Stephen J Gould (’n evolusionis en hoë-profiel dierkundige by Harvard Universiteit) is seker die beste bewys teen evolusie wat ’n mens kan kry. Hy het die volgende gesê:

Hierdie diagram kom oorspronklik uit die Chicago Field Museum, Illinois en is gekopieer uit dr Carl Werner se boek Evolution: The Grand Experiment, Vol 1, bl 127, 128, 229. Die syfers op die diagram is voorsien deur wetenskaplikes wat evolusie ondersteun.

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 extremely imperfect and this fact will to a large extent explain why we do not find interminable 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.”
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.

[Natural History 86(5), bl. 14, Mei 1977]

En ook:

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.

Omdat Gould besef het dat oorgangsfossiele nie bestaan nie, het hy ’n nuwe teorie geformuleer, nl. gepunktueerde evolusie (“punctuated equilibrium” (PE)). Gould en Eldredge se gepunktueerde evolusie kom daarop neer dat spesies vir miljoene jare baie min veranderings getoon het, en toe elkeen in ʼn baie kort tyd (enkele duisende jare volgens hulle tydskale) in ’n nuwe spesie verander het. Die proses het homself duisende kere herhaal om al die spesies te verskaf wat vandag bestaan. Hierdie tye van verandering was so kort dat baie min oorgangsfossiele daarom sigbaar is in die geologiese kolom. Hierdie gepunktueerde evolusie was dus so vinnig dat dit feitlik geen spoor nagelaat het nie. (Aangehaal uit Skepping & Evolusie – Onversoenbaar!, bl. 299):

Colin Patterson het ook die volgende gesê:

I fully agree with your 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 visualise such transformations, 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 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. As a palaeontologist 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 was derived.” I will lay it on the line – there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.

[Persoonlike brief deur dr. Colin Patterson, 10 April 1979, Senior Paleontoloog by die British Museum of Natural History, Londen, aan Luther D. Sunderland; in Darwin’s Enigma, deur Luther D. Sunderland, Master Books, San Diego, VSA, bl. 89, 1984]

Hier is seker een van die beste bewyse vir die feit dat daar nie oorgangsfossiele bestaan nie.

Evolusioniste blameer gewoonlik die onvolledige fossielrekord vir die tekort aan oorgangsfossiele, maar vandag is daar fossiele van ongeveer 79.1% van alle diere op aarde. As diere wat moeilik fossileer uitgesluit word, is dit 88%! (Michael Denton, “Evolution, a theory in crisis”, p. 190). Dus is die fossielrekord glad nie onvolledig nie.

Evolusioniste is maar in ’n verleentheid oor hierdie twee aanhalings, en beskuldig skeppingsleerders dat dit buite kontek aangehaal is. Dit is egter nie waar nie. Kyk:

• Gould:
  • Gould grumbles about creationist ‘hijacking’
• Patterson:
  • Beskuldiging deur Talkorigins.org: Patterson Misquoted – A Tale of Two ‘Cites’
  • Verdediging deur Creation.com: That quote!—about the missing transitional fossils

Is die skepping-evolusie kwessie belangrik?

Die volgende is ’n aanhaling uit: ‘Thought bombs’ and the ‘ripple effect’

I recall one overseas creation scientist calling the books and videos which go out at the various seminars and meetings ‘little thought bombs’. Indeed they are—powerful mini-missionaries in their own right. Listen to this testimony from an electronics engineer who writes that he came to Christ through CSF [CMI] literature.

‘I was a humanist in my early years and became a socialist and atheist during the Vietnam war years.’

He then describes how he heard someone talk on how the US Constitution was being undermined by the Supreme Court. Being a ‘political animal’, he knew that was right. However, he was stunned that the speaker was supporting his analysis from the Bible. He says:

‘At some stage during his presentation it came to me that this man had his information from someone I thought did not exist, God. That same week I happened to read the book Creation’s Tiny Mystery, which shook my belief in evolution. The next few weeks I read every book I could get my hands on that discussed evolution, and all were from the Creation Science Foundation.

‘It was a time of intense emotions; the Soviet Union had collapsed, which was a time of truth for every thinking socialist … CSF showed me that the theory of evolution is a lot of childish bunkum, which meant to me that there had to be a Creator God.

‘I owe a debt to CSF for the rest of my life for its wonderful work; your ministry is certainly one of our Lord’s instruments … One of its strengths is that it is non-denominational, rather than ecumenical.’

Wat interessant is, is dat soms gesê word dat bewyse teen evolusie is nie bewyse vir God nie. Hier het dit egter gegeld.