By the way - you just got baited. Although I was talking about the modern theory, I deliberately paraphrased Darwin in the section you quoted me on just in case someone hungup on Darwin wanted to try and tell us about phyletic gradualism. The best bit was getting you to agree 'absolutely' with Darwin, before launching into a criticism of him.
Assuming you paraphrased him accurately, I don't see the reason for your victory celebrations. Darwin was saying that the evidence for phyletic gradualism wasn't there. It isn't. I was -and am- agreeing with him.
But I just described the result of Punctuated Equilibrium (the actual process is quite technical) and you said 'Absolutely.'
No. You described the evidence. And I agree with the evidence- absolutely. That the evidence is "the result of Punctuated Equilibrium" is entirely your belief- based, I suggest, on your "wish" to believe in the fantasy of evolution.
"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 two 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)
All at once and fully formed, Modulous. So Darwin's view, which "seems to be that the overall effect is constant gradual change but this could be achieved in fits and starts" is empirically wrong.
All at once. Fully formed. One fossil is replaced by another. With no evidence whatsoever (other than the pure speculation arising from a perceived phenotypic similarity) that one creature might have descended from the other.
Not evidence, but simple surmise backed by a mighty, mighty, desire to believe.
In any other field of science, such a theory would not be submitted through fear of ridicule.
Edited by Kaichos Man, : No reason given.
"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
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