Jan:
When such an incredible theory is proclaimed fact, and is taught throughout the media and throughout the education system as fact, it should be okay for a lay person to make such a request. It shouldn't be that hard to produce such evidence if it is fact.
There is abundant evidence. However, as I said, Creationists refuse to accept it for what it is.
What would convince you that a fossil repesented an "intermediate" between two species? (Please read below before answering).
We should be inundated with undeveloped (by todays standard) fossils. In fact there should be more of those than developed fossils.
No. That is a misconception. An animal will not survive to reproduce if it is "undeveloped". Animals survive and propagate only if they are well-adapted to their environments. You are making the common mistake of thinking of a "ladder" of life, with humans at the top and bacteria at the bottom. That is not the true picture. If you try to link species from past to present, what you find is not a ladder, but a tree with multiple branches. The tree is constantly being "pruned", with species on the ends of particular branches becoming extinct. However, at the same time, other branches are growing, and sprouting new branches, such as happened when the common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans split into the two populations which eventually led to the separate species we see today. That common ancestor was not "undeveloped". It was a perfectly viable occupant of its ecological niche. If it had not been, we would not be here today.
Look at another "intermediate":
Ambulocetus. It was a mammal which looked vaguely like a crocodile but which lived most of its life in shallow rivers and streams, only venturing onto land rarely. Its back legs were not well-suited for living on land, but then, it didn't need legs for living on land. Ambulocetus evolved from a land mammal, but gradually (over many generations) its back legs became less prominent as features of the animal, while at the same time it was changing in other ways (for example, its forelimbs were becoming larger and better for paddling). Modern whales evolved from creatures such as
Ambulocetus. The back limbs completely disappeared (almost), and the front limbs became flippers. But, if you look carefully at modern whales, you will see that they still possess all the same rear-limb bones as are found in
Ambulocetus, even though those bones are completely contained within the whales' bodies, and are not useful for anything.
If God designed the whales "as is", you might like to consider why he gave them useless back-leg bones. The theory of evolution easily explains this observation. The Creationist theory only has God's capricious whim to offer as an "explanation".
And why do they always talk of Archaeopteryx or the lung-fish, what about all the other species.
People like stories of large animals which are semi-familiar. If I showed you intermediate fossils of various types of worms, would you be convinced? Would you even recognise them as intermediates?
As i said, we should be inundated with undeveloped (transitory) fossils, if this theory is to be regarded as fact.
The fossil record is, alas, very patchy. Fossilisation is an extremely rare process. Think about the conditions which are required for fossilisation to occur. Also, think about how unlikely it is that a fossil, once formed, will be preserved. Consider the chances of finding fossils, and the relatively small numbers of people working on such things, trying to cover an entire planet.
Most people can understand that we didn't evolve from chimps, as chimps are still around and are not looking extinction in the face, nor are they evolving.
There's that incorrect ladder picture again. It is not necessary for an ancestor species to become extinct when it splits into two separate species. To take one example, there are about 14 species of a particular type of bird in Europe which are all virtually identical in all visual and behavioural respects, but which nevertheless cannot interbreed with each other. The theory of evolution explains why groups of species such as this exist - because they all evolved from the same common ancestor. I wonder how the Creationists explain why God created 14 separate species of identical-looking birds.
Also, chimps are still evolving. So is every other living thing on the planet.
I say this but i read somewhere that scientists want to categorise chimpanzees as homo something or other.
If you look at the anatomical, or genetic, or behavioural features of chimpanzees compared to human beings and gorillas, what do you think you'll find? What you find is that the closest living relatives to chimpanzees are human beings. That is, chimpanzees are more like humans than they are like gorillas, or, indeed, any other ape or monkey. It therefore makes no sense to classify chimpanzees and gorillas into a class of which excludes human beings. On the other hand, it is quite possible to classify chimps and human beings into a class which excludes gorillas. When we get into the nitty gritty of taxonomy, a good argument can be made that humans and chimps ought to occupy the same genus.
Coming back to the point. You have not even attempted to answer my questions, either we have the evidence or we do not.
We have an abundance of evidence. You should recognise that, in fact, every fossil is an intermediate fossil. Are you different from your father? Is he different from your grandfather? If the answer is "yes", then your father shows features intermediate between you and your grandfather. If your father was fossilised, he would be an "intermediate" fossil.
I know you didn't take this point seriously last time. Perhaps you should think about it more carefully.
And why would some people, like 'atheroy', or maybe even yourself, see it as 'OBVIOUS'?
Evolution is a beautifully simple and coherent explanation of life. However, to understand it, it is necessary to throw away some preconceptions about the world. In particular, it is necessary to throw away the idea that the animal kingdom (or plants, or fungi) is neatly split up into "kinds" of creatures. Instead, you must look at every living thing as an individual, different from every other living thing. People have no problem with recognising that every individual human is different from every other individual human in subtle ways. Yet many cannot grasp that every individual lion is different from every other lion, too. It is this diversity which provides the raw material for natural selection. If two living things are even subtly different from one another, that difference can have a serious impact on their chances of survival and reproduction. That is all that is needed for evolution to be true, and is an obvious and indisputable fact.
People who do not accept evolution invariably do so either out of simple ignorance and/or wilful blindness. Young-earth Creationists are the prime exemplars of both features.