The concept of a missing link is a misconception, numerous transitional fossils have been found at various stages of human evolution, and we will always be finding more as evolution is a constant, gradual fact of life, not something that happens in jumps and stages.
Many scientists believe in the theory of punctuated equilibrium, which posits that there are periods of rapid evolutionary change followed by periods of relative stability and smaller change. This is used to explain why there are many different fossils of creatures from before and after but few to none from in-between (after all, in the traditional gradual theory, you would expect the period of half-reptile, half-bird, say, to last approximately as long as the period of all reptiles and all birds). Thus, it's likely that if evolution is true, it
does happen in jumps and stages to some degree.
Anyways, nothing is truly provable, as the aim of science is not to create proofs, but to rule out possibilities and see what is left. Insofar as something can be "proven" by the scientific method, evolution has been the foundation upon which our understandings of genetics, microbiology, etc. Evolution is as much a proven scientific fact as gravity at this point.
That's an apt analogy, though possibly not for the reasons you intended. We can see the effects of gravity and understand what it does but we are at a total loss to explain how it works or to unravel its mechanisms. In the same way, we know that organisms adapt over time and that the little adaptations, when viewed with a wide enough lens, can cause them to appear very different. For example, look at the many different varieties of housecat.
That said, I don't accept evolution as fact simply because there are too many questions and not enough answers. Why don't we see transitional forms alive today? Let's say we have a lemur--a primate. Some lemur gives birth to something which has some odd characteristic, say tarsal bones that more closely resemble human hands than lemur hands. This lemur reproduces prolifically, and eventually this new phenotype, let's call it the dextro-lemur, comprises a significant percentage of the total lemur population. One of these dextro-lemurs then gives birth to a baby which has an oddly malformed skull, leading to forward-facing eyes more typical of higher primates. Once again, this new phenotype begins to comprise a significant percentage of total lemurs (we know this must be the case because these mutations theoretically carried forward along the genetic line that eventually resulted in humans). Several mutations later, speciation has occurred: the mutants are so different from their ancestors that they can now be said to be a new species, perhaps one that is even genetically incompatible enough to prevent cross-breeding. This new species carves out a niche for itself in the ecosystem and begins its own divergences on the route towards the human genome.
What I would expect, then, is for a certain percentage of lemurs today to be born with human-like hands, a certain percentage to be born with forward-facing eyes, and a certain percentage to be born with both. Why? Because the original transitional forms would have continued living and mating and propagating their own phenotype, and as we know from genetics, regardless of whether the genes which allowed this to happen were recessive or dominant, there would be some combinations that would result in this latent genetic trait showing up. But we don't see that.
It's also important to point out that of all the mutations which occur, only a vanishingly small percentage of them can be said to be positive. Survival of the fittest is a descriptive rather than prescriptive property: just because one kitten is born with a slightly enhanced muscular configuration that allows it to run faster doesn't mean it's not going to get killed by a car before it can reproduce. Thus, you would expect the human phenotype, as the result of theoretically millions of years of random evolution, to have at least some "what is going on here?" features. A baby fish is much more likely to be born with a random third eye in the middle of its face or a lopsided fin than it is to be born with lungs or legs (I've seen three-eyed fish and lopsided fish, by the way--not so much the ones with legs).
Also, maybe this is just my knee-jerk reaction to news that I don't agree with, but the story seems slightly suspicious to me. We have this freakishly perfect fossil nigh-immaculately preserved. This fossil is a biological and paleontological breakthrough of the like that we haven't seen since Linnaeus started playing with plants. And these researchers kept it secret for
two years? I don't know about you, but I was a research assistant for a university not too long ago, and if I or any of my peers discovered something that would cause a worldwide splash and make me famous, I wouldn't sit on it for two years. Maybe those Norwegians are an unexciteable bunch, or maybe the article isn't entirely accurate, but come on. Two years?
I think the theory of evolution and its researchers have added a lot to human knowledge, and there are certainly aspects of it which are unquestionably true. However, there are a lot more hurdles its proponents have to overcome before
I'm convinced.
