"In science NATURE is the objective standard."
Then how come evolutionists don't believe what "NATURE," tells them in the fossil record in no uncertain terms? Species appear in-toto! No transition, no slow gradual changes, zip, nadda. Get back to me on that one, O priest of science.
B: Because speciation is a process which occurs on time scales to short to be geenrally well represented in the fossil record. Speciation is an observed process; whether we see species to species transitions in the fossil record is irrelevant. But the fact is we do. They are not common; but so what?
Why not read what Gould had to say about it:
In Hen's teeth and Horse's Toes pgs 258-260 :
"Faced with these facts of evolution and the philosophical bankruptcy of their own position, creationists rely upon distortion and innuendo to buttress their rhetorical claim. If I sound sharp or bitter, indeed I am for I have become a major target of these practices.
We proposed the theory of punctuated equilibria largely to provide a different explanation for pervasive trends in the fossil record. Trends, we argued, cannot be attributed to gradual transformation within lineages, but must arise from the differential success of certain kinds of species. A trend, we argued, is more like climbing a flight of stairs (punctuation and stasis) than rolling up an inclined plane.
Continuing the distortion, several creationists have equated the theory of punctuated equlibrium with a caricature of the beliefs of Richard Goldschmidt, a great early geneticist.
Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists, whether through design or stupidity, I do not know as admitting that the fossil record record includes no transitional forms. Transistional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups"
From Dinosaur in a Haystack, Gould has some to say about creatobabblers..
"The supposed lack of intermediary forms in the fossil record remains the fundamental canard of antievolutionism. Such transitional forms are rare, to be sure, and for two good sets of reasons geological (gappiness of the fossil record) and biological (the episodic nature of evolutionary change... ) But paleontologists have discovered several superb examples of intermediary forms and sequences, more than enough to convince any fair minded sceptic about the reality of life's physical genealogy.
Later on..
Still our creationist incubi, who would never let facts spoil a favorite argument, refuse to yeild and continue to assert the absence of all transitional forms by ignoring those that have been found and continiuing to taunt us with admittedly frequent examples of absence.
In that book you love to cite it tells you not to tell fibs. The fossil record is full of transitional forms. You know that.