Leading Evolutionists Say the Fossil Record Does Not Show It As a paleontologist by profession this was evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould's area of expertise. Although revered as a great scientist Gould has received some criticism from fellow believers in evolution for his candid comments about the nature of the fossil record. He referred to the fossil record in relation to evolution in the following way:
"The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for
gradualistic accounts of evolution." [emphasis added]
Stephen Jay Gould (Professor of Geology and Paleontology, Harvard University), '
Is a new and general theory of evolution emerging?'
Paleobiology, vol.6(1), January 1980,p. 127.
[It should be noted this passage is only discussing the gradualistic model. Then and now, this has been replaced by the punctuated equilibrium model. Gould's statement does not indicate disbelief in evolution as so many wish to point out; instead, he indicates disbelief in only one model of it.]
"All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between the major groups are characteristically abrupt."
Stephen Jay Gould '
The return of hopeful monsters'.
Natural History, vol. LXXXVI(6), June-July 1977, p. 24.
"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. Yet Darwin was so wedded to gradualism that he wagered his entire theory on a denial of this literal record:
The geological record is (here Gould is quoting Darwin) extremely imperfect and this fact will to a large extent explain why we do not find intermediate varieties, connecting together all the extinct and existing forms of life by the finest graduated steps. He who rejects these views on the nature of the geological record will rightly reject my whole theory. (end of quote)
Darwin's argument still persists as the favored escape of most paleontologists from the embarrassment of a record that seems to show so little of evolution. In exposing its cultural and methodological roots, I wish in no way to impugn the potential validity of gradualism (for all general views have similar roots). I wish only to point out that it was never "seen" in the rocks.
Paleontologists have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin's argument. 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."
Stephen Jay Gould '
Evolution's erratic pace'.
Natural History, vol. LXXXVI95), May 1977, p.14.
Gould's commitment to Darwinian evolution would not allow him to abandon it. However what the evidence shows is clear from these statements of Gould, no matter what he makes of them. These statements, even though Gould remained committed to evolution to the day of his death, are actually arguments against evolution.
Dr. Colin Patterson, then senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History in London also referred to Gould's comments and agreed. Paterson had been asked why he did not provide illustrations of transitional forms in his book entitled 'Evolution'.
Patterson replied: "...I
fully agree with you comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist should be used to visualize such transitions, but where would he get the information from? I could not honestly provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic license, would that not mislead the reader?
I wrote the text of my book four years ago. If I were to write it now, I think the book would be rather different. Gradualism is a concept I believe in, not just because of Darwin's authority, but because my understanding or genetics seems to demand it. Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. As a paleontologist myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record. You say that I should at least 'show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism is derived.' I will lay it on the line- there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.'
Personal Letter (written 10 April 1979) from Dr Colin Patterson, to Luther D Sunderland; as quoted in
Darwin's Enigma by Luther D. Sunderland, Master Books, San Diego, USA, 1984, p. 89.
fak history forgrt about the past and study about the futuer