Are there any "holes" in the Theory of Evolution?

Question

I have gathered the following quotes from some "real" scientists who have a problem with the evolution theory as it is commonly taught:

Fossils are a great embarrassment to Evolutionary theory and offer strong support for the concept of Creation" (Gary Parker, Ph.D., biologist/paleontologist and former evolutionist). 

"most people assume that fossils provide a very important part of the general argument in favor of Darwinian interpretations of the history of life. Unfortunately, this is not strictly true" (Dr. David Raup, curator of geology, Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago).
 
"As is well known, most fossil species appear instantaneously in the fossil record" (Tom Kemp, Oxford University). 

"The fossil record pertaining to man is still so sparsely known that those who insist on positive declarations can do nothing more than jump from one hazardous surmise to another and hope that the next dramatic discovery does not make them utter fools.Clearly some refuse to learn from this. As we have seen, there are numerous scientists and popularizers today who have the temerity to tell us that there is 'no doubt' how man originated: if only they had the evidence..." (William R. Fix, The Bone Pedlars, New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1984, p. 150).
 
"The curious thing is that there is a consistency about the fossil gaps; the fossils are missing in all the important places" (Francis Hitching, archaeologist).
 
"The intelligent layman has long suspected circular reasoning in the use of rocks to date fossils and fossils to date rocks. The geologist has never bothered to think of a good reply" (J. O'Rourke in the American Journal of Science).
 
"In most people's minds, fossils and Evolution go hand in hand. In reality, fossils are a great embarrassment to Evolutionary theory and offer strong support for the concept of Creation. If Evolution were true, we should find literally millions of fossils that show how one kind of life slowly and gradually changed to another kind of life. But missing links are the trade secret, in a sense, of paleontology. The point is, the links are still missing. What we really find are gaps that sharpen up the boundaries between kinds. It's those gaps which provide us with the evidence of Creation of separate kinds. As a matter of fact, there are gaps between each of the major kinds of plants and animals. Transition forms are missing by the millions. What we do find are separate and complex kinds, pointing to Creation" (Dr. Gary Parker, biologist/paleontologist and former ardent evolutionist).
 
"Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them" (David Kitts, paleontologist and evolutionist).
 
"I still think that, to the unprejudiced, the fossil record of plants is in favor of special creation. Can you imagine how an orchid, a duckweed and a palm tree have come from the same ancestry, and have we any evidence for this assumption? The evolutionist must be prepared with an answer, but I think that most would break down before an inquisition" (Dr. Eldred Corner, professor of botany at Cambridge University, England: Evolution in Contemporary Botanical Thought, Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1961, p. 97).
 
"So firmly does the modern geologist believe in evolution up from simple organisms to complex ones over huge time spans, that he is perfectly willing to use the theory of evolution to prove the theory of evolution [p.128]one is applying the theory of evolution to prove the correctness of evolution. For we are assuming that the oldest formations contain only the most primitive and least complex organisms, which is the base assumption of Darwinism [p.127]. If we now assume that only simple organisms will occur in old formations, we are assuming the basic premise of Darwinism to be correct. To use, therefore, for dating purposes, the assumption that only simple organisms will be present in old formations is to thoroughly beg the whole question. It is arguing in a circle [p.128]" Arthur E Wilder-Smith, Man's Origin, Man's Destiny, Harold Shaw Publishers, 1968, pp. 127,128). 

"It cannot be denied that from a strictly philosophical standpoint, geologists are here arguing in a circle. The succession of organisms has been determined by the study of their remains imbedded in the rocks, and the relative ages of the rocks are determined by the remains of the organisms they contain" (R. H. Rastall, lecturer in economic geology, Cambridge University: Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 10, Chicago: William Benton, Publisher, 1956, p. 168). 

"I admit that an awful lot of that [fantasy] has gotten into the textbooks as though it were true. For instance, the most famous example still on exhibit downstairs [in the American Museum of Natural History] is the exhibit on horse evolution prepared fifty years ago. That has been presented as literal truth in textbook after textbook. Now, I think that that is lamentable, particularly because the people who propose these kinds of stories themselves may be aware of the speculative nature of some of the stuff. But by the time it filters down to the textbooks, we've got science as truth and we have a problem" (Dr. Niles Eldredge, paleontologist and evolutionist). 

"But as by THIS THEORY innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we NOT find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?" -Charles Darwin 

To the above fact, even the most world renown (evolutionary) biologists agree...." New species almost always appear suddenly in the fossil record with NO intermediate links to ancestors in older rocks in the same region. The fossil record with its abrupt transitions OFFERS NO SUPPORT for gradual change". - Stephen J. Gould (Natural History , June, 1977, p.22) 


"The extreme rarity (of transitional forms) in the fossil record persists as the 'trade secret' of palentology. The evolutionary tree (diagrams) that adorn our textbooks is.....NOT the evidence of fossils". - Stephen Gould (Natural History, 1977, vol.86, p.13)

secretsauce · Accepted Answer

Quote mining (giving partial-quotes to give the false impression that the author is saying the exact *opposite* of what he said) is the most despicable, lowlife, intellectually bankrupt excuse for an "argument" that Creationists have come up with.  You should be roundly embarassed for repeating them!

The problem is that each of them requires us to actually give the *full quote* in order to show that they are being used dishonestly.  So by packing a bunch of them in a single post, the only way to answer would be to post *PAGES* of the full quotations.

For example, you quote Darwin.  Here's the full quote:

"But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth? It will be much more convenient to discuss this question in the chapter on the Imperfection of the geological record; and I will here only state that I believe the answer mainly lies in the record being incomparably less perfect than is generally supposed; the imperfection of the record being chiefly due to organic beings not inhabiting profound depths of the sea, and to their remains being embedded and preserved to a future age only in masses of sediment sufficiently thick and extensive to withstand an enormous amount of future degradation; and such fossiliferous masses can be accumulated only where much sediment is deposited on the shallow bed of the sea, whilst it slowly subsides. These contingencies will concur only rarely, and after enormously long intervals. Whilst the bed of the sea is stationary or is rising, or when very little sediment is being deposited, there will be blanks in our geological history. The crust of the earth is a vast museum; but the natural collections have been made only at intervals of time immensely remote."
(Origin of Species, Chapter 6 ... see source if you don't believe me.)

In other words, Darwin asks a question, and then answers it.  

But posting only the question, and then implying that Darwin was admitting "holes" in the theory of evolution, you are engaging in outright, despicable, dishonest *DECEIT*.

The fact that Creationists invariably have to engage in such clear acts of deception are clear indication that they have nothing.  They got no game.

----

P.S.  OK, I accept your word that you are not a Creationist, but merely a Christian asking a question.  That's fair.

But my point is that you are relying on DISHONEST SOURCES to get your information about evolution.  If they will give you partial quotations in order to present the illusion that scientists "have problems with the evolutionary theory" ... something so EASY to show is dishonest ... then everything else they are saying has NO CREDIBILITY.

In other words, you should be painfully aware that these CREATIONIST WEB SITES YOU ARE QUOTING FROM  ARE ***LYING*** TO YOU!  They lie *blatantly*.  Stay away from them!

If you are truly an honest Christian ... then stay away from *dishonest* sources!

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Are there any &quot;holes&quot; in the Theory of Evolution?
I have gathered the following quotes from some &quot;real&quot; scientists who have a problem with the evolution theory as it is commonly taught:

Fossils are a great embarrassment to Evolutionary theory and offer strong support for the concept of Creation&quot; (Gary Parker, Ph.D.,...

Anonymous · Answer

Evolution theory does indeed have many holes. And does not satisactorily explain how it all started. Big bang theory, normally. From a singularity, that magically had all the things in it required to start the universe, and life, as we know it. The other side of the coin, however, is creation theory. Adam and Eve, created in God's image. Who then procreated. But to further that, their children must have had relations with each other. Not only against the teachings of the bible, but what about mongolism? And then, the bible says the Earth was purged except for Noah and the ark. Again, the Earth was repopulated from only two individuals. Both theories are full of holes, really. I expect the true answer is a mix of both. Just my own idea, but what about the singularity as divine? And the resulting universe by design? This would explain much.....

vorenhutz · Answer

in some cases, such as parker, these are people who are committed to a wholly different idea of history, where the bible must be interpreted in a certain way and never questioned. so naturally they are skeptical of evolution, they think that something entirely different happened. oddly, rather than coming up with evidence for their scenario, we more often find them distorting or ignoring the evidence for evolution, as if that helps their case.

in other cases, such as gould, eldredge, darwin, it is scientists being appropriately skeptical, trying to make sure that the ideas they promote actually fit with extant evidence, or identify undiscovered evidence that could support or refute their ideas. often the questions are rhetorical and answered in the very next passage... leaving that out is dishonest. also many of these writings are very old (as science goes) and have since been settled... almost nothing that darwin had to say is relevant to modern biological research for instance.

mixing all these writers, who had quite different agendas, wrote with vastly different knowledge bases, and and are taken out of context, appears designed to create the impression that there is no match between evidence and evolutionary theory. this is far from the truth, as one would find if one bothered to read accounts of the history or current state of biological research, rather than a more or less random collection of mined quotes.

"Why, for instance, is this "common ancestor" so difficult to track down?"

fundamentally it is because one cannot establish heredity from fossils... you need dna to do that, and even that cannot be absolutely certain. at best fossils can establish the degree of *relatedness*. given three fossils (or one fossil and two extant organisms), you can say A is more closely related to B than it is to C. any given fossil could be the second cousin of the ancestor, or the ancestor itself, so to speak. the data is unfortunately not that good. but to go from this small uncertainty and discount the whole idea that there ever was a common ancestor is absurd. that would render all sorts of observations about the characteristics of fossils and extant species unexplained, that are quite adequately explained by common ancestry. there is no reason to expect that all species will produce fossils... from what is known about fossilisation, it is expected to be an incomplete, biased sample of all species that have ever existed:

http://www.geology.ucdavis.edu/~cowen/HistoryofLife/biases.html

nevertheless, one can still draw conclusions. the fossil record is hardly the only evidence for evolution, either. there is also a wealth of genetic, anatomical, behavioural, biochemical and biogeographic evidence pertaining to extant organisms which, together with fossils, produces a more or less clear picture of the history of life depending on the quality of the evidence, which is quite variable. in a way it's quite remarkable that anything can be said about events that likely happened millions or even billions of years ago.

Anonymous · Answer

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In response to the people who keep giving completely false, off-topic responses: 1) Evolutionary theory is about changes in species, mutation and selection, NOT ABOUT THE BIRTH OF THE UNIVERSE. Frahusda, please stop answering questions as if the Theory of Evolution is meant to explain the birth of the universe. It is NOT. Ask ANY biologist if they feel their job is to determine the origin of the universe, they will say no. 2) harpertara - Evolution does not explain the origin of the first life. That is the job of organic chemistry, not biology. Evolution is a biological process. And so far we've just barely started looking at the other planets in our solar system. So, we've looked at Mars and a tiny bit at Venus and the Moon Titan. So, that leaves..hmm.. somewhere around 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets yet to explore. So I don't think we're quite ready to draw conclusions on the frequency of the generation of life just yet. 3) SCIENTIFIC THEORIES DO NOT GET PROMOTED TO BE LAWS, EVER! Laws are mathematical relationships or specific facts. "Theory" is used for more complex models. 4) There is NO competing model or theory for the diversity of species. To those who say there is no proof of macroevolution, this is absolute false creationist propaganda. It's really very simple. If species didn't evolve into other species, there would be no need for intermediate species. We would never be able to predict the existence of intermediate species. Yet, in fact, we DO predict intermediate species and even with the limitations of the fossil record, our predictions come true over and over. THEREFORE, macroevolution from one species to another happens. Tee - I would ask you to read the work of a Pentecostal preacher named Robert Bakker. He knows more about faith than you, given his vocation and his age. He is also a paleontologist, and he predicted (based on evolutionary theory) that we would find fossils of feathered dinosaurs. Several years later, we found exactly what he predicted. Just because you really believe something doesn't make it true. You can only learn by studying the facts of something - you can't learn from believing harder. There is no alternative to Evolutionary Theory that fits the evidence. Period. The progression of species that we find in the fossil record in incompatible with every single creation myth I've ever heard. So evolution is the only game in town. As for the comment on Leakey's fossils - you're right, we don't know the exact lineage of modern humans. The fossil record is very sparse. And yet, this doesn't for one second mean that evolution happened for every other creature but modern man sprung up out of the mud through divine creation. That's absurd. Evolution denial is just another form of reality denial. Evolution denial = Holocaust denial = lunar landing denial = round Earth denial. And finally, noonehome2day: Yes, you keep explaining this, and you are always wrong. Evolution CAN be proven. Genetic mutation and natural selection CAN be demonstrated and repeated. Science is NOT limited to what can be recreated in a lab, otherwise you're saying geology is not a science, nor is astronomy, nor many others. Are you saying that? Darwin did NOT start evolutionary theory, nor did it end with him. The Darwin-hangup is a creationist construct to make evolution look like a religion. Darwin didn't deal with genetics at all! His contribution to evolutionary theory was the guiding hand of natural selection, which has been proven over and over. And your "information" argument is FALSE. There is no "law of conservation of information"! That's an idea cooked up by a creationist! You're studying ALL of your science on creationist websites. You know very well that the first life forms were NOT comparable to modern single-cell organisms. You jump to Nebraska man and Piltdown Man as examples of science in action. Very good. Remember, it was SCIENTIST not creationists that uncovered those frauds or mistakes. Science is actually SEEKING truth, not denying it like you. And the fossil record does NOT show species suddenly appearing. You have GOT to get some new material. Did you know the fossils we now have indicate the Cambrian "explosion" took over 100 million years? Now call me crazy, but that sounds like a little longer than 6 days. This is a fact. Common ancestry is true - there is no evidence to the contrary and millions of data points that support it. Life evolves - there is no evidence to the contrary. Please stop spouting creationist propaganda like it is science.

andymanec · Answer

Others have addressed the quotes themselves very well (like Secretsauce and Voren).  I'd just like to add that the fossil record isn't the only evidence backing up evolution theory.  It's also supported by a huge amount of genetic data (sequence homology, endogenous retroviruses, etc) that lines up nicely next to the fossil evidence that we do have.

23chromosomes · Answer

One of your quotes up there suggest that there are as many fossils on earth as there are flavors of ben and jerry's ice cream and then some, but that simply is not the case. Fossils can easily be mistaken for rocks. And the truth of the matter is, fossils are actualy a rarity in paleontology/archaeology/anthropology/biology. It takes very special circumstances for a fossil to be made. The only reason why the famous A. Apithecine "Lucy" was so well preserved was because she was found near an area that was flooded as soon as she died. Most organisms rot for a while before anything happens to them. The key to fossils is ultimate preservation. That's why you just don't find random bodies hanging around Egypt, and only the most carefully preserved mummies are found. Most fossil we find are actually just teeth and parts of the cranium and legs. You can tell alot from that, but it's not enough to propose "missing links" perse. Truth is, since the dawn of searching for our ancestors, which was around ONLY 1800, we have found up to 20 "forms" of our ancestor, ranging from VERY ape-like (Famous skeleton Tomai) to VERY humanlike (Neanderthals).

Anonymous · Answer

You quote a lot of things about abrupt transitions rather than gradual change. It's called punctuated equilibrium and your quotes that confuse this theory are over thirty years old (punctuated equilibrium was first discussed at Harvard in the 1970s).

Also, we are not descended from apes.  We just share a recent common ancestor.

Lucas C · Answer

Dr. Gary Parker is a big fat liar.  He claims to be a biologist but he either doesn't understand or intentionally misrepresents many ideas that are central to biology.  Trust his word at your own peril.

EDIT:  What you essentially want everybody to do is demonstrate the evidence that supports evolution.  You're asking us to write volumes that have already been written.  If you don't find them convincing, then you're simply wasting your time here.

Whatsup · Answer

Ask yourself one question. Are humans exactly the same as they were in the beginning? There are many different races, all of which originated from Adam and Eve, according to the Bible.

There are two possible explanations:

The Tower of Babel caused everyone on earth to suddenly change color.

Evolution caused the change in skin pigment (people living further from the equator developed lighter skin to absorb the lower levels of sunlight for vitamin D). 

We dont need to study fossils to witness evolution, we only need to look around us.

? · Answer

So many holes, that boat sunk long ago.

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Are there any "holes" in the Theory of Evolution?

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