Kotatsu and Dinwar, your objections are based on a professional (and reality) based understanding of evolution. not the presumed reality of creationists.
My objections are based on about 10 years of experience of actually debating this kind of arguments with actual creationists; I know that Dinwar has a similar experience. They are based on the fact that the creationist arguments of this sort are not as simplistic in their structure as what you and the OP assume, and therefore cannot be dismissed or countered by the sort of simplistic answers that are found in the OP.
They answer the objection above the picture.
Really? Well, let's have a look at these examples, then:
1. "Elephants have fully adapted, long trunks. You won't find anything like an elephant with a short trunk." Counter: a tapir.
As this objection to evolutionary theory is phrased, the simplest way to dismiss the counter of the OP is to state that the tapir is not "anything like an elephant". It is a very different kind of animal, and is, above all, "fully formed", meaning that whatever uses they have for their trunks has no bearing at all on what an ancestral elephant would have been able to do. As we're apparently involved in a discussion between a creationist child and an evolutionist child, simply pointing out that the tapir doesn't have tusks and large ears would be enough to dismiss the counter. For more sophisticated debates, there is no end to the amount of dissimilarities -- even excluding the objections Dinwar and I have outlined here -- between the tapir an an elephant (or its ancestors).
Conclusion: I don't see how any even mildly intelligent creationists wouldn't be able to dismiss this counter.
2. "Giraffes have fully adapted long necks. You won't find anything like a giraffe with a short neck." Counter: okapi.
As I've stated before, this is the only one that comes even close to being an actual counter to the imagined creationist objection. However, the dismissal would be based on the exact same thing as the previous one: this is an extant organism, and therefore "fully formed". It cannot be an example of a "short-necked giraffe" because the objection the creationist has is lodged inside the evolutionary scenario (which is what they seek disprove), and as such, this is not a "short-necked giraffe".
Conclusion: Although this counter comes close, it is also rather easily dismissed by creationists.
3. "Fish are adapted for swimming; salamanders are adapted for walking on land. You won't find anything like a half-fish half-salamander. Let's say it had one pair of legs and a tail how, could it move? If it still had gills, how could it breathe?" Counter: mudskippers.
Even though the scenario outlined is flawed (salamanders are
not adapted to walking on land), I don't see how this example would convince creationists. These are "still fish", as they have fins and gills. They also don't have "one pair of legs", they have "one pair of modified fins".
Conclusion: this one also comes close, but is easily dismissed by creationists.
4. "Scientists claim that squid evolved from mollusks like snails. Yet, you won't find anything halfway in between a snail and a squid. Imagine a snail with tentacles." Counter:
Nautilus.
This one is among the most ridiculous, as there is nothing in
Nautilus that suggests it would be an accepted intermediate between squid and snails, even if we assume the creationist would be converted if any one of these supposed intermediates were shown to be correct. There are lots of different organisms with shells, so having a shell does not imply that you are related or similar to snails at all. Therefore, this is just a squid with a shell, which has no obvious characteristics of a snail (stalked eyes, slimy foot, and so on).
Conclusion: Maybe this would convince some of the most naïve of creationists, but any creationist that has ever read a page of rebuttals of evolutionist claims should have no problems rebutting this one.
5. "Well, fine, there are animals like this now. But, what evidence is there that they ever existed in the past?" Counter: fossil ammonites.
I can't even see how this is a plausible creationist argument. And even if it were, the fact that something exists now and in the past, and looks "essentially the same" is evidence, in their minds, that evolution has
not happened, or these organisms would look different after evolutionary time.
Conclusion: This example doesn't even convince as a parody of creationist arguments...
6. "What about trilobites? Scientists claim that these were everywhere in the fossil record. Why aren't they still around?" Counter: horseshoe crabs.
This is by far the most ridiculous one, but not as ridiculous as the arguments presented for its inclusion. The only valid answer to the question the imagined creationist asks, as stated before, is "Because they went extinct and no one presently knows why". To imply, as RY is doing, that they went extinct because the horseshoe crabs out-competed them is inane, and would require extensive evidence to support.
Conclusion: A creationist could counter this example by either showing (based on as accessible a source as WP) that these are not trilobites, or that the evolutionist needs to support their statement that horseshoe crabs drove trilobites to extinction. It is also not an example of an intermediate form even in the stupid sense of creationists!
7-8. "Well, maybe it works for something simple but it couldn't work for anything complex. There's no way that an animal could gradually develop the ability to fly." Counter: flying frog and lizard.
This frog and lizard are not flying, they are gliding. Did the same happen in early birds? If not, this is not an example of the evolution of flying, and the imagined creationist is actually more or less
correct when he/she starts his/her next question with "That's only a minor adaptation. Frogs jump and have webbed feet. This one just has bigger webbed feet so that it can go farther." And as we have no way to predict that the descendants of this frog will ever be able to actually fly, the imagined creationist is largely correct. Gliding is not flying. There are no actual extant flying lizards and frogs, so we have no idea if this is actually ever an intermediate between non-flying and flying.
Conclusion: These examples would most likely not hold as counterarguments against anything but the stupidest of creationists.
9. "That couldn't have evolved. There is no intermediate form." Counter: a cobra.
This one is just bizarre. The creationist is supposed to accept as an intermediate between non-flying and flying lizards the neck frills of a cobra? They're in a different part of the body, used for a different thing, and in a different taxon...
Conclusion: This one would not be accepted by creationists.
10. "That doesn't count. Lizards have legs; snakes don't. There is nothing in between a lizard and a snake." Counter: skink.
I fail to see how any creationist could be persuaded to accept
a lizard as an intermediate between a lizard and a snake just because the lizard has shorter legs. It still has legs!!!!! How can an intermediate between two taxa have
all the distinct characters of one extreme, and
none of the other extreme?
Conclusion: This one is just ridiculous, especially considering that there
are snakes with pelvic girdles and lizards with no legs and lizards with only one leg pair... the selection of which animal to represent an intermediate is just baffling...
11. "You still haven't come up with a crocoduck." Counter: a shoebill.
You still didn't come up with a crocoduck...
