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Denial of some famous Evolutionists on Fri 14 Nov 2008, 9:54 pm
"It is, however, very difficult to establish the precise lines of descent, termed phylogenies, for most organisms." (Ayala, F. J. and Valentine J. W., Evolving: The Theory and Process of Organic Evolution, 1978, p. 230)
"Undeniably, the fossil record has provided disappointingly few gradual series. The origins of many groups are still not documented at all." (Futuyma, D., Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution, 1983, p. 190-191)
"There is still a tremendous problem with the sudden diversification of multi-cellular life. There is no question about that. That's a real phenomenon." (Niles Eldredge, quoted in Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems by Luther D. Sunderland, Master Book Publishers, Santee, California, 1988, p. 45)
"Whatever ideas authorities may have on the subject, the lungfishes, like every other major group of fishes that I know, have their origins firmly based in nothing." (Quoted in W. R. Bird, _The Origin of Species Revisited_ [Nashville: Regency, 1991; originally published by Philosophical Library, 1987], 1:62-63)
"The main problem with such phyletic gradualism is that the fossil record provides so little evidence for it. Very rarely can we trace the gradual transformation of one entire species into another through a finely graded sequence of intermediary forms." (Gould, S.J. Luria, S.E. & Singer, S., A View of Life, 1981, p. 641)
"It should come as no surprise that it would be extremely difficult to find a specific fossil species that is both intermediate in morphology between two other taxa and is also in the appropriate stratigraphic position." (Cracraft, J., "Systematics, Comparative Biology, and the Case Against Creationism," 1983, p. 180)
"Most families, orders, classes, and phyla appear rather suddenly in the fossil record, often without anatomically intermediate forms smoothly interlinking evolutionarily derived descendant taxa with their presumed ancestors." (Eldredge, N., 1989, Macro-Evolutionary Dynamics: Species, Niches, and Adaptive Peaks, McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, New York, p. 22)
"Species that were once thought to have turned into others have been found to overlap in time with these alleged descendants. In fact, the fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another." (Stanley, S.M., The New Evolutionary Timetable: Fossils, Genes, and the Origin of Species, 1981, p. 95)
"Many fossils have been collected since 1859, tons of them, yet the impact they have had on our understanding of the relationships between living organisms is barely perceptible. ...In fact, I do not think it unfair to say that fossils, or at least the traditional interpretation of fossils, have clouded rather than clarified our attempts to reconstruct phylogeny." (Fortey, P. L., "Neontological Analysis Versus Palaeontological Stores," 1982, p. 120-121)
"Indeed, it is the chief frustration of the fossil record that we do not have empirical evidence for sustained trends in the evolution of most complex morphological adaptations." (Gould, Stephen J. and Eldredge, Niles, "Species Selection: Its Range and Power," 1988, p. 19)
"The paleontological data is consistent with the view that all of the currently recognized phyla had evolved by about 525 million years ago. Despite half a billion years of evolutionary exploration generated in Cambrian time, no new phylum level designs have appeared since then." ("Developmental Evolution of Metazoan Body plans: The Fossil Evidence," Valentine, Erwin, and Jablonski, Developmental Biology 173, Article No. 0033, 1996, p. 376)
"Many 'trends' singled out by evolutionary biologists are ex post facto rendering of phylogenetic history: biologists may simply pick out species at different points in geological time that seem to fit on some line of directional modification through time. Many trends, in other words, may exist more in the minds of the analysts than in phylogenetic history. This is particularly so in situations, especially common prior to about 1970, in which analysis of the phylogenetic relationships among species was incompletely or poorly done." (Eldredge, Niles, Macro-Evolutionary Dynamics: Species, Niches, and Adaptive Peaks, 1989, p. 134)
"The Eldredge-Gould concept of punctuated equilibria has gained wide acceptance among paleontologists. It attempts to account for the following paradox: Within continuously sampled lineages, one rarely finds the gradual morphological trends predicted by Darwinian evolution; rather, change occurs with the sudden appearance of new, well-differentiated species. Eldredge and Gould equate such appearances with speciation, although the details of these events are not preserved. ...The punctuated equilibrium model has been widely accepted, not because it has a compelling theoretical basis but because it appears to resolve a dilemma. Apart from the obvious sampling problems inherent to the observations that stimulated the model, and apart from its intrinsic circularity (one could argue that speciation can occur only when phyletic change is rapid, not vice versa), the model is more ad hoc explanation than theory, and it rests on shaky ground." (Ricklefs, Robert E., "Paleontologists Confronting Macroevolution," Science, vol. 199, 1978, p. 59)
"Few paleontologists have, I think ever supposed that fossils, by themselves, provide grounds for the conclusion that evolution has occurred. An examination of the work of those paleontologists who have been particularly concerned with the relationship between paleontology and evolutionary theory, for example that of G. G. Simpson and S. J. Gould, reveals a mindfulness of the fact that the record of evolution, like any other historical record, must be construed within a complex of particular and general preconceptions not the least of which is the hypothesis that evolution has occurred. ...The fossil record doesn't even provide any evidence in support of Darwinian theory except in the weak sense that the fossil record is compatible with it, just as it is compatible with other evolutionary theories, and revolutionary theories and special creationist theories and even historical theories." (Kitts, David B., "Search for the Holy Transformation," review of Evolution of Living Organisms, by Pierre-P. Grassé, Paleobiology, vol. 5, 1979, p. 353-354)
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"Undeniably, the fossil record has provided disappointingly few gradual series. The origins of many groups are still not documented at all." (Futuyma, D., Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution, 1983, p. 190-191)
"There is still a tremendous problem with the sudden diversification of multi-cellular life. There is no question about that. That's a real phenomenon." (Niles Eldredge, quoted in Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems by Luther D. Sunderland, Master Book Publishers, Santee, California, 1988, p. 45)
"Whatever ideas authorities may have on the subject, the lungfishes, like every other major group of fishes that I know, have their origins firmly based in nothing." (Quoted in W. R. Bird, _The Origin of Species Revisited_ [Nashville: Regency, 1991; originally published by Philosophical Library, 1987], 1:62-63)
"The main problem with such phyletic gradualism is that the fossil record provides so little evidence for it. Very rarely can we trace the gradual transformation of one entire species into another through a finely graded sequence of intermediary forms." (Gould, S.J. Luria, S.E. & Singer, S., A View of Life, 1981, p. 641)
"It should come as no surprise that it would be extremely difficult to find a specific fossil species that is both intermediate in morphology between two other taxa and is also in the appropriate stratigraphic position." (Cracraft, J., "Systematics, Comparative Biology, and the Case Against Creationism," 1983, p. 180)
"Most families, orders, classes, and phyla appear rather suddenly in the fossil record, often without anatomically intermediate forms smoothly interlinking evolutionarily derived descendant taxa with their presumed ancestors." (Eldredge, N., 1989, Macro-Evolutionary Dynamics: Species, Niches, and Adaptive Peaks, McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, New York, p. 22)
"Species that were once thought to have turned into others have been found to overlap in time with these alleged descendants. In fact, the fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another." (Stanley, S.M., The New Evolutionary Timetable: Fossils, Genes, and the Origin of Species, 1981, p. 95)
"Many fossils have been collected since 1859, tons of them, yet the impact they have had on our understanding of the relationships between living organisms is barely perceptible. ...In fact, I do not think it unfair to say that fossils, or at least the traditional interpretation of fossils, have clouded rather than clarified our attempts to reconstruct phylogeny." (Fortey, P. L., "Neontological Analysis Versus Palaeontological Stores," 1982, p. 120-121)
"Indeed, it is the chief frustration of the fossil record that we do not have empirical evidence for sustained trends in the evolution of most complex morphological adaptations." (Gould, Stephen J. and Eldredge, Niles, "Species Selection: Its Range and Power," 1988, p. 19)
"The paleontological data is consistent with the view that all of the currently recognized phyla had evolved by about 525 million years ago. Despite half a billion years of evolutionary exploration generated in Cambrian time, no new phylum level designs have appeared since then." ("Developmental Evolution of Metazoan Body plans: The Fossil Evidence," Valentine, Erwin, and Jablonski, Developmental Biology 173, Article No. 0033, 1996, p. 376)
"Many 'trends' singled out by evolutionary biologists are ex post facto rendering of phylogenetic history: biologists may simply pick out species at different points in geological time that seem to fit on some line of directional modification through time. Many trends, in other words, may exist more in the minds of the analysts than in phylogenetic history. This is particularly so in situations, especially common prior to about 1970, in which analysis of the phylogenetic relationships among species was incompletely or poorly done." (Eldredge, Niles, Macro-Evolutionary Dynamics: Species, Niches, and Adaptive Peaks, 1989, p. 134)
"The Eldredge-Gould concept of punctuated equilibria has gained wide acceptance among paleontologists. It attempts to account for the following paradox: Within continuously sampled lineages, one rarely finds the gradual morphological trends predicted by Darwinian evolution; rather, change occurs with the sudden appearance of new, well-differentiated species. Eldredge and Gould equate such appearances with speciation, although the details of these events are not preserved. ...The punctuated equilibrium model has been widely accepted, not because it has a compelling theoretical basis but because it appears to resolve a dilemma. Apart from the obvious sampling problems inherent to the observations that stimulated the model, and apart from its intrinsic circularity (one could argue that speciation can occur only when phyletic change is rapid, not vice versa), the model is more ad hoc explanation than theory, and it rests on shaky ground." (Ricklefs, Robert E., "Paleontologists Confronting Macroevolution," Science, vol. 199, 1978, p. 59)
"Few paleontologists have, I think ever supposed that fossils, by themselves, provide grounds for the conclusion that evolution has occurred. An examination of the work of those paleontologists who have been particularly concerned with the relationship between paleontology and evolutionary theory, for example that of G. G. Simpson and S. J. Gould, reveals a mindfulness of the fact that the record of evolution, like any other historical record, must be construed within a complex of particular and general preconceptions not the least of which is the hypothesis that evolution has occurred. ...The fossil record doesn't even provide any evidence in support of Darwinian theory except in the weak sense that the fossil record is compatible with it, just as it is compatible with other evolutionary theories, and revolutionary theories and special creationist theories and even historical theories." (Kitts, David B., "Search for the Holy Transformation," review of Evolution of Living Organisms, by Pierre-P. Grassé, Paleobiology, vol. 5, 1979, p. 353-354)
http://www.anointed-one.net/quotes.html
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