Okay, kendemeyer, you want someone to talk about the fossil record, so I will try. Most of this post is a short essay that I sometimes paste into message boards; I may have already pasted it here - sorry if this is a repeat.
The quotes that you provide, kedemyer, are either out of date or taken out of context. In actual fact, the fossil record is excellent evidence of Darwinian evolution.
The fossil record is full of
transitional forms. We believe that species have evolved from previous species, and so we should see in the fossil record evidence of species that show evidence of having characteristics between modern species and previous species.
This is exactly what we see. The most wonderfully complete record of evolution is that of human beings from an early bipedal ape.
In this graphic we have examples of skulls from purported human ancestors. Skull A is a
modern chimpanzee - it is shown to demonstrate how Skull B, from an Austalopethicine, is very ape-like and definitely not human. Skull N is modern human. Note that the skulls in between show a very smooth transition between B to N, without any gaps. It is also true that the skulls are dated to the correct
times. This is predicted by evolution.
Kathleen Hunt has written a short article listing in detail transitional forms between different major groups of animals. In particle, there is a particularly detailed list of species showing the
transition from reptiles to mammals. Note that these species, found as fossils, show the correct intermediate steps and are found in strata with the proper ages. It is interesting to note that we see the transformation of the reptilian jaw joint into the
mammalian inner ear, which is something creationists always insisted was impossible.
Fossils have also been discovered that give a nice series of
transitionals between land mammals and modern whales.
Another interesting website is the
Palaeos site. It also contains some really cool
cladograms. Start here at
Sarcopterygii, the group of fish that include the ancestors of modern tetrapods (and so is the clade that contains tetropods). Scroll to the bottom of the cladogram and click on
Reptilomorpha. Note if you scroll to the bottom there is
Synapsida (although the link is actually in the box at the top of the page). At the bottom of this cladograms is the
Mammalia (again, the actual link is in the box at the top). Scroll down. Congatulations: you have just gone through the entire evolutionary history of fish to modern mammals. Every name you saw on the cladogram represents an actual fossil species, carefully placed in the proper place in the cladogram based on age
and a careful description of its morphology! Look at the really nice descriptions of the fossils; one of the best is a section on one of the proto-mammals,
Morganucontidae. The descriptions show, I hope, that these phylogenic trees, and the claim that these fossils are transitionals, aren't arbitrary - they have exactly the right characteristics to be place where they are in the phylogenic trees, and they have the right "in-betweenness" to count as transitionals between two different groups of animals.
So, in this respect, a prediction of evolution is born out in the fossil record. Can creationism explain these transitions, beyond simply saying that the creator simply created all these species because of whimsy? For instance, right now there is very little fossil evidence that link bats to their non-flying ancestors. My evolutionist prediction is that if and when these fossils are discovered, they will clearly link bats with more primitive
tree dwelling mammals, distantly related to primates. No transitionl fossils will be found that are "in-between" bats and birds. What predictions can creationism make? Does belief a creator necessarily imply that such fossils will be found? If evolution predicts them, and creationism makes no predictions, what will it mean if and when such fossils are found?
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