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C r e a t i o n  I n d e x
C o m m e n t s  O n  E v o l u t i o n  p a g e  1 6
(alphabetical list of comments)
Dr. Isaac Asimov.(biochemist; former Professor at Boston University School of Medicine; internationally known author; in thinking about the efforts necessary to even begin comprehending complexity in nature)."In the game of energy and thermodynamics you can't even break even".

Smithsonian.Institute Journal.(si.edu/), June, 1970, page 10.."And in Man is a 3 pound brain which, as far as we know, is the most complex and orderly arrangement of matter in the universe."

James W. Kalnt, Department of Psychology, North Carolina State University, believes the brain has at least 14,000,000,000 nerve cells interconnected by 60 trillion synapses. Many of these are small and apparently undeveloped as if they constituted a reserve stock not yet realized in the individual's cerebral activity. At any one time only about 5% of the brain's neurons are active, but there are no unused portions of the brain, despite the 10% use only myth. What.possibly.could they be used for?

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Stephen Jay Gould.(Professor of Geology and Paleontology {taught biology, geology and history of science}, Harvard University, deceased May, 2002), 'Is A New and General Theory of Evolution Emerging?'.Paleobiology, vol. 6(1), January 1980, page 127."The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for 'gradualistic' accounts of evolution."

"This notion of species as 'natural kinds' fit splendidly with creationist tenets of a pre-Darwinian age. Louis Agassiz even argued that species are God's individual thoughts, made incarnate so that we might perceive both His majesty and His message. Species, Agassiz wrote, are 'instituted by the Divine Intelligence as the categories of his mode of thinking.' "

But how could a division of the organic world into discrete entities be justified by an evolutionary theory that proclaimed ceaseless change as the fundamental fact of nature?." ...A quahog.(clam).is a quahog". ...Natural History, vol. LXXXVIII (7), August-September, 1979, p.18. 

"All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt."....'The return of hopeful monsters',.Natural History, vol. LXXXVI (6), June-July 1977, p.24.

In.Punctuated Equilibria: An Alternative To Phyletic.Gradualism In Models In Paleobiology, Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge, 1973, Freeman, Cooper and Company, San Francisco, pages 88-115 noted that careful searches show only a smattering of fossils of multi cellular creatures in rocks older than 600 million years, yet in rocks a bit younger we see a profusion of fossilized animals with a host of differing body plans. Stephen says in "Evolution's erratic pace",.Natural History, vol. LXXXVI (5), May, 1977, p.14.."The extreme rarity of transitional forms persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils. Yet Darwin was so wedded to gradualism that he wagered his entire theory on a denial of this literal record. The geological record is extremely imperfect and this fact will to a large extent explain why we do not find interminable varieties, connecting together all the extinct and existing forms of life by the finest graduated steps. He who rejects these views on the nature of the geological record, will rightly reject my whole theory.

"Darwin's argument still persists as the favored escape of most paleontologists from the embarrassment of a record that seems to show so little of evolution. In exposing its cultural and methodological roots, I wish in no way to impugn the potential validity of gradualism.(for all general views have similar roots). I wish only to point out that it was never 'seen' in the rocks.

"Paleontologists have paid an exorbitant 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 never see the very process we profess to study."

In.Natural History, Stephen Jay Gould, volume 86, number 5 (1977), page 13."The extreme rarity of transitional forms persists as the trade secret of paleontology."

Stephen's approach in his many books and articles is forthright, honest and open minded, as is Eldredge's.
 


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"People think I'm disciplined. It is not discipline. It is devotion.
There is a great difference."....Luciano Pavarotti
Psalms 63:8.
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