Don't the missing links prove evolution?

If evolution is true and different animals evolved into other kinds of animals over a long period of time, we should expect that the fossil record would record these changes and we should find many fossils of animals that are in the process of changing into other animals.

There is a lot of talk these days about the so-called 'missing links'; a supposed group of fossils that are half way between apes and humans. School textbooks have lots of colourful pictures of these creatures. However none of these fossils give convincing evidence that man has evolved from apes. Most of these 'ape men' have now been disproved and are rejected by evolutionists themselves. A list of these is shown below:

• Neanderthal Man: These creatures are now generally recognised as being humans that were stooped through diseases such as rickets.
• Piltdown Man: This was a clear hoax that fooled the scientific world for around 40 years. It was made from a human skull and an orangutans jaw.
• Nebraska Man: Now known to be an extinct pig. The only evidence scientists ever had for this creature was a single tooth.
• Australopithicus Africanus: This creature is now regarded to be an ape and not a transitional form.
• Ramapithecus: This is now generally agreed to be an extinct type of orangutan.

There are some fossils that are still portrayed as being the ancestors of humans. However these are far from convincing and the main ones are shown below.

• Homo Erectus: This now also includes Peking man and Java man. The bodies of these creatures were very similar to modern humans and analysis has shown that they walked just like modern humans. In fact there is very little scientific evidence that would show that Homo Erectus was anything other than fully human. A scientific analysis of Homo Erectus can be found here.
• Homo Habilis: It is now thought that Homo Habilis never actually existed. It seems to be a mix of various different fossils put together, even different parts of Homo Erectus and Homo Habilis. A scientific analysis of Homo Habilis can be found here.
• Australopithecus: The most famous of these fossils is the one called 'Lucy'. The scientific evidence points to the conclusion that 'Lucy' was just an extinct ape, probably similar to the pygmy chimpanzee. A scientific analysis of Lucy can be found here and here.

So we can see that the entire list of transitional forms between apes and men can effectively be reduced to zero.

This leads us to ask a series of questions; if apes turned into humans over millions of years, why in the fossil record do we only find humans and apes? Why do we still find the original creatures that other creatures supposedly evolved from? How have some been left behind? For more info these so-called 'ape men' please click here.

One thing however is certain; the missing link is still missing!