***More on the fossils of transitional species that some claim do not exist.***
Evolution has always been and can never be anything more than conjecture. It is not observable, testable science. It is philosophy based on the premise that there is a natural explanation for everything..... an unprovable assertion that lies at the foundation of the evolutionary belief system.
We see what we want to see...if there is a Creator, we’re accountable to Him. Most do not want any part of that.
As for transitional fossils..... Gould posited punctuated equilibrium precisely because of the lack of evidence for them.
They’ve been irradiating fruit flies for thousands of generations trying to get mutations and selection to produce a new species. What they wind up with are fruit flies, dead fruit flies and damaged fruit flies.
You'll notice he introduces an expanded understanding of stasis. Basically why should a successful organism change if the environment remains largely the same. His study emphasized periods of rather drastic environmental change as a cause of evolutionary change. You'll note that he concentrated on extinction events. He also gave time for the cascade of changes to occur. Since 1972, an awful lot of additional fossils have been found, some being transitional.
We had to do this for a section of a biology class. I accidentally killed all of my group’s fruit flies so I can personally vouch for dead fruit flies during study of them. To make up the credit I donated a beef heart for dissection.