Gunter Bechly on the discontinuous fossil record

Darwin believed strongly that evolutionary change happened gradually, a point he repeated six times in On the Origin of Species. The fact that the history of life doesn’t look that way was explained by “gaps” in the fossil record. But, says Gunter Bechly,

If the gaps and discontinuities in the fossil record were just artifacts, they should more and more dissolve with our greatly increasing knowledge of the fossil record. But the opposite is the case. The more we know, the more acute these problems have become. “Darwin’s doubt” did not get smaller over time but bigger, and if he were still alive, he would likely agree that the evidence simply does not add up, since he was much more prudent than many of his modern followers.

Günter Bechly, “The Discontinuous Fossil Record Refutes Darwinian Gradualism” at Evolution News and Science Today (November 2, 2021)

A good point. Many of the followers are just reiterating what they take to be a Truth. Patterns of evidence don’t really come into it.

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