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To: ThinkPlease
He's saying that Gradualism is having problems finding intermediary forms within species to explain the smooth transitions between species. Note that this statement does not count out PE, which says that transitionals happen in short bursts, notably when species expand to fill new habitats, which is what Gould is talking about.

I know that. If I remember correctly, Gould supports PE, does he not? Again (for the 3rd time) I never said that he was a creationist or even an anti-evolutionist. I posted the quote because IMO (and in the opinion of others) there is very little evidence of transitional forms... and that is a problem if you want to prove evolution.

340 posted on 02/06/2002 1:09:24 PM PST by incindiary
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To: incindiary
He's saying that Gradualism is having problems finding intermediary forms within species to explain the smooth transitions between species. Note that this statement does not count out PE, which says that transitionals happen in short bursts, notably when species expand to fill new habitats, which is what Gould is talking about.

I know that. If I remember correctly, Gould supports PE, does he not? Again (for the 3rd time) I never said that he was a creationist or even an anti-evolutionist. I posted the quote because IMO (and in the opinion of others) there is very little evidence of transitional forms... and that is a problem if you want to prove evolution.

Indeed, Gould does support PE. He's one of the inventors of the concept.

The quote is a favorite among anti-evolutionists, because it makes it appear that evolution is in trouble. However, when the quote is honestly presented, we see that Gould refers to the scarcity (not "absence") of transitional forms.

PE is his attempt to explain why there are fewer transitional forms than he expected to see.

The creationists have the task of explaining the transitional forms that have been found (archaeopteryx, ambulocetus, ictheostega, the therapsids, to list a tiny fraction of what's been found so far). So far, they have no explanation.

Only some sort of evolutionary process accounts for what we're finding.

345 posted on 02/06/2002 1:23:31 PM PST by Karl_Lembke
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