Why would anyone make the astonishing assumption that fossils would exist in some kind of continuum, like Newton's spectrum?
Fossils are more like the Fraunhofer lines in the solar spectrum, the shadows of things.
They are the stone shadows of creatures unfortunate enough to have died in places so lonely that their carcasses were undisturbed while mineralization replaced the regular materials. As I said, a stone shadow.
That there are any at all to examine is most fortuitous. Tracking the path of life through the millenia is like trying to track a scarab beetle across a desert. Not sayin' it can't be done, but you do have to look sharp. (There's a picture for you; a Kalahari bushman, looking sharp.)
[[Why would anyone make the astonishing assumption that fossils would exist in some kind of continuum, like Newton’s spectrum?]]
I don’t- Nor does Baraminology- they exist in discontinuity, not continuity- but we’re handed the escapism excuse that ‘fossils are rare’ therefore ‘we can’t find the continuity we claim’