"First , a comment about your second link . Gould had this to say about the quotes on that page : It seems that creationists are still at it . Yes . That is one component of evolutionary thought . But there is more to it than that . Another component of evolutionary thought is that many times species remain static ( as far as the fossil record reveals ) for long periods of time , sometimes millions of years . Another component of evolutionary thought is that sometimes speciation can happen relatively rapidly , in a flash of geological time , maybe as little as 50 or 60 thousand years . Even Darwin hypothesized that changes that caused speciation took place in peripheral segments of the population . Just before World War II Dobzhansky and Mayr discussed the gaps in the fossil record and the reasons for them . They agreed with Darwin . Finally , in the 1960s Eldredge and Gould worked out the first statement of what became the theory of punctuated equilibria in which they elaborated on the previous thoughts of Darwin , Dobzhansky , and Mayr . I think their paper , in which they discussed their observations from the fossil record of just such events , was published in 1972 . Actually , the fossil record does support it . Both Eldredge and Gould have discussed it . Both men made observations of slow gradual speciation in the fossil record in a small geographical area . These changes were reflected at other locations as an abrupt change from one species to another . But given that such changes take place very quickly in populations that are usually under environmental stress and isolated from the main population , and given the rarity of fossilization in the first place , we do n't expect to find many examples in the fossil record . It is a bit like trying to time a 100 yd . dash with a sundial . The fossil record just is n't fine grained enough to see the rapid ( 50-60 thousand years ) changes . Nope . It does . Or maybe it supports the hypothesis of successive creation . The fossil record that we find certainly does n't support the creation as told in the Bible . Even the creationists who went in search of evidence of the flood some 200 years ago realized that the geology did n't support what the Bible said . So they thought that the geology represented many floods , the last one from the Bible being on top . This objection has already been answer by Gould in the quote above . But of course , what creationists demand is eyedropper precision from a fire hose . Nevertheless , we have some spectacular transitional forms . My favorite is Archaeopteryx . And there is a great progression from four legged land animal to two finned aquatic whales . Some whales in that progression had rear legs that would have been useless for walking . Really ? What evidence is that ?"
"I will answer the remainder later as I am pressed for time . Archaeopteryx is not a transitional form . It has well defined feathers . Where is the evidence for transition from scales to feathers that is predicted by evolution . Natural selection in particular but overall evolution . If you read Gould 's original work he does not say what he says above and in fact actually contradicts it . It appears like a response that is back peddling at best . As I said , more later . EF"
"Gould had this to say about the quotes on that page : It seems that creationists are still at it . Yes . That is one component of evolutionary thought . But there is more to it than that . Another component of evolutionary thought is that many times species remain static ( as far as the fossil record reveals ) for long periods of time"
"I will answer the remainder later as I am pressed for time . Archaeopteryx is not a transitional form . It has well defined feathers . Where is the evidence for transition from scales to feathers that is predicted by evolution ."