I have believed for some time that a lack of transitional forms is a strong argument against Darwinian evolution. I personally believe in micro evolution, but have yet to see compelling evidence for macro evolution and its ability to form new species.
I got up this morning and decided to do a bit more hunting on the net to see if I could more information about transitional species. I found a fascinating article written by German professor Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig. He is a researcher on mutation genetics at the University of Bonn. Also, before proponents of evolution jump to conclusions, he is not affiliated with the Discovery Institute.
Check out these articles, they are an interesting read.
Here is a summary from the Appendix to give you an idea about the content of the article:
Introduction: the story which is commonly taught in high schools about the evolution of the longnecked
giraffe by natural selection (feeding-competition-hypothesis) fails to explain, among other things,
the size differences between males and females. Giraffe cows are up to 1.5 meters shorter than the giraffe
bulls, not to mention the offspring. The wide migration range of the giraffe and the low heights of the most
common plants in their diet likewise argue against the dominant selection hypothesis. Now to the main
points: 1) The fossil „links“, which according to the theory should appear successively and replace each
other, usually exist simultaneously for long periods of time. 2) Evolutionary derivations based on similarities
rely on circular reasoning (to refer once more to Kuhn’s statement) 3) The giraffe has eight cervical
vertebrae. Although the 8th vertebra displays almost all the characteristics of a neck vertebra, as an exception to the rule the first rib pair is attached there. 4) The origin of the long-necked giraffe by a macromutation is, due to the many synorganized structures, extremely improbable. 5) Sexual selection also lacks a mutational basis and, what is more, is frequently in conflict with natural selection („head clubbing“ is probably „a consequence of a long neck and not a cause“). 6) In contrast to the thus-far proposed naturalistic hypotheses, the intelligent design theory is basically testable. 7) The long-necked giraffes possibly all belong to the same basic type inasmuch as 8] a gradual evolution from the short-necked to the long-necked giraffe is ruled out by the duplication of a neck vertebra and the loss of a thoracic vertebra. 9) Chance mutations are principally not sufficient to explain the origin of the long-necked giraffe. 10) The intelligent design theory offers an adequate and satisfying solution to the problems and points to numerous „old“ and new research projects. 11) Mitchell and Skinner present a good analysis of the selectionist problem; however, their phylogenetic hypotheses presuppose the correctness of the synthetic evolutionary theory, and their claims of “intermediate forms“ are unproven. - Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig
