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Ever hear of DNA? Phylogenetic analysis? Evolution observed in the lab?

Drawing a blank?

Only if you are completely ignorant of the support that all of the above lend to the theory could you state that the theory “stands or falls on the fossil record” alone.

Moreover, in as much as the fossil record is a “crap shoot” it paints a very compelling picture of land animals arising from amphibians, mammals arising with traits that previously were only in reptiles, etc etc.

The fossil record need not be “exhaustive” or perfect in order for it to be a treasure trove of data that supports the theory of evolution through natural selection of genetic variation.

Also, the fossil record cannot tell you anything about HOW evolution happened, but it sure does show you that the species that inhabit the Earth have not always been the same from the beginning, and that 99% of all species that ever existed are extinct.

Only if you are completely ignorant of the support that all of the above lend to the theory could you state that the theory “stands or falls on the fossil record” alone.

I didn't state that, allmendream. Darwin did. I was merely quoting him.

You wrote: "The fossil record need not be “exhaustive” or perfect in order for it to be a treasure trove of data that supports the theory of evolution through natural selection of genetic variation."

Question: Has the term "random mutation" of the original orthodoxy been officially replaced by the term "genetic variation?" It seems to me there is a vast difference of meaning between the two terms. Was there something "faulty" about Darwin's original thinking that had to be corrected in light of new knowledge?

Well, I'll answer my own question: Of course there was. Darwin never heard about DNA, or relativity or quantum theory for that matter. His theory is constructed in terms of late Newtonian/classical thinking based on materialistic presuppositions. With DNA, we have learned that "immaterial" factors play out in nature — specifically, information from a "source" that no one's been able to localize in the spatiotemporal world of direct human experience. If such "corrections" keep going on what, at the end of the day, will remain of Darwin's theory?

And yet how passionately, even seemingly desperately, some people cling to it!