To Evolutionist : isn't evolution a continuous process? where are the living missing link?

What exactly do you define as "the missing link?" To read your post " half monkey half human creature" this suggests a band of monkeys first started birthing missing links and the next generation started birthing humans. Sadly monkeys are far off on the evolutionary tree from humans. No 'missing link" can make that jump. The "missing link" is beloved by two groups. Newscasters and creationists. The first as every new hominid find gets called a "missing link" (whatever that is) and the latter love it, as one wag said: "It's completely imaginary and can't be disproven." Yes, the missing link is imaginary. There's no "half monkey half human creature" to be found. Why do creationists bring it up? First it doesn't exist and one can't prove something that doesn't exist. Second if one claims there's a "missing link" between two species, they can later demand the "missing link" between the "missing link". To be more accurate creationists like to claim "there are no transitional fossils". rather then the more crude 'missing link." The first question to the creationist is then "Do you mean "general lineage" or the "species-to-species transition":? This leads to the "Predictions of creationism: Creationists usually don't state the predictions of creationism, but I'll take a stab at it here. First, though there are several different sorts of creationism, all of them agree that there should be no transitional fossils at all between "kinds". For example, if "kind" means "species", creationism apparently predicts that there should be no species-to-species transitions whatsoever in the fossil record. If "kind" means "genus" or "family" or "order", there should be no species-to-species transitions that cross genus, family, or order lines. Furthermore, creationism apparently predicts that since life did not originate by descent from a common ancestor, fossils should not appear in a temporal progression, and it should not be possible to link modern taxa to much older, very different taxa through a "general lineage" of similar and progressively older fossils." http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part1a.html#intro That's compared to the "Predictions of evolutionary theory: Evolutionary theory predicts that fossils should appear in a temporal progression, in a nested hierarchy of lineages, and that it should be possible to link modern animals to older, very different animals. In addition, the "punctuated equilibrium" model also predicts that new species should often appear "suddenly" (within 500,000 years or less) and then experience long periods of stasis. Where the record is exceptionally good, we should find a few local, rapid transitions between species. The "phyletic gradualism" model predicts that most species should change gradually throughout time, and that where the record is good, there should be many slow, smooth species-to-species transitions. These two models are not mutually exclusive -- in fact they are often viewed as two extremes of a continuum -- and both agree that at least some species-to-species transitions should be found. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part1a.html#intro Asking for "the living missing link" is asking for something imaginary to be ;produced.

We do see species that are still around after having produced new species. Examples include gray wolves, which have produced dogs, dingoes, and New Guinea singing dogs; brown bears, which have produced polar bears; and surf smelt, which have produced Delta smelt. We don't still see populations that are halfway between brown and polar bears because populations typically evolve to adapt to their niche and environment, so if they're entering a new niche they tend to do so relatively quickly until they're fairly well adapted, and then don't change much after that (unless the niche changes). We do see some living examples of cases where incipient species are beginning to bud off, and intermediate populations still exist, however. They're called ring species. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species > Like for example shouldn't we see MANY branches of "human like"? Where are they? We are talking about hundreds of millions of evolution years here. Weren't you just arguing that we should see "living" missing links (transitional species and populations), since evolution is a continuous process? Living links would be between a new species and the species the new species came from, right? So we're not talking "hundreds of millions of years" here. If we were, either the original or the "new" species would likely have gone extinct after so much time. Homo sapiens is only about 200 thousand years old. The species we likely evolved from most recently, Homo heidelbergensis, went extinct around that time. You're not likely to see living transitional species or populations except in the case of very young species.

You need to read more. I'd have to write books to explain it to you. It's really very simple and straightforward. I just don't feel inclined to take on the endeavor right now. Before you start applying it to humans you need to first understand Evolution. I wish you luck.

The "missing link" was alive millions of years ago (if not hundreds of thousands) If you really think they are going to be alive today, I think you are mistaken. You ask what happened to the monkeys who lived 1 million years ago? They died. Just like everything else. Those monkeys did go through evolution, but it is a slow process across many generations, each one closer to being human than the previous one. So what will humans evolve into? I shudder to think of that answer... By the way, I do not identify myself with evolutionism but was brought up creationism. However, I do not fully deny evolution because everything in the physical world must either evolve or become extinct. I do lean toward creationism but only when it comes to the Big Bang because it all had to start somewhere and I think God set off the Big Bang. Kind of like, "Hey y'all, watch this!!"

wrong. monkeys today are a result of evolution. Do not think that we evolved from Chimpanzees or some other species. They did not exist some million years ago. There were other kinds of primates at that time. They just took a different path that resulted in a different branch. Look at Neanderthals. They are also a branch of evolution, that did not quite make it and became extinct. If they were not extinct, we would probably coexist with another quite intelligent species (not as intelligent as the homo sapiens sapiens, though). We did not derive from monkeys. We share the same roots. Monkeys nowadays are a result, not a branch stuck in time. Anyway, evolution is a process that takes several million years. Do not expect to see some kind of mutation happening over night. by the way, i am catholic :P but still believe in modern science. just read more books. you will eventually understand this quite complex process.

sure it's continuous, the species that are intermediate between our ancestors and us... have become us. the ancestors that went a different way, are our cousins the chimps. There is no reason to assume that the intermediate forms must also exist. think how much room we would need for all the species that have ever existed? Pick up any book that is a collection of essays by Stephen Jay Gould, he has essays that are pretty much for the general public. There are about 10 of them or so on amazon. Or a book called The Beak of the Finch. That won a Pulitzer (I think), excellent book.

There are no in between species because evolution works on an entire population. One creature mutates and that allele, or gene sequence, transfers to the rest of the population. If it does not it will eventually be breed out of the population.