Experimental evidence for very long term processes

[Tim]

@Giltil

But the problem with your line of reasoning is that the transitional fossils you imagine exist are in fact mainly elusive, as the quote below from Gould shows:
“The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as a trade secret of Paleontology. Evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils.”

This claim is appallingly wrong on at least three levels:

1. It is merely an opinion, and opinions aren’t evidence.

2. The opinion is in any case taken out of context to misrepresent Gould’s views, as the analysis of this infamous quotemine, at the Quotemine Project, shows:

Quote Mine Project: Gould, Eldredge and Punctuated Equilibria Quotes

3. Further, it is a misrepresentation so infamous that Gould himself explicitly contradicted it:

Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists — whether through design or stupidity, I do not know — as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. The punctuations occur at the level of species; directional trends (on the staircase model) are rife at the higher level of transitions within major groups.

Thus, all that this quote “shows” is that it’s employer is either ignorant or deceptive – ignorant if they don’t know Gould’s actual opinions on transitional fossils, deceptive if they knew and used the quote anyway.

This is pretty much emblematic of ID argumentation – vacuous and misleading.