tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29251019.post116610675822100543..comments2024-03-23T14:41:42.801+00:00Comments on Que Treta!: Entropia Genética: primeiras impressões.Ludwig Krippahlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12465901742919427145noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29251019.post-20371708449012349892019-03-06T14:06:54.464+00:002019-03-06T14:06:54.464+00:00Exatamente.Exatamente.Júnior Eskelsenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16016101253563765190noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29251019.post-59465679361608395522018-07-16T05:23:32.902+01:002018-07-16T05:23:32.902+01:00Ludwing, e se a mutação não for fatal e ninguem mo...Ludwing, e se a mutação não for fatal e ninguem morra antes de gerar descendentes como é em muitos casos como fica essa sua declaração?<br /><br />"Mas isto é muito diferente do problema de eliminar mutações novas. Quando surge uma mutação deletéria num indivíduo basta que esse indivíduo morra sem descendentes para que a mutação seja eliminada da população. É surpreendente que Sanford tenha confundido o custo de eliminar uma mutação nova com o custo de substituir um gene presente em toda a população."xxxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16040327756643387463noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29251019.post-1166396535688300692006-12-17T23:02:00.000+00:002006-12-17T23:02:00.000+00:00Caro Jónatas,Preferia que os comentários neste blo...Caro Jónatas,<BR/><BR/>Preferia que os comentários neste blog fossem mais focados. Uma lista tão longa não permite dedicar a atenção necessária a cada um, e o método de comentário por copy-paste é mais próximo do spam que do diálogo produtivo.<BR/><BR/>Seja como for refiro-o aqui para começar:<BR/><BR/>http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/part1-1.htmlLudwig Krippahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12465901742919427145noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29251019.post-1166394385317067532006-12-17T22:26:00.000+00:002006-12-17T22:26:00.000+00:00Que tal uma pequena incursão pelos argumumentos ev...Que tal uma pequena incursão pelos argumumentos evolucionistas? A avaliar pela avaliação do Ludwig será certamente uma lufada de ar fresco!<BR/><BR/>It is, however, very difficult to establish the precise lines of descent,<BR/>termed phylogenies, for most organisms." (Ayala, F. J. and Valentine J. W.,<BR/>Evolving: The Theory and Process of Organic Evolution, 1978, p. 230)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"Undeniably, the fossil record has provided disappointingly few gradual series.<BR/>The origins of many groups are still not documented at all." (Futuyma, D.,<BR/>Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution, 1983, p. 190-191)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"There is still a tremendous problem with the sudden diversification of<BR/>multi-cellular life. There is no question about that. That's a real<BR/>phenomenon." (Niles Eldredge, quoted in Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other<BR/>Problems by Luther D. Sunderland, Master Book Publishers, Santee, California,<BR/>1988, p. 45)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"Whatever ideas authorities may have on the subject, the lungfishes, like every<BR/>other major group of fishes that I know, have their origins firmly based in<BR/>nothing." (Quoted in W. R. Bird, _The Origin of Species Revisited_ [Nashville:<BR/>Regency, 1991; originally published by Philosophical Library, 1987], 1:62-63)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"The main problem with such phyletic gradualism is that the fossil record<BR/>provides so little evidence for it. Very rarely can we trace the gradual<BR/>transformation of one entire species into another through a finely graded<BR/>sequence of intermediary forms." (Gould, S.J. Luria, S.E. & Singer, S., A View<BR/>of Life, 1981, p. 641)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"It should come as no surprise that it would be extremely difficult to find a<BR/>specific fossil species that is both intermediate in morphology between two<BR/>other taxa and is also in the appropriate stratigraphic position." (Cracraft,<BR/>J., "Systematics, Comparative Biology, and the Case Against Creationism," 1983,<BR/>p. 180)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"Most families, orders, classes, and phyla appear rather suddenly in the fossil<BR/>record, often without anatomically intermediate forms smoothly interlinking<BR/>evolutionarily derived descendant taxa with their presumed ancestors." <BR/>(Eldredge, N., 1989, Macro-Evolutionary Dynamics: Species, Niches, and Adaptive<BR/>Peaks, McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, New York, p. 22)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"Species that were once thought to have turned into others have been found to<BR/>overlap in time with these alleged descendants. In fact, the fossil record does<BR/>not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another."<BR/>(Stanley, S.M., The New Evolutionary Timetable: Fossils, Genes, and the Origin<BR/>of Species, 1981, p. 95)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"Many fossils have been collected since 1859, tons of them, yet the impact they<BR/>have had on our understanding of the relationships between living organisms is<BR/>barely perceptible. ...In fact, I do not think it unfair to say that fossils,<BR/>or at least the traditional interpretation of fossils, have clouded rather than<BR/>clarified our attempts to reconstruct phylogeny." (Fortey, P. L.,<BR/>"Neontological Analysis Versus Palaeontological Stores," 1982, p. 120-121)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"Indeed, it is the chief frustration of the fossil record that we do not have<BR/>empirical evidence for sustained trends in the evolution of most complex<BR/>morphological adaptations." (Gould, Stephen J. and Eldredge, Niles, "Species<BR/>Selection: Its Range and Power," 1988, p. 19)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"The paleontological data is consistent with the view that all of the currently<BR/>recognized phyla had evolved by about 525 million years ago. Despite half a<BR/>billion years of evolutionary exploration generated in Cambrian time, no new<BR/>phylum level designs have appeared since then." ("Developmental Evolution of<BR/>Metazoan Body plans: The Fossil Evidence," Valentine, Erwin, and Jablonski,<BR/>Developmental Biology 173, Article No. 0033, 1996, p. 376)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"Many 'trends' singled out by evolutionary biologists are ex post facto<BR/>rendering of phylogenetic history: biologists may simply pick out species at<BR/>different points in geological time that seem to fit on some line of<BR/>directional modification through time. Many trends, in other words, may exist<BR/>more in the minds of the analysts than in phylogenetic history. This is<BR/>particularly so in situations, especially common prior to about 1970, in which<BR/>analysis of the phylogenetic relationships among species was incompletely or<BR/>poorly done." (Eldredge, Niles, Macro-Evolutionary Dynamics: Species, Niches,<BR/>and Adaptive Peaks, 1989, p. 134)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"The Eldredge-Gould concept of punctuated equilibria has gained wide acceptance<BR/>among paleontologists. It attempts to account for the following paradox: Within<BR/>continuously sampled lineages, one rarely finds the gradual morphological<BR/>trends predicted by Darwinian evolution; rather, change occurs with the sudden<BR/>appearance of new, well-differentiated species. Eldredge and Gould equate such<BR/>appearances with speciation, although the details of these events are not<BR/>preserved. ...The punctuated equilibrium model has been widely accepted, not<BR/>because it has a compelling theoretical basis but because it appears to resolve<BR/>a dilemma. Apart from the obvious sampling problems inherent to the<BR/>observations that stimulated the model, and apart from its intrinsic<BR/>circularity (one could argue that speciation can occur only when phyletic<BR/>change is rapid, not vice versa), the model is more ad hoc explanation than<BR/>theory, and it rests on shaky ground." (Ricklefs, Robert E., "Paleontologists<BR/>Confronting Macroevolution," Science, vol. 199, 1978, p. 59)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"Few paleontologists have, I think ever supposed that fossils, by themselves,<BR/>provide grounds for the conclusion that evolution has occurred. An examination<BR/>of the work of those paleontologists who have been particularly concerned with<BR/>the relationship between paleontology and evolutionary theory, for example that<BR/>of G. G. Simpson and S. J. Gould, reveals a mindfulness of the fact that the<BR/>record of evolution, like any other historical record, must be construed within<BR/>a complex of particular and general preconceptions not the least of which is<BR/>the hypothesis that evolution has occurred. ...The fossil record doesn't even<BR/>provide any evidence in support of Darwinian theory except in the weak sense<BR/>that the fossil record is compatible with it, just as it is compatible with<BR/>other evolutionary theories, and revolutionary theories and special creationist<BR/>theories and even historical theories." (Kitts, David B., "Search for the Holy<BR/>Transformation," review of Evolution of Living Organisms, by Pierre-P. Grassé,<BR/>Paleobiology, vol. 5, 1979, p. 353-354)<BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>Stasis and Sudden Appearance<BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>"Paleontologists have paid an enormous price for Darwin's argument. We fancy<BR/>ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our<BR/>favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad<BR/>that we almost never see the very process we profess to study. ...The history<BR/>of most fossil species includes tow features particularly inconsistent with<BR/>gradualism: 1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during<BR/>their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same<BR/>as when they disappear; morphological change I usually limited and<BR/>directionless. 2. Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not<BR/>arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all<BR/>at once and 'fully formed.'" (Gould, Stephen J. The Panda's Thumb, 1980, p.<BR/>181-182)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"Paleontologists are traditionally famous (or infamous) for reconstructing whole<BR/>animals from the debris of death. Mostly they cheat. ...If any event in life's<BR/>history resembles man's creation myths, it is this sudden diversification of<BR/>marine life when multicellular organisms took over as the dominant actors in<BR/>ecology and evolution. Baffling (and embarrassing) to Darwin, this event still<BR/>dazzles us and stands as a major biological revolution on a par with the<BR/>invention of self-replication and the origin of the eukaryotic cell. The animal<BR/>phyla emerged out of the Precambrian mists with most of the attributes of their<BR/>modern descendants." (Bengtson, Stefan, "The Solution to a Jigsaw Puzzle,"<BR/>Nature, vol. 345 (June 28, 1990), p. 765-766)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"Modern multicellular animals make their first uncontested appearance in the<BR/>fossil record some 570 million years ago - and with a bang, not a protracted<BR/>crescendo. This 'Cambrian explosion' marks the advent (at least into direct<BR/>evidence) of virtually all major groups of modern animals - and all within the<BR/>minuscule span, geologically speaking, of a few million years." (Gould,<BR/>Stephen J., Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, 1989,<BR/>p. 23-24)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"The fossil record had caused Darwin more grief than joy. Nothing distressed him<BR/>more than the Cambrian explosion, the coincident appearance of almost all<BR/>complex organic designs..." (Gould, Stephen J., The Panda's Thumb, 1980, p.<BR/>238-239)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"The majority of major groups appear suddenly in the rocks, with virtually no<BR/>evidence of transition from their ancestors." (Futuyma, D., Science on Trial:<BR/>The Case for Evolution, 1983, p. 82)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"Most families, orders, classes, and phyla appear rather suddenly in the fossil<BR/>record, often without anatomically intermediate forms smoothly interlinking<BR/>evolutionarily derived descendant taxa with their presumed ancestors." <BR/>(Eldredge, (Eldredge, Niles, Macro-Evolutionary Dynamics: Species, Niches, and<BR/>Adaptive Peaks, 1989, p. 22)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"In spite of these examples, it remains true, as every paleontologist knows,<BR/>that most new species, genera, and families, and that nearly all new categories<BR/>above the level of families, appear in the record suddenly and are not led up<BR/>to by known, gradual, completely continuous transitional sequences." (Simpson,<BR/>George Gaylord, The Major Features of Evolution, 1953, p. 360)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"The gaps in the record are real, however. The absence of any record of any<BR/>important branching is quite phenomenal. Species are usually static, or nearly<BR/>so, for long periods, species seldom and genera never show evolution into new<BR/>species or genera but replacement or one by another, and change is more or less<BR/>abrupt." (Wesson, R., Beyond Natural Selection, 1991, p. 45)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"All through the fossil record, groups - both large and small - abruptly appear<BR/>and disappear. ...The earliest phase of rapid change usually is undiscovered,<BR/>and must be inferred by comparison with its probable relatives." (Newell, N.<BR/>D., Creation and Evolution: Myth or Reality, 1984, p. 10)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"Paleontologists had long been aware of a seeming contradiction between Darwin's<BR/>postulate of gradualism...and the actual findings of paleontology. Following<BR/>phyletic lines through time seemed to reveal only minimal gradual changes but<BR/>no clear evidence for any change of a species into a different genus or for the<BR/>gradual origin of an evolutionary novelty. Anything truly novel always seemed<BR/>to appear quite abruptly in the fossil record." (Mayr, E., Our Long Argument:<BR/>Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought, 1991, p. 138)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"The record certainly did not reveal gradual transformations of structure in the<BR/>course of time. On the contrary, it showed that species generally remained<BR/>constant throughout their history and were replaced quite suddenly by<BR/>significantly different forms. New types or classes seemed to appear fully<BR/>formed, with no sign of an evolutionary trend by which they could have emerged<BR/>from an earlier type." (Bowler, Evolution: The History of an Idea, 1984, p.<BR/>187)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"Instead of finding the gradual unfolding of life, what geologists of Darwin's<BR/>time, and geologists of the present day actually find is a highly uneven or<BR/>jerky record; that is, species appear in the sequence very suddenly, show<BR/>little or no change during their existence in the record, then abruptly go out<BR/>of the record. and it is not always clear, in fact it's rarely clear, that the<BR/>descendants were actually better adapted than their predecessors. In other<BR/>words, biological improvement is hard to find." (Raup, David M., "Conflicts<BR/>Between Darwin and Paleontology," Bulletin, Field Museum of Natural History,<BR/>vol. 50, 1979, p. 23)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"A major problem in proving the theory (of evolution) has been the fossil<BR/>record; the imprints of vanished species preserved in the Earth's geological<BR/>formations. This record has never revealed traces of Darwin's hypothetical<BR/>intermediate variants instead species appear and disappear abruptly, and this<BR/>anomaly has fueled the creationist argument that each species was created by<BR/>God." (Czarnecki, Mark, "The Revival of the Creationist Crusade", MacLean's,<BR/>January 19, 1981, p. 56)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"Eldredge and Gould, by contrast, decided to take the record at face value. On<BR/>this view, there is little evidence of modification within species, or of forms<BR/>intermediate between species because neither generally occurred. A species<BR/>forms and evolves almost instantaneously (on the geological timescale) and then<BR/>remains virtually unchanged until it disappears, yielding its habitat to a new<BR/>species." (Smith, Peter J., "Evolution's Most Worrisome Questions," Review of<BR/>Life Pulse by Niles Eldredge, New Scientist, 1987, p. 59)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"The principle problem is morphological stasis. A theory is only as good as its<BR/>predictions, and conventional neo-Darwinism, which claims to be a comprehensive<BR/>explanation of evolutionary process, has failed to predict the widespread<BR/>long-term morphological stasis now recognized as one of the most striking<BR/>aspects of the fossil record." (Williamson, Peter G., "Morphological Stasis and<BR/>Developmental Constraint: Real Problems for Neo-Darwinism," Nature, Vol. 294,<BR/>19 November 1981, p. 214)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"It is a simple ineluctable truth that virtually all members of a biota remain<BR/>basically stable, with minor fluctuations, throughout their duration..."<BR/>(Eldredge, Niles, The Pattern of Evolution, 1998, p. 157)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"But fossil species remain unchanged throughout most of their history and the<BR/>record fails to contain a single example of a significant transition." <BR/>(Woodroff, D.S., Science, vol. 208, 1980, p. 716)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"We have long known about stasis and abrupt appearance, but have chosen to fob<BR/>it off upon an imperfect fossil record." (Gould, Stephen J., "The Paradox of<BR/>the First Tier: An Agenda for Paleobiology," Paleobiology, 1985, p. 7)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"Paleontologists ever since Darwin have been searching (largely in vain) for the<BR/>sequences of insensibly graded series of fossils that would stand as examples<BR/>of the sort of wholesale transformation of species that Darwin envisioned as<BR/>the natural product of the evolutionary process. Few saw any reason to demur -<BR/>though it is a startling fact that ...most species remain recognizably<BR/>themselves, virtually unchanged throughout their occurrence in geological<BR/>sediments of various ages." (Eldredge, Niles, "Progress in Evolution?" New<BR/>Scientist, vol. 110, 1986, p. 55)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"In other words, when the assumed evolutionary processes did not match the<BR/>pattern of fossils that they were supposed to have generated, the pattern was<BR/>judged to be 'wrong.' A circular argument arises: interpret the fossil record<BR/>in terms of a particular theory of evolution, inspect the interpretation, and<BR/>note that it confirms the theory. Well, it would, wouldn't it? ...As is now<BR/>well known, most fossil species appear instantaneously in the record, persist<BR/>for some millions of years virtually unchanged, only to disappear abruptly -<BR/>the 'punctuated equilibrium' pattern of Eldredge and Gould." (Kemp, Tom S., "A<BR/>Fresh Look at the Fossil Record," New Scientist, vol. 108, 1985, p. 66-67)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"The old Darwinian view of evolution as a ladder of more and more efficient<BR/>forms leading up to the present is not borne out by the evidence. Most changes<BR/>are random rather than systematic modifications, until species drop out. There<BR/>is no sign of directed order here. Trends do occur in many lines, but they are<BR/>not the rule." (Newell, N. D., "Systematics and Evolution," 1984, p. 10)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"Well-represented species are usually stable throughout their temporal range, or<BR/>alter so little and in such superficial ways (usually in size alone), that an<BR/>extrapolation of observed change into longer periods of geological time could<BR/>not possibly yield the extensive modifications that mark general pathways of<BR/>evolution in larger groups. Most of the time, when the evidence is best,<BR/>nothing much happens to most species." (Gould Stephen J., "Ten Thousand Acts of<BR/>Kindness," Natural History, 1988, p. 14)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"Stasis, or nonchange, of most fossil species during their lengthy geological<BR/>lifespans was tacitly acknowledged by all paleontologists, but almost never<BR/>studied explicitly because prevailing theory treated stasis as uninteresting<BR/>nonevidence for nonevolution. ...The overwhelming prevalence of stasis became<BR/>an embarrassing feature of the fossil record, best left ignored as a<BR/>manifestation of nothing (that is, nonevolution). (Gould, Stephen J.,<BR/>"Cordelia's Dilemma," Natural History, 1993, p. 15)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"Paleontologists just were not seeing the expected changes in their fossils as<BR/>they pursued them up through the rock record. ...That individual kinds of<BR/>fossils remain recognizably the same throughout the length of their occurrence<BR/>in the fossil record had been known to paleontologists long before Darwin<BR/>published his Origin. Darwin himself, ...prophesied that future generations of<BR/>paleontologists would fill in these gaps by diligent search ...One hundred and<BR/>twenty years of paleontological research later, it has become abundantly clear<BR/>that the fossil record will not confirm this part of Darwin's predictions. Nor<BR/>is the problem a miserably poor record. The fossil record simply shows that<BR/>this prediction is wrong. ...The observation that species are amazingly<BR/>conservative and static entities throughout long periods of time has all the<BR/>qualities of the emperor's new clothes: everyone knew it but preferred to<BR/>ignore it. Paleontologists, faced with a recalcitrant record obstinately<BR/>refusing to yield Darwin's predicted pattern, simply looked the other way." <BR/>(Eldredge, N. and Tattersall, I., The Myths of Human Evolution, 1982, p. 45-46)<BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>Large Gaps<BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>"We have so many gaps in the evolutionary history of life, gaps in such key<BR/>areas as the origin of the multi-cellular organisms, the origin of the<BR/>vertebrates, not to mention the origins of most invertebrate groups." (McGowan,<BR/>C., In the Beginning... A Scientist Shows Why the Creationists are Wrong,<BR/>Prometheus Books, 1984, p. 95)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"There are all sorts of gaps: absence of gradationally intermediate<BR/>'transitional' forms between species, but also between larger groups - between,<BR/>say, families of carnivores, or the orders of mammals. In fact, the higher up<BR/>the Linnaean hierarchy you look, the fewer transitional forms there seem to<BR/>be." (Eldredge, Niles, The Monkey Business: A Scientist Looks at Creationism,<BR/>1982, p. 65)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"It is as though they [fossils] were just planted there, without any<BR/>evolutionary history. Needless to say this appearance of sudden planting has<BR/>delighted creationists. ...Both schools of thought (Punctuationists and<BR/>Gradualists) despise so-called scientific creationists equally, and both agree<BR/>that the major gaps are real, that they are true imperfections in the fossil<BR/>record. The only alternative explanation of the sudden appearance of so many<BR/>complex animal types in the Cambrian era is divine creation and (we) both<BR/>reject this alternative." (Dawkins, Richard, The Blind Watchmaker, W.W. Norton<BR/>& Company, New York, 1996, p. 229-230)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the<BR/>way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are<BR/>characteristically abrupt. Gradualists usually extract themselves from this<BR/>dilemma by invoking the extreme imperfection of the fossil record." (Gould,<BR/>Stephen J., The Panda's Thumb, 1980, p. 189)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"One of the most surprising negative results of paleontological research in the<BR/>last century is that such transitional forms seem to be inordinately scarce. In<BR/>Darwin's time this could perhaps be ascribed with some justification to the<BR/>incompleteness of the paleontological record and to lack of knowledge, but with<BR/>the enormous number of fossil species which have been discovered since then,<BR/>other causes must be found for the almost complete absence of transitional<BR/>forms." (Brouwer, A., "General Paleontology," [1959], Transl. Kaye R.H.,<BR/>Oliver & Boyd: Edinburgh & London, 1967, p. 162-163)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"There is no need to apologize any longer for the poverty of the fossil record.<BR/>In some ways it has become almost unmanageably rich, and discovery is<BR/>out-pacing integration. The fossil record nevertheless continues to be<BR/>composed mainly of gaps." (Neville, George, T., "Fossils in Evolutionary<BR/>Perspective," Science Progress, vol. 48 January 1960, p. 1-3)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"The record jumps, and all the evidence shows that the record is real: the gaps<BR/>we see reflect real events in life's history not the artifact of a poor fossil<BR/>record...The fossil record flatly fails to substantiate this expectation of<BR/>finely graded change." (Eldredge, N. and Tattersall, I., The Myths of Human<BR/>Evolution Columbia University Press, 1982, p. 59, 163)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"Gaps between families and taxa of even higher rank could not be so easily<BR/>explained as the mere artifacts of a poor fossil record." (Eldredge, Niles,<BR/>Macro-Evolutionary Dynamics: Species, Niches, and Adaptive Peaks, 1989, p. 22)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"The fossil record is much less incomplete than is generally accepted." (Paul,<BR/>C.R.C, "The Adequacy of the Fossil Record," 1982, p. 75)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"Links are missing just where we most fervently desire them, and it is all too<BR/>probable that many 'links' will continue to be missing." (Jepsen, L. Glenn;<BR/>Mayr, Ernst; Simpson George Gaylord. Genetics, Paleontology, and Evolution, New<BR/>York, Athenaeum, 1963, p. 114)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"For over a hundred years paleontologists have recognized the large number of<BR/>gaps in the fossil record. Creationists make it seem like gaps are a deep, dark<BR/>secret of paleontology..." (Cracraft, in Awbrey & Thwaites, Evolutionists<BR/>Confront Creationists", 1984)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"In any case, no real evolutionist, whether gradualist or punctuationist, uses<BR/>the fossil record as evidence in favour of the theory of evolution as opposed<BR/>to special creation." (Ridley, Mark, "Who doubts evolution?" "New Scientist",<BR/>vol. 90, 25 June 1981, p. 831)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major<BR/>transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination,<BR/>to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and<BR/>nagging problem for gradualist accounts of evolution." (Gould, Stephen J.,<BR/>'Is a new and general theory of evolution emerging?' Paleobiology, vol 6(1),<BR/>January 1980, p. 127)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"The curious thing is that there is a consistency about the fossil gaps; the<BR/>fossils are missing in all the important places." (Hitching, Francis, The Neck<BR/>of the Giraffe or Where Darwin Went Wrong, Penguin Books, 1982, p.19)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"If life had evolved into its wondrous profusion of creatures little by little,<BR/>Dr. Eldredge argues, then one would expect to find fossils of transitional<BR/>creatures which were a bit like what went before them and a bit like what came<BR/>after. But no one has yet found any evidence of such transitional creatures. <BR/>This oddity has been attributed to gaps in the fossil record which gradualists<BR/>expected to fill when rock strata of the proper age had been found. In the<BR/>last decade, however, geologists have found rock layers of all divisions of the<BR/>last 500 million years and no transitional forms were contained in them." (The<BR/>Guardian Weekly, 26 Nov 1978, vol 119, no 22, p. 1)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"Given that evolution, according to Darwin, was in a continual state of<BR/>motion...it followed logically that the fossil record should be rife with<BR/>examples of transitional forms leading from the less to more evolved. <BR/>...Instead of filling the gaps in the fossil record with so-called missing<BR/>links, most paleontologists found themselves facing a situation in which there<BR/>were only gaps in the fossil record, with no evidence of transformational<BR/>intermediates between documented fossil species." (Schwartz, Jeffrey H., Sudden<BR/>Origins, 1999, p. 89)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"Despite the bright promise that paleontology provides a means of "seeing"<BR/>evolution, it has presented some nasty difficulties for evolutionists the most<BR/>notorious of which is the presence of "gaps" in the fossil record. Evolution<BR/>requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide<BR/>them. The gaps must therefore be a contingent feature of the record." (Kitts,<BR/>David B., "Paleontology and Evolutionary Theory," Evolution, vol. 28, 1974, p.<BR/>467)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"A persistent problem in evolutionary biology has been the absence of<BR/>intermediate forms in the fossil record. Long term gradual transformations of<BR/>single lineages are rare and generally involve simple size increase or trivial<BR/>phenotypic effects. Typically, the record consists of successive<BR/>ancestor-descendant lineages, morphologically invariant through time and<BR/>unconnected by intermediates." (Williamson, P.G., Palaeontological<BR/>Documentation of Speciation in Cenozoic Molluscs from Turkana Basin, 1982, p.<BR/>163)<BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>Miscellaneous<BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>"All of us who study the origin of life find that the more we look into it, the<BR/>more we feel that it is too complex to have evolved anywhere. We believe as an<BR/>article of faith that life evolved from dead matter on this planet. It is just<BR/>that its complexity is so great, it is hard for us to imagine that it did." <BR/>(Urey, Harold C., quoted in Christian Science Monitor, January 4, 1962, p. 4)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"If living matter is not, then, caused by the interplay of atoms, natural forces<BR/>and radiation, how has it come into being? I think, however, that we must go<BR/>further than this and admit that the only acceptable explanation is creation. <BR/>I know that this is anathema to physicists, as indeed it is to me, but we must<BR/>not reject a theory that we do not like if the experimental evidence supports<BR/>it." (H.J. Lipson, F.R.S. Professor of Physics, University of Manchester, UK,<BR/>"A physicist looks at evolution" Physics Bulletin, 1980, vol 31, p. 138)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"To the unprejudiced, the fossil record of plants is in favor of special<BR/>creation. Can you imagine how an orchid, a duck weed, and a palm have come<BR/>from the same ancestry, and have we any evidence for this assumption? The<BR/>evolutionist must be prepared with an answer, but I think that most would break<BR/>down before an inquisition." (E.J.H. Corner "Evolution" in A.M. MacLeod and<BR/>L.S. Cobley, eds., Evolution in Contemporary Botanical Thought, Chicago, IL: <BR/>Quadrangle Books, 1961, at 95, 97 from Bird, I, p. 234)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"The more one studies paleontology, the more certain one becomes that evolution<BR/>is based on faith alone; exactly the same sort of faith which it is necessary<BR/>to have when one encounters the great mysteries of religion." (More, Louis T.,<BR/>"The Dogma of Evolution," Princeton University Press: Princeton NJ, 1925,<BR/>Second Printing, p.160)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"At the present stage of geological research, we have to admit that there is<BR/>nothing in the geological records that runs contrary to the view of<BR/>conservative creationists, that God created each species separately, presumably<BR/>from the dust of the earth." (Dr. Edmund J. Ambrose, The Nature and Origin of<BR/>the Biological World, John Wiley & Sons, 1982, p. 164)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"One of its (evolutions) weak points is that it does not have any recognizable<BR/>way in which conscious life could have emerged." (Sir John Eccles, "A Divine<BR/>Design: Some Questions on Origins" in Margenau and Varghese (eds.), Cosmos,<BR/>Bios, Theos, p. 203)<BR/><BR/><BR/>"I am convinced, moreover, that Darwinism, in whatever form, is not in fact a<BR/>scientific theory, but a pseudo-metaphysical hypothesis decked out in<BR/>scientific garb. In reality the theory derives its support not from empirical<BR/>data or logical deductions of a scientific kind but from the circumstance that<BR/>it happens to be the only doctrine of biological origins that can be conceived<BR/>with the constricted worldview to which a majority of scientists no doubt<BR/>subscribe." (Wolfgang, Smith, "The Universe is Ultimately to be Explained in<BR/>Terms of a Metacosmic Reality" in Margenau and Varghese (eds.), Cosmos, Bios,<BR/>Theos, p. 113)Jónatas Machadohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09476430071680422903noreply@blogger.com