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| | {{cquote|The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils...We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life’s history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study.<ref>Dr. [[Walt Brown]], Center For Scientific Creationism, [http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/ReferencesandNotes23.html References and Notes: Fossil Gaps]</ref>}} | | {{cquote|The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils...We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life’s history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study.<ref>Dr. [[Walt Brown]], Center For Scientific Creationism, [http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/ReferencesandNotes23.html References and Notes: Fossil Gaps]</ref>}} |
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| − | The [[conservative]] writer [[Ann Coulter]] sarcastically quipped concerning Gould's admission about the fossil record, "Lots of real scientific [[theory|theories]] have 'secrets.'"<ref>[http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=45893 Liberals' View of Darwin Unable to Evolve]</ref>
| + | For more information please see: [[Evolution and the fossil record]] |
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| − | In a 1977 paper titled "The Return of Hopeful Monsters", Gould wrote: "The fossil record with its abrupt transitions offers no support for gradual change....All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt."<ref name="puncteq">Dr. Don Batten, [http://creation.com/punctuated-equilibrium-come-of-age Punctuated Equilibrium: Come of Age?], 1994</ref><ref>[[Stephen Jay Gould]], [http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_hopeful-monsters.html "The Return of Hopeful Monsters," Natural History 86 (June/July): 22-30]</ref>
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| − | The senior paleontologist at the [[Britain|British]] Museum of Natural History, Dr. Colin Patterson, put it this way:
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| − | {{cquote|[[Phyletic gradualism|Gradualism]] is a concept I believe in, not just because of Darwin’s authority, but because my understanding of genetics seems to demand it. Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils....I will lay it on the line — there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.<ref>[[Answers in Genesis]], [http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v14/i4/fossils.asp Those fossils are a problem]</ref>}}
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| − | According to Dr. Don Batten, Stephen Gould in 1970s made some admissions that there was a "lack of evidence for phylogeny in the fossils" and that Gould had also claimed a number of that were no indisputable intermediate forms. Dr. Batten states that Gould made these statements when Gould was less concerned about creationists.<ref name="puncteq" /> Dr. Batten also states that "claimed examples of transitional series and intermediate forms received an incisive critique from Gould in the 1970s...."<ref name="puncteq" /> However, Gould's admissions were subsequently widely quoted by creationists.<ref name="puncteq" /> According to Dr. Batton, in 1981 Gould started making intemperate language towards creationists.<ref>Dr. Don Batten, [http://creation.com/gould-grumbles-about-creationist-hijacking Gould Grumbles About Creationist ‘Hijacking’]</ref> After having been incessantly quoted by creationist regarding the fossil record, Gould altered his public stance regarding the fossil record and without stating specific examples from the fossil record and using the ambiguous term "larger groups" Gould stated the following in 1981:
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| − | {{cquote|Since we proposed [[Punctuated Equilibrium|punctuated equilibria]] to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists - whether through design or stupidity, I do not know - as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups."<ref>[[Stephen Jay Gould]], [http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_fact-and-theory.html "Evolution as Fact and Theory," Discover 2 (May 1981)]</ref>}}
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| − | [[Image:Mayr.jpg|left|thumb|[[Ernst Mayr]]]]
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| − | In 1980, David Woodruff wrote in the journal ''Science'' the following: "But fossil species remain unchanged throughout most of their history and the record fails to contain a single example of a significant transition.”<ref>Dr. [[Walt Brown]], Center For Scientific Creationism, [http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/ReferencesandNotes23.html References and Notes: Fossil Gaps]</ref> The late [[Ernst Mayr]] was a prominent [[Harvard]] [[biology|biologist]] who also served as the director of Harvard's Museum of Comparative [[Zoology]]. Mayr was a staunch evolutionist and [[atheism|atheist]]<ref>http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2003/1208mayr.asp</ref> who maintained that evolution was a fact, yet in 1982 Mayr was compelled to make the following admission regarding the fossil record in relation to the theory of evolution: "Even the fossil record fails to substantiate any continuity and all novelties appear in the fossil record quite suddenly."<ref>[[Ernst Mayr]], [http://books.google.com/books?id=5f5kg_w2dJ4C&pg=PA441&lpg=PA441&dq=Even+the+fossil+record+fails+to+substantiate+any+continuity+and+all+novelties+appear+in+the+fossil+record+quite+suddenly&source=bl&ots=ZkMciG9ZtD&sig=_4KUqYwe5GKUtuASBXR5v3T9Cpk&hl=en&ei=YaYiSoeIEJmxtgeNyM2zBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3 1982a. Speciation and macroevolution. Evolution 36, page 1120]</ref>
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| − | In 1985, Gould was more specific regarding his claim that there were intermediate forms and asserted that [[Archaeopteryx]] was a intermediate form.<ref>[[Stephen Jay Gould]], [http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_functionalshift.html "Not Necessarily a Wing," Natural History 94 (October 1985): 12-25; ]</ref> Also, according to Dr. Batten, in 1994 the following occurred in regard to Gould's stance on the fossil record:
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| − | {{cquote|"[Gould] abandoned his earlier position that there are no indisputable examples of transitional fossil series, either inter-specific or between major designs, and has embraced the ‘walking [[whale]]’ story as evidence for transformation of one species into another. The evidence for this transition is scant, but Gould uncritically accepts the fanciful description of how Ambulocetus natans walked and swam, as given by Thewissen et al."<ref name="puncteq" />}}
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| − | In 2001, staunch evolutionist Ernst Mayr wrote the following:
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| − | {{cquote|Given the fact of evolution, one would expect the fossils to document a gradual steady change from one ancestral form to the descendants. But this is not what the [[paleontology|paleontologist]] finds. Instead, he or she finds gaps in just about every phyletic series. New types often appear quite suddenly, and their immediate ancestors are absent in the [[geology|geological]] strata. The discovery of unbroken series of species changing gradually into descending species is very rare. Indeed the fossil record is one of discontinuities, seemingly documenting jumps ''(saltations)'' from one type of organism to a different type. This raises a puzzling question: Why does the fossil record fail to reflect the gradual change one would expect from evolution?<ref>Ernst Mayr, What Evolution Is, (New York: Basic Books, 2001), p. 14</ref>}}
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| − | As mentioned earlier, one of the more famous alleged transitional fossils claimed by evolutionists is [[Archaeopteryx]]. Dr. [[Alan Feduccia]], a world authority on birds and an evolutionist himself, has stated the following regarding Archaeopteryx:
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| − | {{cquote|Paleontologists have tried to turn Archaeopteryx into an earth-bound, feathered dinosaur. But it’s not. It is a bird, a perching bird. And no amount of ‘paleobabble’ is going to change that.<ref name="SarfatiArchaeopteryx">Dr. [[Jonathan Sarfati]], P.H.D., F.M.,
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| − | [http://creation.com/archaeopteryx-unlike-archaeoraptor-is-not-a-hoaxit-is-a-true-bird-not-a-missing-link Archaeopteryx (unlike Archaeoraptor) is NOT a hoax — it is a true bird, not a “missing link”]</ref>}}
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| − | Creation scientists have a number of arguments against [[Archaeopteryx]] being a transitional fossil find.<ref name="SarfatiArchaeopteryx" /><ref>
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| − | * Dr. [[Carl Wieland]], [http://creation.com/bird-evolution-flies-out-the-window Archaeopteryx]
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| − | * Dr. [[Duane Gish]], [http://www.icr.org/article/321/ As a Transitional Form Archaeopteryx Won't Fly]
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| − | * [[Jonathan Sarfati]], P.H.D., F.M., [http://www.creation.com/content/view/3833/106/ ''Refuting Evolution'', Chapter 4, Bird Evolution?]
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| − | </ref>
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| − | A second famous alleged transitional fossil claimed by evolutionists is Tiktaalik. Creation scientists have a number of arguments regarding the fossil find of Tiktaalik not being a transitional find.<ref>
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| − | * [[Jonathan Sarfati]], P.H.D., F.M., [http://www.creation.com/content/view/4250 Tiktaalik—a fishy ‘missing link’]
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| − | * Frank Sherwin, M.A., [http://www.icr.org/article/2962/ Tiktaalik: Our Ancestor?]
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| − | * Dr. David Menton, [http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2007/0307tiktaalik.asp Tiktaalik and the fishy story of walking fish]
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| − | </ref>
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| | == The Fossil Record and Evolutionary Theory == | | == The Fossil Record and Evolutionary Theory == |