Page 96 - The Errors the American National Academy of Sciences

The Errors of the American National Academy of Sciences

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T T h h he E v e r r- -M i is si i in g T r ra n s it ti i io na l l F o r rm s

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T The Ever-Missing Transitional Forms
Darwin imagined evolution to consist of gradual transitions
from one species to another over long periods of time. There should
therefore be an infinite number of intermediate links between species.
Darwin stated as much in The Origin of Species:
... The number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly ex-
isted on the earth, [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 gravest ob-
jection which can be urged against my theory. 2
Again in The Origin of Species, Darwin stated that the sudden
emergence of phyla with no evolutionary ancestors below them rep-
resented a serious difficulty:
… There is another and allied difficulty, which is much more seri-
ous. I allude to the manner in which species belonging to several of
the main divisions of the animal kingdom suddenly appear in the
lowest known fossiliferous rocks. 3
The serious difficulty referred to by Darwin in this passage con-
tinues to be a serious difficulty today. The evidence that he expected
to show the evolution of one species from another is nowhere to be
found. The fact that there are no transitional forms between species in
the fossil record is so clear-cut that a great many evolutionists have
been forced to admit it. A selection of these confessions follows:
Professor S.M. Stanley of Johns Hopkins University:
The known fossil record is not, and never has been, in accord with
gradualism. What is remarkable is that, through a variety of historical
circumstances, even the history of opposition has been obscured. . . .
'The majority of palaeontologists felt their evidence simply contra-
dicted Darwin's stress on minute, slow, and cumulative changes lead-

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