"It is, however, very difficult to establish the precise lines of
descent, termed phylogenies, for most organisms."
(Ayala, F. J. and Valentine J. W., Evolving: The Theory and Process of
Organic Evolution, 1978, p. 230)

"Undeniably, the fossil record has provided disappointingly few
gradual series. The origins of many groups are still  not documented
at all."  (Futuyma, D., Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution,
1983, p. 190-191)

"There is still a tremendous problem with the sudden diversification
of multi-cellular life.  There is no question about that. That's a
real phenomenon."   (Niles Eldredge)

"The main problem with such phyletic gradualism is that the fossil
record provides so little evidence for it. Very rarely can we trace
the gradual transformation of one entire species into another through
a finely graded
sequence of intermediary forms." (Gould, S.J. Luria, S.E. & Singer,
S., A View of Life, 1981, p. 641)

"It should come as no surprise that it would be extremely difficult to
find a specific fossil species that is both intermediate in morphology
between two other taxa and is also in the appropriate stratigraphic
position."
(Cracraft, J., "Systematics, Comparative Biology, and the Case Against
Creationism," 1983, p. 180)

"Most families, orders, classes, and phyla appear rather suddenly in
the fossil record, often without anatomically intermediate forms
smoothly interlinking evolutionarily derived descendant taxa with
their presumed ancestors."
(Eldredge, N., 1989, Macro-Evolutionary Dynamics: Species, Niches, and
Adaptive Peaks, McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, New York, p. 22)

"Species that were once thought to have turned into others have been
found to overlap in time with these alleged descendants. In fact, the
fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from
one species to another."
(Stanley, S.M., The New Evolutionary Timetable: Fossils, Genes, and
the Origin of Species, 1981, p. 95)

"Many fossils have been collected since 1859, tons of them, yet the
impact they have had on our understanding of the relationships between
living organisms is barely perceptible. ...In fact, I do not think it
unfair to say that fossils, or at least the traditional interpretation
of fossils, have clouded rather than clarified our attempts to
reconstruct phylogeny."
(Fortey, P. L., "Neontological Analysis Versus Palaeontological
Stores," 1982, p. 120-121)

"Indeed, it is the chief frustration of the fossil record that we do
not have empirical evidence for sustained trends in the evolution of
most complex morphological adaptations."
(Gould, Stephen J. and Eldredge, Niles, "Species Selection: Its Range
and Power," 1988, p. 19)

"The paleontological data is consistent with the view that all of the
currently recognized phyla had evolved by about 525 Ma.  Despite half
a billion years of evolutionary exploration generated in Cambrian
time, no new phylum level designs have appeared since then."
("Developmental Evolution of Metazoan Body plans: The
Fossil Evidence," Valentine, Erwin, and Jablonski, Developmental
Biology 173, Article No. 0033, 1996, p. 376)

"Many 'trends' singled out by evolutionary biologists are ex post
facto rendering of phylogenetic history: biologists may simply pick
out species at different points in geological time that seem to fit on
some line of directional modification through time. Many trends, in
other words, may exist more in the minds of the analysts than in
phylogenetic history. This is particularly so in situations,
especially common prior to about 1970, in which analysis of the
phylogenetic relationships among species was incompletely or poorly
done."
(Eldredge, Niles, Macro-Evolutionary Dynamics: Species, Niches, and
Adaptive Peaks, 1989, p. 134)

"The Eldredge-Gould concept of punctuated equilibria has gained wide
acceptance among paleontologists. It attempts to account for the
following paradox: Within continuously sampled lineages, one rarely
finds the gradual morphological trends predicted by Darwinian
evolution; rather, change occurs with the sudden
appearance of new, well-differentiated species. Eldredge and Gould
equate such appearances with speciation, although the details of these
events are not preserved. ...The punctuated equilibrium model has been
widely
accepted, not because it has a compelling theoretical basis but
because it appears to resolve a dilemma. Apart from the obvious
sampling problems inherent to the observations that stimulated the
model, and apart from its
intrinsic circularity (one could argue that speciation can occur only
when phyletic change is rapid, not vice versa), the model is more ad
hoc explanation than theory, and it rests on shaky ground."
(Ricklefs, Robert E.,
"Paleontologists Confronting Macroevolution," Science, vol. 199, 1978,
p. 59)

"Few paleontologists have, I think ever supposed that fossils, by
themselves, provide grounds for the conclusion that evolution has
occurred. An examination of the work of those paleontologists who have
been particularly concerned with the relationship between paleontology
and evolutionary theory, for example that of
G. G. Simpson and S. J. Gould, reveals a mindfulness of the fact that
the record of evolution, like any other historical record, must be
construed within a complex of particular and general preconceptions
not the least of
which is the hypothesis that evolution has occurred. ...The fossil
record doesn't even provide any evidence in support of Darwinian
theory except in the weak sense that the fossil record is compatible
with it, just as it is compatible with other evolutionary theories,
and revolutionary theories and special creationist theories and even
historical theories."  (Kitts, David B., "Search for the Holy
Transformation," review of Evolution of Living
Organisms, by Pierre-P. Grassé, Paleobiology, vol. 5, 1979, pp.
353-354)

                                     Sudden Appearance and Stasis

"Paleontologists have paid an enormous price for Darwin's argument. We
fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to
preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view
our data
as so bad that we almost never see the very process we profess to
study. ...The history of most fossil species includes tow features
particularly inconsistent with gradualism:  1. Stasis.  Most species
exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They
appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they
disappear; morphological change I usually limited and directionless.
2. Sudden appearance.  In any local area, a species does not arise
gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears
all at once and 'fully
formed.'"  
(Gould, Stephen J. The Panda's Thumb, 1980, p. 181-182)

"Paleontologists are traditionally famous (or infamous) for
reconstructing whole animals from the debris of death. Mostly they
cheat. ...If any event in life's history resembles man's creation
myths, it is this sudden diversification of marine life when
multicellular organisms took over as the dominant actors in ecology
and evolution. Baffling (and embarrassing) to Darwin, this event still
dazzles us and stands as a major biological revolution on a par with
the invention of self-replication and the origin of the eukaryotic
cell.  The animal phyla emerged out of the Precambrian mists with most
of the attributes of their modern descendants."
(Bengtson, Stefan, "The Solution to a Jigsaw Puzzle," Nature, vol. 345
(June 28, 1990), pp. 765-766)

"Modern multicellular animals make their first uncontested appearance
in the fossil record some 570 million years ago - and with a bang, not
a protracted crescendo. This 'Cambrian explosion' marks the advent (at
least
into direct evidence) of virtually all major groups of modern animals
- and all within the minuscule span, geologically speaking, of a few
million years."  (Gould, Stephen J., Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale
and the
Nature of History, 1989, p. 23-24)

"The fossil record had caused Darwin more grief than joy. Nothing
distressed him more than the Cambrian explosion, the coincident
appearance of almost all complex organic designs..."
(Gould, Stephen J., The Panda's Thumb, 1980, p. 238-239)

"The majority of major groups appear suddenly in the rocks, with
virtually no evidence of transition from their ancestors."
(Futuyma, D., Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution, 1983, p. 82)

"Most families, orders, classes, and phyla appear rather suddenly in
the fossil record, often without anatomically intermediate forms
smoothly interlinking evolutionarily derived descendant taxa with
their
presumed ancestors."                (Eldredge, Niles,
Macro-Evolutionary Dynamics: Species, Niches, and Adaptive
Peaks, 1989, p. 22)

"In spite of these examples, it remains true, as every paleontologist
knows, that most new species, genera, and families, and that nearly
all new categories above the level of families, appear in the record
suddenly and are not led up to by known, gradual, completely
continuous transitional sequences."
(Simpson, George Gaylord, The Major Features of Evolution, 1953, p.
360)

"The gaps in the record are real, however. The absence of any record
of any important branching is quite phenomenal. Species are usually
static, or nearly so, for long periods, species seldom and genera
never show
evolution into new species or genera but replacement or one by
another, and change is more or less abrupt."
(Wesson, R., Beyond Natural Selection, 1991, p. 45)

"All through the fossil record, groups - both large and small -
abruptly appear and disappear. ...The earliest
phase of rapid change usually is undiscovered, and must be inferred by
comparison with its probable relatives."
(Newell, N. D., Creation and Evolution: Myth or Reality, 1984, p. 10)

"Paleontologists had long been aware of a seeming contradiction
between Darwin's postulate of gradualism...and the actual findings of
paleontology. Following phyletic lines through time seemed to reveal
only minimal gradual changes but no clear evidence for any change of a
species into a different genus or for the gradual origin of an
evolutionary novelty. Anything truly novel always seemed to appear
quite abruptly in
the fossil record."
(Mayr, E. Our Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern
Evolutionary Thought, 1991, p.
138)

"The record certainly did not reveal gradual transformations of
structure in the course of time. On the contrary, it showed that
species generally remained constant throughout their history and were
replaced quite suddenly
by significantly different forms. New types or classes seemed to
appear fully formed, with no sign of an evolutionary trend by which
they could have emerged from an earlier type."  (Bowler, Evolution:
The History of
an Idea, 1984, p. 187)

"Instead of finding the gradual unfolding of life, what geologists of
Darwin's time, and geologists of the present day actually find is a
highly uneven or jerky record; that is, species appear in the sequence
very suddenly, show little or no change during their existence in the
record, then abruptly go out of the record. and it is not always
clear, in fact it's rarely clear, that the descendants were actually
better adapted than their predecessors. In other words, biological
improvement is hard to find."  (Raup, David M., "Conflicts Between
Darwin and Paleontology," Bulletin, Field Museum of Natural History,
vol. 50, 1979, p. 23)

"A major problem in proving the theory (of evolution) has been the
fossil record; the imprints of vanished species preserved in the
Earth's geological formations.  This record has never revealed traces
of Darwin's
hypothetical intermediate variants instead species appear and
disappear abruptly, and this anomaly has fueled the creationist
argument that each species was created by God."  (Czarnecki, Mark,
"The Revival of the
Creationist Crusade", MacLean's, January 19, 1981, p. 56)

"Eldredge and Gould, by contrast, decided to take the record at face
value. On this view, there is little evidence of modification within
species, or of forms intermediate between species because neither
generally occurred. A
species forms and evolves almost instantaneously (on the geological
timescale) and then remains virtually unchanged until it disappears,
yielding its habitat to a new species."  (Smith, Peter J.,
"Evolution's Most
Worrisome Questions," Review of Life Pulse by Niles Eldredge, New
Scientist, 1987, p. 59)

"The principle problem is morphological stasis.  A theory is only as
good as its predictions, and conventional neo-Darwinism, which claims
to be a comprehensive explanation of evolutionary process, has failed
to predict the  widespread long-term morphological stasis now
recognized as one of the most striking aspects of the fossil record."
(Williamson, Peter G., "Morphological Stasis and Developmental
Constraint: Real Problems for Neo-Darwinism," Nature, Vol. 294, 19
November 1981, p. 214)

"It is a simple ineluctable truth that virtually all members of a
biota remain basically stable, with minor fluctuations, throughout
their duration..."  (Eldredge, Niles, The Pattern of Evolution, 1998,
p. 157)

"But fossil species remain unchanged throughout most of their history
and the record fails to contain a single example of a significant
transition."  (Woodroff, D.S., Science, vol. 208, 1980, p. 716)

"We have long known about stasis and abrupt appearance, but have
chosen to fob it off upon an imperfect fossil record."
(Gould, Stephen J., "The Paradox of the First Tier: An Agenda for
Paleobiology," Paleobiology, 1985, p. 7)

"Paleontologists ever since Darwin have been searching (largely in
vain) for the sequences of insensibly graded series of fossils that
would stand as examples of the sort of wholesale transformation of
species that Darwin envisioned as the natural product of the
evolutionary process. Few saw any reason to demur - though
it is a startling fact that ...most species remain recognizably
themselves, virtually unchanged throughout their occurrence in
geological sediments of various ages."  (Eldredge, Niles, "Progress in
Evolution?" New Scientist,
vol. 110, 1986, p. 55)

"In other words, when the assumed evolutionary processes did not match
the pattern of fossils that they were supposed to have generated, the
pattern was judged to be 'wrong.' A circular argument arises:
interpret the
fossil record in terms of a particular theory of evolution, inspect
the interpretation, and note that it confirms the theory. Well, it
would, wouldn't it? ...As is now well known, most fossil species
appear instantaneously in the
record, persist for some millions of years virtually unchanged, only
to disappear abruptly - the 'punctuated equilibrium' pattern of
Eldredge and Gould."
(Kemp, Tom S., "A Fresh Look at the Fossil Record," New Scientist,
vol. 108, 1985, pp. 66-67)

"The old Darwinian view of evolution as a ladder of more and more
efficient forms leading up to the present is
not borne out by the evidence. Most changes are random rather than
systematic modifications, until species
drop out. There is no sign of directed order here. Trends do occur in
many lines, but they are not the rule."
(Newell, N. D., "Systematics and Evolution," 1984, p. 10)

"Well-represented species are usually stable throughout their temporal
range, or alter so little and in such
superficial ways (usually in size alone), that an extrapolation of
observed change into longer periods of
geological time could not possibly yield the extensive modifications
that mark general pathways of evolution in
larger groups. Most of the time, when the evidence is best, nothing
much happens to most species."
(Gould Stephen J., "Ten Thousand Acts of Kindness," Natural History,
1988, p. 14)

"Stasis, or nonchange, of most fossil species during their lengthy
geological lifespans was tacitly acknowledged
by all paleontologists, but almost never studied explicitly because
prevailing theory treated stasis as
uninteresting nonevidence for nonevolution. ...The overwhelming
prevalence of stasis became an
embarrassing feature of the fossil record, best left ignored as a
manifestation of nothing (that is, nonevolution).
(Gould, Stephen J., "Cordelia's Dilemma," Natural History, 1993, p.
15)

"Paleontologists just were not seeing the expected changes in their
fossils as they pursued them up through
the rock record. ...That individual kinds of fossils remain
recognizably the same throughout the length of their
occurrence in the fossil record had been known to paleontologists long
before Darwin published his Origin.
Darwin himself, ...prophesied that future generations of
paleontologists would fill in these gaps by diligent
search ...One hundred and twenty years of paleontological research
later, it has become abundantly clear that
the fossil record will not confirm this part of Darwin's predictions.
Nor is the problem a miserably poor record.
The fossil record simply shows that this prediction is wrong. ...The
observation that species are amazingly
conservative and static entities throughout long periods of time has
all the qualities of the emperor's new
clothes: everyone knew it but preferred to ignore it. Paleontologists,
faced with a recalcitrant record obstinately
refusing to yield Darwin's predicted pattern, simply looked the other
way."
(Eldredge, N. and Tattersall, I., The Myths of Human Evolution, 1982,
p. 45-46)

                                                  Large Gaps

"We have so many gaps in the evolutionary history of life, gaps in
such key areas as the origin of the
multi-cellular organisms, the origin of the vertebrates, not to
mention the origins of most invertebrate groups."
(McGowan, C., In the Beginning... A Scientist Shows Why the
Creationists are Wrong, Prometheus Books,
1984, p. 95)

"There are all sorts of gaps: absence of gradationally intermediate
'transitional' forms between species, but
also between larger groups - between, say, families of carnivores, or
the orders of mammals.  In fact, the
higher up the Linnaean hierarchy you look, the fewer transitional
forms there seem to be."
(Eldredge, Niles, The Monkey Business: A Scientist Looks at
Creationism, 1982, p. 65)

"It is as though they [fossils] were just planted there, without any
evolutionary history.  Needless to say this
appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists. ...Both
schools of thought (Punctuationists and
Gradualists) despise so-called scientific creationists equally, and
both agree that the major gaps are real, that
they are true imperfections in the fossil record.  The only
alternative explanation of the sudden appearance of
so many complex animal types in the Cambrian era is divine creation
and (we) both reject this alternative."
(Dawkins, Richard, The Blind Watchmaker, W.W. Norton & Company, New
York, 1996, pp. 229-230)

"All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious
little in the way of intermediate forms;
transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt.
Gradualists usually extract themselves from
this dilemma by invoking the extreme imperfection of the fossil
record."  (Gould, Stephen J., The Panda's
Thumb, 1980, p. 189)

"One of the most surprising negative results of paleontological
research in the last century is that such
transitional forms seem to be inordinately scarce. In Darwin's time
this could perhaps be ascribed with some
justification to the incompleteness of the paleontological record and
to lack of knowledge, but with the
enormous number of fossil species which have been discovered since
then, other causes must be found for
the almost complete absence of transitional forms."  (Brouwer, A.,
"General Paleontology," [1959], Transl.
Kaye R.H., Oliver & Boyd: Edinburgh & London, 1967, pp. 162-163)

"There is no need to apologize any longer for the poverty of the
fossil record. In some ways it has become
almost
unmanageably rich, and discovery is out-pacing integration. "The
fossil record nevertheless continues to be
composed mainly of gaps."
(Neville, George, T., "Fossils in Evolutionary Perspective," Science
Progress, vol. 48 January 1960, pp. 1-3)

"The record jumps, and all the evidence shows that the record is real:
 the gaps we see reflect real events in
life's history not the artifact of a poor fossil record.  The fossil
record flatly fails to substantiate this expectation
of finely graded change."  (Eldredge, N. and Tattersall, I., The Myths
of Human Evolution Columbia University
Press, 1982, p. 57)

"Gaps between families and taxa of even higher rank could not be so
easily explained as the mere artifacts of
a poor fossil record."  (Eldredge, Niles, Macro-Evolutionary Dynamics:
Species, Niches, and Adaptive Peaks,
1989, p. 22)

"The fossil record is much less incomplete than is generally
accepted."
(Paul, C.R.C, "The Adequacy of the Fossil Record," 1982, p. 75)

"Links are missing just where we most fervently desire them, and it is
all too probable that many 'links' will
continue to be missing."  (Jepsen, L. Glenn; Mayr, Ernst; Simpson
George Gaylord. Genetics, Paleontology,
and Evolution, New York, Athenaeum, 1963, p. 114)

"For over a hundred years paleontologists have recognized the large
number of gaps in the fossil record.
Creationists make it seem like gaps are a deep, dark secret of
paleontology..."
(Cracraft, in Awbrey & Thwaites, Evolutionists Confront Creationists",
1984)

"In any case, no real evolutionist, whether gradualist or
punctuationist, uses the fossil record as evidence in
favour of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation."  
(Ridley, Mark, "Who doubts evolution?" "New Scientist", vol. 90, 25
June 1981, p. 831)

"The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major
transitions in organic design, indeed
our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional
intermediates in many cases, has been a
persistent and nagging problem for gradualist accounts of evolution."
 (Gould, Stephen J., 'Is a new and
general theory of evolution emerging?' Paleobiology, vol 6(1), January
1980, p. 127)

"The curious thing is that there is a consistency about the fossil
gaps; the fossils are missing in all the
important  places."  (Hitching, Francis, The Neck of the Giraffe or
Where Darwin Went Wrong, Penguin Books,
1982, p.19)

"If life had evolved into its wondrous profusion of creatures little
by little, Dr. Eldredge argues, then one would
expect to find fossils of transitional creatures which were a bit like
what went before them and a bit like what
came after.  But no one has yet found any evidence of such
transitional creatures.  This oddity has been
attributed to gaps in the fossil record which gradualists expected to
fill when rock strata of the proper age had
been found.  In the last decade, however, geologists have found rock
layers of all divisions of the last 500
million years and no transitional forms were contained in them."  (The
Guardian Weekly, 26 Nov 1978, vol 119,
no 22, p. 1)

"Given that evolution, according to Darwin, was in a continual state
of motion...it followed logically that the fossil
record should be rife with examples of transitional forms leading from
the less to more evolved.  ...Instead of
filling the gaps in the fossil record with so-called missing links,
most paleontologists found themselves facing a
situation in which there were only gaps in the fossil record, with no
evidence of transformational intermediates
between documented fossil species."
(Schwartz, Jeffrey H., Sudden Origins, 1999, p. 89)

"Despite the bright promise that paleontology provides a means of
"seeing" evolution, it has presented some
nasty difficulties for evolutionists the most notorious of which is
the presence of "gaps" in the fossil record.
Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology
does not provide them.  The gaps
must therefore be a contingent feature of the record."  (Kitts, David
B., "Paleontology and Evolutionary
Theory," Evolution, vol. 28, 1974, p. 467)

"A persistent problem in evolutionary biology has been the absence of
intermediate forms in the fossil record.
Long term gradual transformations of single lineages are rare and
generally involve simple size increase or
trivial phenotypic effects. Typically, the record consists of
successive ancestor-descendant lineages,
morphologically invariant through time and unconnected by
intermediates."  (Williamson, P.G.,
Palaeontological Documentation of Speciation in Cenozoic Molluscs from
Turkana Basin, 1982, p. 163)

"...I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct
illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book.  If I
knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them.
You suggest that an artist should be used to
visualize such transformations, but where would he get the information
from?   I could not, honestly, provide it,
and if I were to leave it to artistic license, would that not mislead
the reader?  Yet Gould and the American
Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no
transitional fossils.  As a paleontologist
myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of
identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record.
You say that I should at least 'show a photo of the fossil from which
each type of organism was derived.'  I will
lay it on the line, there is not one such fossil for which one could
make a watertight argument.  The reason is
that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the
fossil record."
(Patterson, Colin, British Museum of Natural History, London, letter
10 April 1979, in Sunderland L.D.,
"Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems," 1984, Master Book
Publishers: El Cajon CA, Fourth Edition,
1988, p. 89)

                                                Miscellaneous

"There are only two possibilities as to how life arose.  One is
spontaneous generation arising to evolution; the
other is a supernatural creative act of God.  There is no third
possibility.  Spontaneous generation, that life
arose from non-living matter was scientifically disproved 120 years
ago by Louis Pasteur and others.  That
leaves us with the only possible conclusion that life arose as a
supernatural creative act of God.  I will not
accept that philosophically because I do not want to believe in God.
Therefore, I choose to believe in that
which I know is scientifically impossible; spontaneous generation
arising to evolution."
(Wald, George, "Innovation and Biology," Scientific American, Vol.
199, Sept. 1958, p. 100)

"All of us who study the origin of life find that the more we look
into it, the more we feel that it is too complex to
have evolved anywhere.  We believe as an article of faith that life
evolved from dead matter on this planet.  It is
just that its complexity is so great, it is hard for us to imagine
that it did."
(Urey, Harold C., quoted in Christian Science Monitor, January 4,
1962, p. 4)

"If living matter is not, then, caused by the interplay of atoms,
natural forces and radiation, how has it come
into being?  I think, however, that we must go further than this and
admit that the only acceptable explanation
is creation.  I know that this is anathema to physicists, as indeed it
is to me, but we must not reject a theory
that we do not like if the experimental evidence supports it."  (H.J.
Lipson, F.R.S. Professor of Physics,
University of Manchester, UK, "A physicist looks at evolution" Physics
Bulletin, 1980, vol 31, p. 138)

"To the unprejudiced, the fossil record of plants is in favor of
special creation.  Can you imagine how an orchid,
a duck weed, and a palm have come from the same ancestry, and have we
any evidence for this assumption?
The evolutionist must be prepared with an answer, but I think that
most would break down before an
inquisition."  
(E.J.H. Corner "Evolution" in A.M. MacLeod and L.S. Cobley, eds.,
Evolution in Contemporary Botanical
Thought, Chicago, IL:  Quadrangle Books, 1961, at 95, 97 from Bird, I,
p. 234)

"The more one studies paleontology, the more certain one becomes that
evolution is based on faith alone;
exactly the same sort of faith which it is necessary to have when one
encounters the great mysteries of
religion."  
(More, Louis T., "The Dogma of Evolution," Princeton University Press:
Princeton NJ, 1925, Second Printing,
p.160)

"At the present stage of geological research, we have to admit that
there is nothing in the geological records
that runs contrary to the view of conservative creationists, that God
created each species separately,
presumably from the dust of the earth."  (Dr. Edmund J. Ambrose, The
Nature and Origin of the Biological
World, John Wiley & Sons, 1982, p. 164)

"One of its (evolutions) weak points is that it does not have any
recognizable way in which conscious life could
have emerged."  (Sir John Eccles,  "A Divine Design:  Some Questions
on Origins" in Margenau and Varghese
(eds.), Cosmos, Bios, Theos, p. 203)          

"I am convinced, moreover, that Darwinism, in whatever form, is not in
fact a scientific theory, but a
pseudo-metaphysical hypothesis decked out in scientific garb.  In
reality the theory derives its support not from
empirical data or logical deductions of a scientific kind but from the
circumstance that it happens to be the only
doctrine of biological origins that can be conceived with the
constricted worldview to which a majority of
scientists no doubt subscribe."  
(Wolfgang, Smith, "The Universe is Ultimately to be Explained in Terms
of a Metacosmic Reality" in Margenau
and Varghese (eds.), Cosmos, Bios, Theos, p. 113)

"The origin of life is still a mystery.  As long as it has not been
demonstrated by experimental realization, I
cannot conceive of any physical or chemical condition [allowing
evolution]...I cannot be satisfied by the idea
that fortuitous mutation...can explain the complex and rational
organization of the brain, but also of lungs,
heart, kidneys, and even joints and muscles.  How is it possible to
escape the idea of some intelligent and organizing force?"
(d'Aubigne, Merle, "How Is It Possible to Escape the Idea of Some
Intelligent and Organizing Force?" in
Margenau and Varghese (eds.), Cosmos, Bios, Theos, p. 158)

"Life, even in bacteria, is too complex to have occurred by chance."
(Rubin, Harry, "Life, Even in Bacteria, Is
Too Complex to Have Occurred by Chance" in Margenau and Varghese
(eds.), Cosmos, Bios, Theos, p. 203)

"The theory of evolution suffers from grave defects, which are more
and more apparent as time advances.  It
can no longer square with practical scientific knowledge,  nor does it
suffice for our theoretical grasp of the
facts."
(Fleischmann, Albert, Victoria Institute, Vol. 65, pp. 194-195)

"The arguments for macroevolution fail at every significant level when
confronted by the facts."
(Haines, Jr., Roger, "Macroevolution Questioned", Creation Research
Society Quarterly, Dec. 1976, p. 169)

"The third assumption was the Viruses, Bacteria, Protozoa and the
higher animals were all interrelated...We
have as yet
no definite evidence about the way in which the Viruses, Bacteria or
Protozoa are interrelated."
(Kerkut, G.A., Implications of Evolution, Pergammon Press, 1960, p.
151)

"Scientists have no proof that life was not the result of an act of
creation."
(Jastrow, Robert, The Enchanted Loom: Mind In the Universe, 1981, p.
19)

"...we have proffered a collective tacit acceptance of the story of
gradual adaptive change, a story that
strengthened and became even more entrenched as the synthesis took
hold.  We paleontologists have said
that the history of life supports that interpretation, all the while
really knowing that it does not."  (Eldredge, Niles
"Time Frames: The Rethinking of Darwinian Evolution and the Theory of
Punctuated Equilibria," Simon &
Schuster: New York NY, 1985, p44)

"With the benefit of hindsight, it is amazing that paleontologists
could have accepted gradual evolution as a
universal pattern on the basis of a handful of supposedly
well-documented lineages (e.g. Gryphaea, Micraster,
Zaphrentis) none of which actually withstands close scrutiny."  (Paul,
C. R. C., 1989, "Patterns of Evolution and
Extinction in Invertebrates", Allen, K. C. and Briggs, D. E. G.
(editors), Evolution and the Fossil Record,
Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D. C., 1989, p. 105)

"The rapid development as far as we can judge of all the higher plants
within recent geological times is an
abominable mystery."  (Darwin, Charles R., letter to J.D. Hooker, July
22nd 1879, in Darwin F. & Seward A.C.,
eds., "More Letters of Charles Darwin: A Record of His Work in a
Series of Hitherto Unpublished Papers," John
Murray: London, 1903, Vol. II, pp. 20-21)

"An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now,
could only state that, in some sense, the
origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle."
(Francis Crick, Life Itself, Its Origin and Nature,
1981, p. 88)

"The number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed
must be truly enormous. Why then is not
every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate
links? Geology assuredly does not
reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps is
the most obvious and serious objection
which can be urged against the theory."  (Darwin, Charles, Origin of
Species, 6th edition, 1902 p. 341-342)

"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself
whether I may have not devoted myself to
a fantasy."
(Charles Darwin, Life and Letters, 1887, Vol. 2, p. 229)

"The geological record has provided no evidence as to the origin of
the fishes."
(Norman, J., A History of Fishes, 1963, p. 298)

"None of the known fishes is thought to be directly ancestral to the
earliest land vertebrates."
(Stahl, B., Vertebrate History: Problems in Evolution, Dover
Publications, Inc., NY, 1985, p. 148)

"The pathetic thing is that we have scientists who are trying to prove
evolution, which no scientist can ever
prove."  
(Millikan, Robert A., Nashville Banner, August 7, 1925, quoted in
Brewer's lecture)

"Evolution is accepted by zoologists not because it has been proved or
observed, but because creation is
incredible."
(Watson, D.M.S., Nature, August 10, 1929)

"Evolution is unproved and unprovable.  We believe it only because the
only alternative is special creation
which is unthinkable."  (Keith, Arthur, forward to 100th anniversary
edition of Charles Darwin's Origin of
Species, 1959)

"Not one change of species into another is on record...we cannot prove
that a single species has been
changed."  
Charles Darwin, My Life & Letters

"The geological record is extremely imperfect and this fact will to a
large extent explain why we do not find
interminable varieties, connecting together all the extinct and
existing forms of life by the finest graduated
steps.  He who rejects these views on the nature of the geological
record, will rightly reject my whole theory.
For he may ask in vain where are the numberless transitional (missing)
links which must formerly have
connected the closely allied or representative."  
Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which
could not possibly have been formed by
numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely
break down."
Charles Darwin, The Origin of the Species

"If numerous species, belonging to the same genera or families, have
really started into life all at once, that
fact would be
fatal to the theory of descent with slow modification through natural
selection."
Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species