - especially when we know how rare those genetic conditions themselves are.

Secondly, the particular traits of Homo erectus specimen do anatomically not resemble the typical features you might find in genetic anomalies among humans. If anyone here knows of a creationist treatise where such morphological analysis is done, let me know. When it comes to specialized research, the Great Dodging inevitably starts.

Thirdly, the cranial “deformities” go along with a series of other typical anatomical treats shared by Homo erectus specimens. Relative to modern humans it had a rather protruding muzzle, small brains (an average of 900 cc over all specimens, although it stood as high as extant humans), smaller cervical and lumbar swellings, hardly any protruding nose, longer vertebral spines, an elongated femoral neck, etc. All these anatomical traits put together rule out any genetic malformation.

Dubois' classification of Java man as a transitional fossil between apes and humans was not selling hot cakes among his then colleagues.

Apparently it's hard to classify transitional fossils adequately altogether. The reason is the transitional character itself. It is the nature of transitional fossils to be classified within taxonomy only with the greatest difficulty.

Let's have Homo erectus again. Basically, if we leave all kinds of minor details away, Erectus was a hominid which was very human-like from the neck down but differed considerably “upstairs”. Now what is it? After decades of quarrel, taxonomists decided it was a hominid. And not an “ape”. There are good reasons for it. We meanwhile found that Homo erectus was fabricating tools. And there’s good evidence that it also used fire.

Nice for the taxonomists. IRRELEVANT for evolution theory. The taxonomic categorization and classification of fossil specimens into some taxon, genus or species is their own business of taxonomists. Whether Erectus was to be named Pithecus erectus or Homo erectus is only informative for evolutionists. THEIR argument is about unearthed specimens exhibiting varying mixes of traits that are BOTH typical to ancestral predecessor AND to the descendant life forms. The fossil evidence for evolution is about transitioning TRAITS. It is NOT about taxonomy.

And the more difficult the taxonomic classification of some fossil find turns out to be, THE BETTER for evolution. Because evolution theory PREDICTS transitional fossils that are hard to classify. By their very transitional nature.

So the hilarious scene of creationists desperately classifying fossils, unhindered by any sound technical knowledge and understanding of anatomy – thus making gross errors and distortions underway – then nevertheless jumping to an IRRELEVANT conclusion about the exact classification, is always funny to behold.

But it becomes even more funny when creationists are mocking about the apparent inability of taxonomists to classify specimen properly. “See, the evolutionists cannot even make up their own mind whether this is a hominid or an ape”.

They think they made an important point.

But in their utter ignorance and muddleheadiness, they just made an point pro evolution.

This is how stupidity looks like.