be found as research continued. But when, 140 years later, Prof. Steve Jones of University College London published an updated version of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1999, the fossil record still posed the same problem. The fossil record - in defiance of Darwin's whole idea of gradual change - often makes great leaps from one form to the next. Far from the display of intermediates to be expected from slow advance through natural selection many species appear without warning, persist in fixed form and disappear, leaving no descendants. Geology assuredly does not reveal any finely graduated organic chain, and this is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against the theory of evolution." ( Almost Like a Whale , p. 252) The fossil record is the cause of ongoing debate between evolutionists. On one side geneticists and theoreticians stand for Darwinian "gradualism." They continue to claim that the lack of intermediate forms is due to the rarity of fossilisation and the imperfection of the fossil record. Thus, the fossil record is something which needs to be explained away -- it is not good evidence for Darwinian evolution. On the other side, those with a more first-hand knowledge of fossils stand for "punctuated equilibrium": evolution occurs mainly in sudden bursts, with long periods of little change. This explains why intermediate forms are not found in the fossil record. They were around for such relatively short times that the chance of their being fossilised was very low. However,