GRADUATING FROM GRADUALISM

Eldredge discloses that the Darwinian paradigm is so strong that paleontologists refused to admit defeat by acknowledging gradualism as wrong. “Paleontologists clung to the myth of gradual adaptive transformation even in the face of plain evidence to the contrary… ”¹⁹

Eldredge and his colleague Gould, however, responded to the lack of transitional fossils by developing a new theory called punctuated equilibria, a complete departure from Darwin’s basic premise of gradualism.²⁰

The punctuated equilibria theory contends that evolution, rather than being a gradual process, flourished quickly in small, isolated geographic regions, and then stabilized. But evolution was the exception, and rarely occurred.

Gould and Eldredge have argued that a sudden jump from species to species is the only way to explain the missing transitional fossils. Denton contests their conclusions are difficult to believe. “To suggest that … possibly even millions of transitional species … were all unsuccessful species occupying isolated areas and having very small population numbers is verging on the incredible.”²¹

Whereas Darwin’s theory required many millions of years, punctuated equilibria speculates that body forms evolved in hundreds of thousands of years, merely 100th of one percent of Earth’s history. There is no known mechanism that can work so fast.

Based upon the fossil evidence, the following conclusions can be drawn:

1. Cambrian fossils contradict Darwin’s theory.

2. Transitional fossils have failed to show up.

3. Most species don’t change.

4. Perplexed materialists are seeking non-Darwinian explanations.

Gerald Schroeder cites how micro-evolutionary examples are used by Darwinists as “proof” of macro-evolution: “…when the London Museum of natural History, a bastion of Darwinian dogma, mounted a massive exhibit on evolution, occupying an entire wing of the second floor, the only examples it could show were pink daisies evolving into blue daisies, little dogs evolving into big dogs, a few dozen species of cichlid fish evolving into hundreds of species of—you guessed it—cichlid fish. They could not come up with a single major morphological change clearly recorded in the fossil record. I am not anti-evolution. And I am not pro-creation. What I am is pro-look-at-the-data-and-see-what-they-teach.”²²