Is the Global Flood Feasible? Discussion Q&A

Some more information on the "no real evoltuonist uses the fossil record..." quote which appears in numerous creationist websites.Mark Ridley, Oxford, "...a lot of people just do not know what evidence the theory of evolution stands upon. They think that the main evidence is the gradual descent of one species from another in the fossil record. ...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." New Scientist, June, 1981, p.831 from an article titled "Who Doubts Evolution"
from http://www.bible.ca/tracks/fossil-record.htmWhat I find laughable is that creationists will use Mark Ridley to provide an opinion on the strength (or weakness) of paleontology but then ignore his opinion that homology and biogeography support the theory of evolution. Why such selective belief?Why not refer to another apparent Mark Ridley quote?"The theory of evolution is outstandingly the most
important theory in biology."
-- Mark Ridley, _Evolution_, Blackwell Scientific, Boston, 1983.Perhaps this explains why he wrote a textbook titled "Evolution" (2nd ed. November 1996)?Don Lindsay discusses the creationists' preferred quote at http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~lindsay/creation/quote_ridley2.htmlTranquility Base appears to have been wrong in his citation of the quote, in his erroneous use of it as an opinion opposing evolution and in implying that the quoted person does not support the theory of evolution.And the handwaving exercise by TB is breathtaking! "Almost every family to family gap is completely empty and there are only a handful of famous, very tired looking, examples of transitions."Isn't any single solitary example of transition across families completely contrary to creationism? Philip (I think) argues elsewhere that the biblical "kinds" are families of animals.