[CarolinaGuitarman]

"I read the chapter.

Your tone of certainty is bizarre."

I have actually read and understood the chapter, and I understand Gould's position on the fossil record. You don't.

[ChessExpert]

"If you had actually read that chapter of "The Origin Of Species", you would know that Darwin did not think that the fossil record was a problem."

"I read the chapter."

"I have actually read and understood the chapter ..."

It is possible for someone, that could be me, or you, to have misunderstand such a round-about and convoluted piece of text. For those would like to begin to decide for themselves, I offer the following:

Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, chapter ten, “On the Imperfection of the Geological Record:”

“Those who believe that the geological record is in any degree perfect, will undoubtedly at once reject the theory.”

That seems clear. It is followed immediately by the following argument:

“For my part, following out Lyell's metaphor, I look at the geological record as a history of the world imperfectly kept, and written in a changing dialect; of this history we possess the last volume alone, relating only to two or three countries. Of this volume, only here and there a short chapter has been preserved; and of each page, only here and there a few lines. Each word of the slowly-changing language, more or less different in the successive chapters, may represent the forms of life, which are entombed in our consecutive formations, and which falsely appear to have been abruptly introduced. On this view, the difficulties above discussed are greatly diminished, or even disappear.”

I put more weight on the one clear sentence, than on all the poetry that follows.