Changes

{{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>}}

Conservative writer [[Ann Coulter]] sarcastically quipped concerning Gould's above remark, "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>

Conservative writer [[Ann Coulter]] sarcastically quipped concerning Gould's above commentary on 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>

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>  

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>