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From: lab@qubix.UUCP (Larry Bickford)
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Quote from a contributor to science
Message-ID: <792@qubix.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 27-Jan-84 02:27:02 EST
Article-I.D.: qubix.792
Posted: Fri Jan 27 02:27:02 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 24-Jan-84 01:21:09 EST
Organization: Qubix Graphic Systems, Saratoga, CA
Lines: 49

As a not-so-aside, permit me to quote from a widely-known author. I will
delay publishing the author and sources for the quote, just to see the
feedback and ideas on who wrote it:
	[Source 1]
	"The fossil record with its abrupt transitions offers no support
	for gradual change..."
	"All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains
	precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions
	between major groups are characteristically abrupt."

	"...Of what possible use are the imperfect incipient stages of
	useful structures? What good is half a jaw or half a wing?"

	"...Few systems are more resistant to basic change that the
	strongly differentiated, highly specified, complex adults of
	'higher' animal groups. How could we ever convert a rhinoceros
	or a mosquito into something fundamentally different. [*]"

	[Source 2, time frame near source 1]
	"The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record
	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 fossil."

	"The history of most fossil species includes two features
	inconsistent with gradualism: 1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no
	directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in
	the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear;
	morphological change is usually limited and directionless. 2.
	Sudden Appearance. In any local area, a species does not
	arise gradually arise by the steady transformation of its
	ancestors; it appears all at once and 'fully formed.'"

	[Source 3, again near time-frame as above]
	"The three-leveled, five-kingdom system may appear, at first
	glance, to record an inevitable progress in the history of life
	that I have opposed in these columns. Increasing diversity and
	multiple transition seem to reflect a determined and inexorable
	progression toward higher things. But the paleontological record
	supports no such interpretation. There has been no steady
	progress in the higher development of organic design. We have
	had, instead, vast stretches of little or no change and one [*]
	that created the whole system."

The [*] is material I edited out, but will include when I publish the
author and source. You are also free to guess on these.

Larry Bickford, {sun,amd70,decwrl,ittvax}!qubix!lab