In the course of a single comment about my exchange with Nick Matzke, Elsberry has solved an enigma that has puzzled Darwinists all the way back to Darwin himself. In Origin of Species Darwin admitted that the fossil record did not support his theory. He wrote:
But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed, 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 serious objection which can be urged against my theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record.
Darwin thought after further exploration the fossil record would ultimately show the “finely graduated organic chain” his theory predicted. 154 years later – up until Elsberry’s dramatic find on this very day – paleontoligists have been completely stymied in their efforts to find that chain.
In a stunning development Elsberry comes along at antievolution.org and writes:
Arrington bases his intransigence on a very specific claim of his
“Change in the manner Darwin expected is just not found in the fossil record.”
Set aside for the moment that this quotation is not of me but of famous Darwinists Niles Eldredge and Ian Tattersall.
Darwin’s prediction of rampant, albeit gradual, change affecting all lineages through time is refuted. The record is there, and the record speaks for tremendous anatomical conservatism. Change in the manner Darwin expected is just not found in the fossil record.
Niles Eldredge and Ian Tattersall, The Myths of Human Evolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), 45-46.
The fact that Elsberry think’s he is refuting my claim when he is really refuting the claim of two world-famous Darwinists is a detail, a mere quibble, hardly worth mentioning compared to Elsberry’s gigantic, epic, groundbreaking, enormously important find.
Elsberry continues.
I think it is possible to show that the expectation Darwin had for finding transitional fossils comports well with the actual situation. In fact, I have shown that.
Elsberry links to this article to go where he has “shown that.”
There you have it folks! I will go and check that link while you call your travel agents and book your tickets to Stockholm. Be right back . . .
OK, I’m back. You might want to cancel those tickets.
In the article he links Elsberry says that we don’t need no steenkin’ “finely graduated organic chain.” No sir. Three transitional fossils out of 250,000 are good enough for him.
Well, as Roseanne Roseannadanna used to say, never mind.