s noted in theIntroduction, our intent was to continue to add toour collection of quote mines. This is the second suchaddition and it primarily concerns one of, if notthe, most fertile areas for quote mining bycreationists: Punctuated Equilibria. If you have neverheard of Punctuated Equilibria, it is a theory (or, morecorrectly, a related group of theories) first advanced byNiles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould that primarilyconcerns the mechanisms, frequency and rate of speciationevents, especially as they are reflected in the fossilrecord. In Gould's words, the theory of PunctuatedEquilibria calls for a "jerky, or episodic, rather than asmoothly gradual, pace of change" in evolution. There is,of course, much more to it than that and the theory hasbeen and continues to be controversial (at least in somerespects) within the scientific community. For anyone whowishes to know more about Punctuated Equilibria, anexcellent place to start is:Punctuated Equilibria byWesley R. Elsberry.

Almost all quote mines of Eldredge and Gould involve oneaspect of Punctuated Equilibria or another. However, givensuch accomplished writers, who have (particularly inGould's case thanks to his long-running monthly column inNatural History) written on many and diverse topics,there is ample opportunity, even if rarely taken, for quotemining them on other subjects. For simplicity's sake incontinuing to add to the Quote Mine Project, any futurequote mines of Eldredge and Gould will be added to thissection, whether or not they deal directly with PunctuatedEquilibria. The same is true of the list of quote minesfrom the original Project given below. Some of the quotesby Eldredge and Gould there (though relatively few) maydeal with subjects other than Punctuated Equilibria. Thequotes taken from others, however, are all related in someway to Punctuated Equilibria. It is a subject of suchgreat, if distorted, fascination to creationists (about 40%of the original Project's quotes involved PunctuatedEquilibria) that it is unlikely that any quotes of Eldredgeand Gould from outside that particular area will constitutea major distraction.

Since these quotes are not from a single source, as wasthe case in the original Quote Mine Project, there are somedifferences in how they are organized. Before each quotethere appears in brackets a brief description of theEditor's impression of the proposition that the quotes arecited for by creationists. That is followed by at least onelink to a creationist site using the quote mine. Naturally,these descriptions cannot be exhaustive and are only asaccurate as any impression. By all means, you areencouraged to check for yourself as to creationist usage ofthe quotes. The easiest way to do so is to go to theGoogle Advanced Search page and, in the "Findresults" box designated "with the exact phrase," enter ashort, but distinctive, phrase from the quote mine andclick on the "Search" button. Of course, if you are hereresearching a particular use of a quote, you will alreadyhave an idea of how it is being used.

The numbering of the quotes is different as well. Whilethe original set of quote mines was numbered simply 1 - 86,these are numbered 3.1, 3.2, . . . etc.

Finally, as noted, there are links at the bottom of thepage to responses in the original Quote Mine Projectconcerning other quotes of Niles Eldredge and Stephen JayGould or that concern Punctuated Equilibria in general.

Quote #3.1

[Transitional forms do not exist and the evidence fitscreation better than evolution]

"This notion of species as 'natural kinds' fitssplendidly with creationist tenets of a pre-Darwinian age.Louis Agassiz, even argued that species are God'sindividual thoughts, made incarnate so that we mightperceive both His majesty and His message. Species, Agassizwrote, are "instituted by Divine Intelligence as thecategories of His mode of thinking. But how could adivision of the organic world into discrete entities bejustified by an evolutionary theory that proclaimedceaseless change as the fundamental fact of nature?" -(Stephen Jay Gould, Professor of Geology and Paleontology,Harvard University), 'A quahog is a quahog',NaturalHistory vol LXXXVIII(7), August-September, 1979, pg.18)

Representative quote miners:The Evolution of a Creationist: Ch. 4, "Missing Links" AreMissing,Stephen E. Jones: Creation/Evolution Quotes: Creation #2:Evidence, andEvolution Is Dead: Divisions In The Organic World

[Editor's note: A more accessible citation for thisarticle is: Gould, Stephen Jay 1980. "A Quahog is aQuahog",The Panda's Thumb.New York: W.W. Norton & Co., pp. 204-13.]

This one is interesting because the dishonesty of thequote mine was exposed at least as far back as 1984 in anarticle, "Scientific Creationism: The Art of Distortion" byLaurie R. Godfrey that appeared inScience andCreationism (Ashley Montagu, ed. 1984. New York: OxfordUniversity Press, pp. 167-81). That was, in turn, arevision of an earlier article, "The Flood ofAntievolution" that had appeared inNatural History,vol. 90, no. 6, pp. 4-10. Specifically, Godfrey addressedthe use of this quote (along with David Raup's widely mined"120 years after Darwin" quote) by creationist Gary Parkerin"Creation,Selection, and Variation," that appeared in theInstitute for Creation Research's newsletter,Acts& Facts in 1980 and which is stillavailable.

To better understand Gould's intent, here are the firsttwo paragraphs of the article:

Thomas Henry Huxley once defined science as "organizedcommon sense." Other contemporaries, including the greatgeologist Charles Lyell, urged an opposing view -- science,they said, must probe behind appearance, often to combatthe "obvious" interpretation of phenomena.

I cannot offer any general rules for the resolution ofconflicts between common sense and the dictates of afavored theory. Each camp has won its battles and receivedits lumps. But I do want to tell a story of common sensetriumphant -- an interesting story because the theory thatseemed to oppose ordinary observation is also correct, forit is the theory of evolution itself. The error thatbrought evolution into conflict with common sense lies in afalse implication commonly drawn from evolutionary theory,not with the theory itself.

Thus, Gould made it plain from the outset that he wasdiscussing something that he does not see as a difficultyin either the theory of evolution or the evidence for it.Immediately after this opening comes the section the quoteis mined from:

Common sense dictates that the world of familiar,macroscopic organisms presents itself to us in "packages"called species, All bird watchers and butterfly nettersknow that they can divide the specimens of any local areainto discrete units blessed with those Latin binomials thatbefuddle the uninitiated. ...

This notion of species as "naturalkinds" fit splendidly with creationist tenets of apre-Darwinian age. Louis Agassiz even argued that speciesare God's individual thoughts, made incarnate so that wemight perceive both His majesty and His message. Species,Agassiz wrote, are "instituted by the Divine Intelligenceas the categories of his mode of thinking."

But how could a division of theorganic world into discrete entities be justified by anevolutionary theory that proclaimed ceaseless change as thefundamental fact of nature? Both Darwin and Lamarckstruggled with this question and did not resolve it totheir satisfaction. Both denied to the species any statusas a natural kind.

Darwin lamented: "We shall have to treat species as ...merely artificial combinations made for convenience. Thismay not be a cheering prospect; but we shall at least befreed from the vain search for the undiscovered andundiscoverable essence of the term species." Lamarckcomplained: "In vain do naturalists consume their time indescribing new species, in seizing upon every nuance andslight peculiarity to enlarge the immense list of describedspecies.''

Gould then discusses two traditional responses to thisseeming dilemma: 1) that the "world of ceaseless fluxalters so slowly that configurations of the moment may betreated as static" (i.e. that evolutionary change, thoughconstant, is so slow that speciesappear to beseparate and distinct to ephemeral creatures as ourselves);or 2) to deny (as J.B.S. Haldane did) the reality ofspecies in any context. To these arguments, Gouldreplies:

Yet common sense continues to proclaim that, with fewexceptions, species can be clearly identified in localareas of our modern world. Most biologists, although theymay deny the reality of species through geologic time, doaffirm their status for the modern moment. As Ernst Mayr,our leading student of species and speciation, writes:"Species are the product of evolution and not of the humanmind." Mayr argues that species are "real" units in natureas a result both of their history and the currentinteraction among their members.

It is clear from this that Gould is not saying, as thecreationists would have it, that creationism betterexplains the evidence. While the "common sense" notion thatspecies are real "natural kinds" is well suited tocreationism, there are at leastthree possibleresolutions of the apparent (but not substantial)difficulty with evolutionary theory that ariseswhen itis viewed as requiring constant change. Gould declareshimself to be "a partisan of Mayr's view" and proceeds tospend the next five-plus pages discussing non-Western folktaxonomies in support of that position.

When Gould returns to the issue, he states:

But are these Linnaean species, recognized byindependent cultures, merely temporary configurations ofthe moment, mere way stations on evolutionary lineages incontinual flux? I argue ... that, contrary to popularbelief, evolution does not work this way, and that specieshave a "reality" through time to match their distinctnessat a moment. An average species of fossil invertebrateslives five to ten million years (terrestrial vertebrateshave shorter average durations). During this time, theyrarely change in any fundamental way. They become extinct,without issue, looking much as they did when they firstappeared. ...

Species are stable entities with very brief periods offuzziness at their origin (although not at their demisebecause most species disappear cleanly without changinginto anything else). As Edmund Burke said in anothercontext: "Though no man can draw a stroke between theconfines of day and night, yet light and darkness are uponthe whole tolerably distinguishable."

In short, this is nothing more than Gould expounding onthe implications of Punctuated Equilibria for what weshould expect to see in the fossil record. To Gould, Mayr'sview has the advantage of corresponding with the "commonsense" view as to the reality of species, at least after aninitial period of fuzziness, while speciation is underway.Of course, creationists are free to quibble with any or allof those resolutions to the issue,as long as theypresent them fairly. But to use Gould's words, intendedmerely to set up anapparent dilemma as anintroduction to his discourse about the evidence for aparticular solution (out of several possibilities)without mentioning those solutions or even their existence,is quote mining at its worst.

Gould closed his article with:

Evolution is a theory of organic change, but it does notimply, as many people assume, that ceaseless flux is theirreducible state of nature and that structure is but atemporary incarnation of the moment. Change is more often arapid transition between stable states than a continuoustransformation at slow and steady rates. We live in a worldof structure and legitimate distinction. Species are theunits of nature's morphology.

All this and more was noted by Godfrey in her article20 years ago:

Gould's article is also about problems with Darwiniangradualism. It takes to task those biologists andanthropologists who argue that species boundaries areartifacts of the human capacity to classify, and constructartificial divisions. Gould argues, as Ernst Mayr did yearsbefore, that species are real biological entities, but hedoes not suggest that they are genealogically unrelated toone another or that they cannot give rise to newspecies.

Gould and his colleagues are widely cited bycreationists in their effort to establish that the fossilrecord documents "no transitions." To creationists this istaken to mean that there are no evolutionary links between"created kinds." But Gould, Eldredge and Stanley aretalking about the failure of the fossil record to documentfine-scale transitions between pairs of species, and itsdramatic documentation of rapid evolutionary burstsinvolving multiple speciation events -- so-called adaptiveradiations. They are not talking about any failure of thefossil record to document the existence of intermediateforms (to the contrary, there are so many intermediates formany well-preserved taxa that it is notoriously difficultto identify true ancestors even when the fossil record isvery complete). Nor are Gould, Eldredge, and Stanleytalking about any failure of the fossil record to documentlarge-scale trends, whichdo exist, however jerkythey may be. Furthermore, fine-scale transitions arenot absent from the fossil record but are merelyunderrepresented. Eldredge, Gould. and Stanley reason thatthis is the unsurprising consequence of known mechanisms ofspeciation. Additionally, certain ecological conditions mayfavor speciation and rapid evolution, so new taxa mayappear abruptly in the fossil record in association withadaptive radiation. Since creationists acknowledge thatfine-scale transitions (including those resulting inreproductive isolation) exist and since the fossil recordclearly documents large-scale "transitions," it would seemthat the creationists have no case. Indeed. they do not.Their case is an artifact of misrepresentation to the laypublic of exactlywhat the fossil record fails todocument.

All of this points to the shallowness of creationist useof quotes. In scholarly work, the use of quotations isintended to show an understanding of the relevantliterature and is, in effect, a representation on the partof the person using the quote that she or he is intimatelyfamiliar with the author's work and positions. Not only arethe people using this quote unfamiliar with the article itcame from or Gould's work in general, they are evenunfamiliar with the literature on the creationism/evolutionconflict. Either that . . . or they are just beingdishonest.

- John (catshark) Pieret

Quote #3.2

[The lack of transitional fossils represent realgaps]

"The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossilrecord persist as the trade secret of paleontology. Theevolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data onlyat the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest isinference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils….We fancy ourselves as the only true students oflife's history, yet to preserve our favored account ofevolution by natural selection we view our data as so badthat we never see the very process we profess to study." -Stephen J. Gould - "Evolution's Erratic Pace,"NaturalHistory, vol. 86 (May 1987), p. 14.

Representative quote miner:Answers in Genesis: Hopeful monsters revisited,The Revolution AgainstEvolution: Transition Fossils?, andTheUnOfficial Confessing Movement: eVOLUTION–"nO dEBATEaLLOWED" (sic)

A more correct and complete citation is:

Gould, S. J. 1977. "Evolution's Erratic Pace" inNatural History 86(5):12-16.

This is thesame article as:

Gould, S. J. 1980. "The Episodic Nature of EvolutionaryChange" inThe Panda's Thumb, pp. 179-185. New York:W. W. Norton & Company.

It shouldn't surprise those familiar with Gould's booksthat an article for the magazineNatural History would showup in one of his essay collections, but it is surprisingthat it has a different title and that there are somedifferences in the body of the article. And so, it's nowobvious why the last sentence in the above is also inQuote #14of the originalQuote MineProject. They both refer to the same article, and infact appear in the same pages in "The Panda's Thumb" (pp.181-182). John Wilkins certainly did more than an adequatejob of clarifying Gould's beliefs in that entry, but aslightly different claim is being made here, so I'll dowhat I can.

A more complete quote would be as follows (words insquare brackets ([]) appear in the "Panda's Thumb" essay,and not in the original):

The extreme rarity of transitionalforms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret ofpaleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn ourtextbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of theirbranches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, notthe evidence of fossils. Yet Darwin was so wedded togradualism that he wagered his entire theory on a denial ofthis literal record:

The geological record is extremely imperfect and thisfact will to a large extent explain why we do not findinterminable varieties, connecting together all the extinctand existing forms of life by the finest graduated steps.He who rejects these views on the nature of the geologicalrecord, will rightly reject my whole theory.

Darwin's argument still persists as the favored escapeof most paleontologists from the embarrassment of a recordthat seems to show so little of evolution [directly]. Inexposing its cultural and methodological roots, I wish inno way to impugn the potential validity of gradualism (forall general views have similar roots). I only wish to pointout that it is never "seen" in the rocks.

Paleontologists have paid an exorbitant price forDarwin's argument.We fancy ourselvesas the only true students of life's history, yet topreserve our favored account of evolution by naturalselection we view our data as so bad that we never see thevery process we profess to study.

For several years, Niles Eldredge of the American Museumof Natural History and I have been advocating a resolutionto this uncomfortable paradox. We believe that Huxley wasright in his warning [1]. The modern theory of evolutiondoes not require gradual change. In fact, the operation ofDarwinian processes should yield exactly what we see in thefossil record. [It is gradualism we should reject, notDarwinism.]

[1]Referring to Huxley's warning to Darwin,literally on the eve of the publication ofOrigin of Species, that "[y]ouhave loaded yourself with an unnecessary difficulty inadoptingNatura non facitsaltum [nature does not make leaps] sounreservedly." - Ed.

So it would seem that Gould has no problems with thefossil record. But did he believe that transitional formsare lacking? Note that in the quote originally presented,the claim is made that they are rare, not absent. Also, asanyone who is familiar with Gould's writings will know, thetext quoted reflects his recognition that, while there is ascarcity of transitional fossils between species, there isno such lack of transitional fossils between majorgroups.

- Jon (Augray) Barber

Yet once again, this is Gould discussing "PunctuatedEquilibria." It is best, perhaps, simply to allow Gouldto defend himself, as he did in his article"Evolution as Factand Theory", originally published in1981:

[T]ransitions are often found in the fossil record.Preserved transitions are not common -- and should not be,according to our understanding of evolution (see nextsection) but they are not entirely wanting, as creationistsoften claim. [He then discusses two examples: therapsidintermediaries between reptiles and mammals, and thehalf-dozen human species - found as of 1981 - that appearin an unbroken temporal sequence of progressively moremodern features.]

Faced with these facts of evolution and thephilosophical bankruptcy of their own position,creationists rely upon distortion and innuendo to buttresstheir rhetorical claim. If I sound sharp or bitter, indeedI am -- for I have become a major target of thesepractices.

I count myself among the evolutionists who argue for ajerky, or episodic, rather than a smoothly gradual, pace ofchange. In 1972 my colleague Niles Eldredge and I developedthe theory of punctuated equilibrium. We argued that twooutstanding facts of the fossil record -- geologically"sudden" origin of new species and failure to changethereafter (stasis) -- reflect the predictions ofevolutionary theory, not the imperfections of the fossilrecord. In most theories, small isolated populations arethe source of new species, and the process of speciationtakes thousands or tens of thousands of years. This amountof time, so long when measured against our lives, is ageological microsecond . . .

Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explaintrends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again bycreationists -- whether through design or stupidity, I donot know -- as admitting that the fossil record includes notransitional forms. Transitional forms are generallylacking at the species level, but they are abundant betweenlarger groups.

- Gould, Stephen Jay 1983."Evolution as Fact and Theory" inHens Teeth andHorse's Toes: Further Reflections in NaturalHistory. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., p.258-260.

Gould, in this article and many more over the nexttwenty years, consistently and extensively explained hisposition and the evidence for evolution,includingtransitional forms found in the fossil record. The constantabuse of the body of Gould's life's work in the face ofthis is not merely dishonest, it is despicable.

- John (catshark) Pieret

Quote #3.3

[Archaeopteryx is not a transitional fossil]

"Smooth intermediates between Bauplane [body plans] arealmost impossible to construct, even in thoughtexperiments: there is certainly no evidence for them in thefossil record (curious mosaics likeArchaeopteryx do notcount)" - Gould, S.J. and N. Eldredge. "Punctuatedequilibria: the tempo and mode of evolution reconsidered."Paleobiology, 3 (1977): 115-151. (p. 147)

Representative quote miners:The RevolutionAgainst Evolution: Archaeopteryx is No TransitionalForm andReason & Revelation: Archaeopteryx, Archaeoraptor, andthe "Dinosaurs-to-Birds" Theory

A more complete quote:

At the higher level of evolutionary transition betweenbasic morphological designs, gradualism has always been introuble, though it remains the "official" position of mostWestern evolutionists.Smoothintermediates betweenBaupläne are almostimpossible to construct, even in thought experiments; thereis certainly no evidence for them in the fossil record(curious mosaics likeArchaeopteryx do notcount).

It's now obvious that Gould and Eldredge weren't arguingagainstArchaeopteryx being a transitional form, butarguing that it wasn't an example of a perfectly smoothchange between body plans (or "Baupläne"). Forinstance, the wing ofArchaeopteryx was in essencethe forelimb of a dinosaur covered with feathers. This iswhat Gould and Eldredge meant by the term "mosaic": acreature that is a mixture of both primitive and advancedfeatures. But mosaic forms are exactly what we shouldexpect from evolutionary transitions, since there's noreason to expect every part of the body to evolve at thesame rate or at the same time. Evolution has no destinationin mind, just as the Wright Brothers didn't envision modernjet fighters when they flew at Kitty Hawk.

But did Gould believe thatArchaeopteryx was atransitional form? He did indeed, as can be seen in hisarticle "The Tell-tale Wishbone" (Gould 1980). Any claim tothe contrary would be a misrepresentation.

REFERENCES

Gould, S. J. 1980. "The Tell-tale Wishbone" inThePanda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History,pp 267-277. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.(Originally published in the November, 1977 edition ofNatural History)

Gould, S. J., & Eldredge, N. 1977. "Punctuatedequilibria: the tempo and mode of evolution reconsidered."Paleobiology 3:115-151.

- Jon (Augray) Barber and John Harshman

[Editor's note: For afurther discussionof thisquote mine, see:Archaeopteryx:Answering the Challenge of the Fossil Record byChris Nedin.]

Gould explains what scientists generally mean by "mosaic evolution" in hisarticle: Gould, Stephen Jay 1977. "Bushes and Ladders in Human Evolution" inEver Since Darwin. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, pp. 56-62.

After explaining the difference between the progressive "ladder" metaphor forevolution, a "Great Chain of Being" inspired notion of a single line of"progress" from simple to complex, and the "bush" metaphor, where any number ofrelated lineages may exist at the same time, many of which were "side-branches"(in the sense that they became extinct) in the history of extant species(see the response toQuote #3.7 for more on this topic.),he then goes on to define "mosaic evolution":

Ironically, the metaphor of the ladder first denied a role inhuman evolution to the African australopithecines.A. africanus walked fullyerect, but had a brain less than one-third the size of ours (see essay22*). When it was discovered in the 1920s, manyevolutionists believed that all traits should change in concert within evolvinglineages the doctrine of the "harmonious transformation of the type." An erect,but small-brained ape could only represent an anomalous side branch destined forearly extinction (the true intermediate, I assume, would have been a semierect,half-brained brute). But, as modern evolutionary theory developed during the1930s, this objection toAustralopithecus disappeared. Natural selectioncan work independently upon adaptive traits in evolutionary sequences, changingthem at different times and rates. Frequently, a suite of characters undergoesa complete transformation before other characters change at all.Paleontologists refer to this potential independence of traits as "mosaicevolution." (p. 58)

- John (catshark) Pieret

* Gould, Stephen Jay 1977. "Sizing UpHuman Intelligence" inEver Since Darwin. New York: W.W. Norton& Company, pp. 179-85 - Ed.

Quote #3.4

[Evolution of the horse has no foundation in the fossilrecord]

"The popularly told example of horse evolution,suggesting a gradual sequence of changes from four-toed, orfox-like creatures, living nearly 50 million years ago, totoday's much larger one-toe horse, has long been known tobe wrong. Instead of gradual change, fossils of eachintermediate species appear fully distinct, persistunchanged, and then become extinct. Transitional forms areunknown." "Ideas on evolution Going Through a Revolutionamong Scientists," - Boyce Rensberger:Houston Chronicle, 5Nov. 1980, sec. 4, p. 15.

Representative quote miners:Darwinism Refuted: The Myth of Horse Evolution andDarwinism Watch: The Old Tale Of The Horse’sEvolution

The article is about a four-day meeting at the FieldMuseum of Natural History in Chicago attended, so thearticle says, by 150 scientists and a very few observers.The mechanisms of evolution were discussed at the meeting,but the article focuses on Punctuated Equilibria.

The following paragraph appears near the beginning ofthis article:

Recent discoveries have only strengthened Darwin'sepochal conclusion that all forms of life evolved from acommon ancestor. Genetic analysis, for example, has shownthat every organism is governed by the same genetic codecontrolling the same biochemical processes.

The author goes on to note: "Exactly how evolutionhappened is now a matter of great controversy amongbiologists ... [and a discussion of the meeting], followedby:

No clear resolution of the controversies was in sight.This fact has often been exploited by religiousfundamentalists who misunderstood it to suggest weakness inthe fact of evolution rather than the perceived mechanism.Actually, it reflects significant progress toward a muchdeeper understanding of the history of life on Earth.

This is a rather serious omission, I think, from thecontext of the quote in question.

The article goes on to describe gradualism then seguesto Eldredge's comments. It states, in regard to Gould andEldredge's ideas, that:

As they see it, species remain largely stable for longperiods and then suddenly change dramatically. Thetransition happens so fast, they [Gould and Eldredge]suggest, that the chance of intermediate forms beingfossilized and found is nil.

Then comes the horse evolution paragraph. There are acouple of immaterial typos in the quote originallysupplied. The following is what appears in the article:

The popularly told example of horseevolution, suggesting a gradual sequence of changes fromfour-toed, fox-like creatures, living nearly 50 millionyears ago to today's much larger one-toe horse, has longbeen known to be wrong. Instead of gradual change, fossilsof each intermediate species appear fully distinct, persistunchanged, and then become extinct. Transitional forms areunknown.

It's a strange paragraph, in that it interrupts the flowof the article. The following paragraph reads:

Eldredge and Gould represent a school of thought called'punctuated equilibrium,' and although many paleontologistsare adherents, many evolutionists from other backgroundsstill consider themselves gradualists closer to theDarwinian mold.

The article proceeds to discuss Thomas Schopf's viewthat what appears to be stasis is not really stasis, forexample, because soft parts are not preserved infossilization. The article closes by stating thatpopulation geneticists also dispute PunctuatedEquilibria.

- Sarah Berel-Harrop

An article by the same writer appeared the previous dayin theNew York Times entitled "Recent Studies SparkRevolution in Interpretation of Evolution" (page C3).However, this quote isn't in it. But it does include theparagraph that appears in theHouston Chroniclearticle:

Recent discoveries have only strengthened Darwin'sepochal conclusion that all forms of life evolved from acommon ancestor. Genetic analysis, for example, has shownthat every organism is governed by the same genetic codecontrolling the same biochemical processes.

- Jon (Augray) Barber

[Editor's note: Perhaps it is significant that theparagraph about the horse sequence, which does not appearat all in theNew York Times article, appears to be "stuckin" out-of-place in theHouston Chronicle article. If itsinclusion was an editorial decision, rather than thereporter's, the question arises just how objectively thequote itself was presented and whether the editing was fairand represented a complete thought on Boyce Rensberger'spart.]

The quote appears to be more an explanation for thegeneral public that the "horse sequence", did not representan orderly "ladder" running from "primitive" forms tomodern Equus, as was originally thought as far back asDarwin's time, but, instead, is a particularly prolific"bush" with many branches that all went extinct, except forEquus. As Kathleen Hunt points out in her article"Horse Evolution"in the Archives.

As new fossils were discovered, though, it became clearthat the old model of horse evolution was a seriousoversimplification. The ancestors of the modern horse wereroughly what that series showed, and were clear evidencethat evolution had occurred. But it was misleading toportray horse evolution in that smooth straight line, fortwo reasons:

1. First, horse evolutiondidn't proceed in astraight line. We now know of many other branches of horseevolution. Our familiarEquus is merely one twig ona once-flourishing bush of equine species. We only have theillusion of straight-line evolution becauseEquus isthe only twig that survived. (See Gould's essay "Life'sLittle Joke" inBully for Brontosaurus formore on this topic.)
2. Second, horse evolution was not smooth and gradual.Different traits evolved at different rates, didn't alwaysevolve together, and occasionally reversed "direction".Also, horse species did not always come into being bygradual transformation ("anagenesis") of their ancestors;instead, sometimes new species "split off" from ancestors("cladogenesis") and then co-existed with those ancestorsfor some time. Some species arose gradually, otherssuddenly.

Overall, the horse family demonstrates the diversity ofevolutionary mechanisms, and it would be misleading -- andwould be a real pity -- to reduce it to an oversimplifiedstraight-line diagram.

Finally, it is a sign of the creationists' attitudetoward the issues involved that they would quote ajournalist from an article in the popular press on aquestion of science. As good a journalist as Mr. Rensbergermay be, such an article can give only superficial treatmentto complex issues. Just made to order for their agenda.

- John (catshark) Pieret

Quote #3.5

[There are no fossils showing transitions betweenspecies]

In the fossil record, missing links are the rule: thestory of life is as disjointed as a silent newsreel, inwhich species succeed one another as abruptly as Balkanprime ministers. The more scientists have searched for thetransitional forms between species, the more they have beenfrustrated.... Evidence from fossils now pointsoverwhelmingly away from the classical Darwinism which mostAmericans learned in high school: that new species evolveout of existing ones by the gradual accumulation of smallchanges, each of which helps the organism survive andcompete in the environment - Jerry Adler -Newsweek (1980,96[18]:95).

Representative quote miners:EvolutionCruncher: No Transitions -- Only Gaps andReason & Revelation: 15 Answers to John Rennie andScientific American’s Nonsense

For the complete article, seetalk.origins post 3B44F6F3.E190A40D@crosswinds.net.

The only "surprise" here is that creationists have solittle shame.

Once again, this is an article about the (thenrelatively new) proposal by Stephen Jay Gould and NilesEldredge of Punctuated Equilibria. It was apparently so newto these magazine writers that they (perhaps abetted bysome of Gould's and Eldredge's scientific opponents)confused it with Richard Goldschmidt's "hopeful monsters"ideas, even though they note:

The paleontologists who have been in the forefront ofthe new theory don't necessarily believe in hopefulmonsters. When they say that new species evolved rapidly,they are speaking in geologic terms. A single generation or50,000 years is all the same to them. Either would be tooshort an interval for the intermediate organisms to appearin the fossil record.

In short, the article is nothing more than a report onthe early arguments about Punctuated Equilibria. And thequote mine is just a snippet of the magazine writers' (notvery clear) description of Gould and Eldredge's position,not a quote from any scientist.

In any case, the quote miners strangely fail to includethe following:

While the scientists have been refining the theory ofevolution in the past decade, some nonscientists have beenspreading anew the gospel of creationism -- and thecoincidence has confused many laymen . . . Having opposedDarwin for 120 years, fundamentalists tend to seize on anycriticism of his theories as vindication . . . But the newtheories are intended to explain how evolution came about-- not to supplant it as a principle. Says Harvard'sStephen Jay Gould, . . . "Evolution is a fact, like applesfalling out of trees."

The irony of the miner's use of this article in the faceof the above is obvious and demonstrates more about theminers' honesty than it does anything about evolution.

- J. (catshark) Pieret

Quote #3.6

[The appearance of an evolutionary pattern in the fossilrecord is due to circular reasoning]

"Paleontologists cannot operate this way. There issimply no way simply to look at a fossil and say how old itis unless you know the age of the rocks it comes from. Andthis poses something of a problem: if we date the rocks bytheir fossils, how can we then turn around and talk aboutthe patterns of evolutionary time in the fossil record?" -Niles Eldredge inTime Frames: The Rethinking of DarwinianEvolution and the Theory of Punctuated Equilibria, pp. 51,52, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985)

Representative quote miners:Institutefor Creation Research: The Vanishing Case forEvolution,TucsonSpiritual Quest: Geologic Column, andWatchmanMagazine: Interpreting the Geologic Column

For anexplanationof this quote mine, seeQuotations and Misquotations byMichael Hopkins.

Quote #3.7

[Scientists admit a lack of transitionals in the human 'family tree', sohumans are specially created]

What has become of our ladder if there are three coexisting lineages ofhominids (A. africanus,the robust australopithecines, andH. habilis), none clearly derived fromanother? Moreover, none of the three display any evolutionary trends duringtheir tenure on earth" - (S. J. Gould,Natural History, Vol 85,1976, p. 30)

Representative quote miners:Women Central:Science Articles: The Scientific Collapse of Darwinism part 2,Harun Yahya: Darwinism Refuted: The Collapse of the Family Tree, andEvolution Cruncher: Evolution Encyclopedia Vol. 2: Ancient Man

[Editor's note: This is actually a misquote, though it does not change themeaning much. In the first sentence, the quote miner's "there are..." was"we must recognize..." in the original.]

[Editor's note: A more accessible citation is: Gould, Stephen Jay 1977."Bushes and Ladders in Human Evolution" inEver Since Darwin. New York: W.W. Norton &Company, pp. 56-62.]

Could it possibly come as a surprise to anyone who bothers to read Gould,instead of just quote mining him, that this quote involves PunctuatedEquilibria? In particular, he is discussing one implication as to what weshould expect to see in the fossil record if the theory is correct:

I want to argue that the "sudden" appearance of species in thefossil record and our failure to note subsequent evolutionary change withinthem is the proper prediction of evolutionary theory as we understand it.Evolution usually proceeds by speciation -- the splitting of one lineage froma parental stock -- not by the slow and steady transformation of these largeparental stocks. Repeated episodes of speciation produce a bush. Evolutionary"sequences" are not rungs on a ladder, but our retrospective reconstruction ofa circuitous path running like a labyrinth, branch to branch, from the base ofthe bush to a lineage now surviving at its top. (p. 61)

So the context of the quote is what Gould calls " . . . a fundamental, butlittle appreciated, issue in evolutionary theory -- the conflict between'ladders' and 'bushes' as metaphors for evolutionary change." Well, whatdoes having threespecies of hominidsliving at the same time mean tothe "ladder" metaphor? Let's let Gould explain it (while, at the same time,exposing the basic dishonesty of the quote miners, since this passage followsdirectly after the mined quote and just before the explanation quotedabove):

At this point, I confess, I cringe, knowing full well what all the creationistswho deluge me with letters must be thinking. "So Gould admits that we can traceno evolutionary ladder among early African hominids; species appear and laterdisappear, looking no different from their great-grandfathers. Sounds likespecial creation to me." (Although one might ask why the Lord saw fit to make somany kinds of hominids, and why some of his later productions,H. erectus in particular, look so muchmore human than the earlier models.) I suggest that the fault is not withevolution itself, but with a false picture of its operation that most of ushold -- namely the ladder . . . (pp. 60-61)

Thus, instead of "admitting" that there are no transitional fossils betweenhumans and "apes," Gould is pointing out that there are alot of them,more than we can fit into a simple "ladder" progressing in a straight line frompre-humans to ourselves. Humans are the one surviving twig on what was once amore vigorous hominid bush.

Once again, no one is disputing the right of creationists to disagree withGould's interpretation of this or any other evidence (certainly enoughscientists do). What we are opposed to is the deliberate andpremeditated distortion of what Gould and other scientists meant by the wordsbeing quoted.

- John (catshark) Pieret

Gould is making two arguments, one about Punctuated Equilibria ("sudden"appearance followed by stasis), and the other, more central argument (in thisarticle) about the expected "topography" of evolutionary lineages. He notesthat evolution generally proceeds by cladogenesis (splitting of a lineage intotwo or more descendent lineages) rather than anagenesis (morphological changewithin a single lineage, without splitting). He is critiquing a "Great Chainof Being"- inspired notion of a single line of "progress" from simple tocomplex. The notion (which is common among even some anthropologists) is that"simple" and "primitive" creatures must be directly ancestral to "complex"creatures. In such a misunderstanding, the topography of evolutionary lineageswould contain no "side-branches", but instead would be a straight line.

Such a ladder model is predicated (in its more subtle versions) on theassumption of an extreme form of competitive exclusion that implies that onlyone species of hominid could exist at a time, since all hominid species wouldcompete for the same resources in the same territories. Gould notes thatmultiple species of hominids did indeed coexist (e.g. the "robust" lineage ofAustralopithecus and the "gracile", and laterA. robustus andH. erectus, andH. sapiens andH. neanderthalensis, etc.) soone could not reasonably have been directly ancestral to the other. Severalspecies were contemporaries, so at least one, and probably more than one, are"side branches" that are not on the line of ancestors and descendants that leadto us.

The creationists certainly hope that by ripping the line out of context, theycan emphasise the phrases "none clearly derived from another" and ", none of thethree display any evolutionary trends". It's almost comical that Gould 1) knewthe creationists would try to distort his meaning, 2) called them on it ahead oftime, 3) offered a pretty accurate prediction of the arguments that thecreationists would make, and then 4) went on to explain why that argument waswrong. And yet the creationists went ahead and made the argument anyway,snipping away the context wherein Gould answered their question. I challenge asingle creationist to try to rationalise this behaviour for this particularquote. How is this anything other than knowingly and deliberately lying byomission?

- Floyd

Quote #3.8

[Common origin of humans and apes is speculation not supported by fossilrecord]

The oldest human fossils are less than 4 million years old, and we do not knowwhich branch on the copious bush of apes budded off the twig that led to ourlineage. (In fact, except for the link of AsianSivapithecus to themodern orangutan, we cannot trace any fossil ape to any living species.Paleontologists have abandoned the once popular notion thatRamapithecusmight be a source of human ancestry.) Thus, sediments between 4 and 10 millionyears in age are potential guardians of the Holy Grail of human evolution -- theperiod when our lineage began its separate end run to later domination, and atime for which no fossil evidence exists at all." - (Gould, Stephen Jay,"Empire of the Apes,"Natural History, vol. 96 (May 1987), pp.20-25. )

Representative quote miners:IntelligentDesign.Org: Origin of Man (quotes),Bevets.com: Quotes, andDarwin Is Dead: Human Evolution: Reality Check

[Editor's note: This article can be found in Gould, Stephen Jay, 1993.Eight Little Piggies. New York: W.W. Norton &Co. under the title "Declining Empire of the Apes" p. 284-95, with the quoteappearing on p. 290.]

The main aim of Gould's article is to discuss the concept of asymptoticcurves of recovery. An asymptote is a statistical concept wherein twomeasurements are compared to each other. As one measurement (in this case,duration of investigation) gradually approaches infinity, the other measurement(in this case, number of fossils of a given taxon found each season) declines.

People who are not paleoanthropologists will still understand the concept.Any continuous measurement can produce a "normal" Gaussian curve. Height offersa good, familiar example. We know that there is a minimum height, zeroinches/centimeters, whatever, but an upper boundary of maximum height is lessobvious. There is obviously a "tallest man alive" but there is no clear limitto a "tallest man possible". It could be that the tallest man ever to live isstill slightly shorter than the tallest man who could potentially live. Thuson a normal curve that measures the height of all people who have ever lived,some people will approach, but not quite reach the "tallest possible" limit.Some other people will be close to the "shortest possible" limit. Most peoplewill be somewhere in between, neither tallest, nor shortest.

Those who are closest to the limits (height equals zero and height equalsinfinity) will be shorter/taller than the absolute theoretical possibilities(infinity and none at all, respectively) but a little bit of "slightly more" or"slightly less" will always be available for the record to be broken.

Thinking about such curves of distribution that always approach, but neverquite reach the absolute limits is what inspired Gould in this article. Gouldvery explicitly states in the paragraph that follows the quote:

Richard Leakey almostsurely has many square miles of goodsediment from this crucial time in his field area in West Turkana. But he isnot yet searching these beds. He is concentrating his efforts on older rocks ofthe early Miocene (15 to 20 million years ago) when the bush of apes had itsgreat initial flowering in Africa. He is working before the time of maximalintrigue for several reasons. In part, he may be saving the best for later,perfecting his techniques and "feel" for the region before zeroing in on thepotential prize. He also has the fine intuition and horse sense of any goodhistorian -- it may be best to begin at the beginning and work forward. Butmost importantly, he has a professional's understanding that problems of maximalpublic acclaim are not always the issues of greatest scientific importance."

In other words, Gould suspects, as Leakey does (and as I do), that thedetails that will connect the living hominids (humans) to our closest livingrelatives may be found in the geological strata that he had not yet excavated(Note: excavations of those strata proved him right, as can be seen at"Hominid Species:Kenyanthropus platyops", which is an obvious example of yet anotherprediction about something that might happen in the future made by anevolutionary theorist that was eventually confirmed, and another blow to thosewho claim that evolutionary theory can not and does not make predictions).

Gould's main point in this article was that the closer we get to "complete"knowledge, the fewer pieces of evidence we find. In other words, evidencerecovery forms an asymptotic curve when plotted against time. The implicationis that the closer we get to complete knowledge about any subject, the fewer andfarther between new discoveries should be. Since new discoveries inpaleoanthropology are occurring at a very rapid pace, and since we know where wecan look for more with a good probability of finding them, Gould was arguingthat paleoanthropology has not yet achieved anywhere close to completeknowledge.

In short, in the quote above, Gould was noting that there is much still tolearn, (so those creationists such as Behe who assume we know enough to makeuniversal statements are wrong,) but that we know a little bit about some likelyfruitful areas for future research (so those creationists who claim thatevolutionary theory doesn't make predictions are also wrong). We have a goodunderstanding of what we know, a bit of insight into how much we don't yet know,and a good idea about where to look to answer some of the questions that westill have.

- Floyd

[Editor's note: One item of interest about this article is that Gouldstarts off by reciting (and refuting) the commonly heard nonsensical (but, asGould points out, instructive) question:"If evolution is true, and we did come fromapes, then why are there still apes living?"]

Quote #3.9

[Evidence that humans evolved from apes is scanty, contradictory and open toother interpretations]

[m]ost hominid fossils, even though they serve as a basis for endlessspeculation and elaborate storytelling, are fragments of jaws and scraps ofskulls." - (Gould, S. J.,"The Panda's Thumb",1980, p.126)

Representative quote miners:Access Research Network: "Icons Still Standing" Jonathan Wells Comes Up CleanDespite Harsh Criticism andIntelligent Design and Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Center: Human Origins andIntelligent Design

Yes,most hominid fossils are fragmentary. Indeedmostspecimens of almost any kind of fossil will be fragmentary. In the previoussentence Dr. Gould mentioned the 40% completeLucy which isnot a merefragments, but rather a skeleton. Furthermore in the quarter century sinceGould wrote these words, more skeletons have been found: the 90% completeNariokotome Boy (or Turkana Boy) specimenwas found in 1984. A very complete australopithecine dubbed"Little Foot" is expected to be removedfrom a South African cave by late 2005. One could bring up many other fossils.See Jim Foley's"FossilHominids: The Evidence for Human Evolution"to see some of them. Or, better yet, find a copy ofDonald Johanson's andBlake Edgar'sFrom Lucy to Language (1996. New York : Simon & Schuster)which has many excellent photos.

- Mike Hopkins

[Editor's note: See:"Response to CaseyLuskin" by Nic Tamzek et al. for more on this and related quote mines.]

This article is largely a discussion of the historical primacy of bipedality(two-legged walking, which occurred between 5 and 7 million years ago) overencephalisation (large brains, which developed around two million years ago),but Gould introduces his ideas by discussing a then current debate between theLeakeys and Johanson.Mary Leakeyhad found what were then the oldest knownhominid fossils, a collection of teeth and jaws that dated between 3.35 and 3.75million years ago. Largely on the basis of some of the details of the teeth,she classified these specimens as members of our own genus,Homo. Shortlythereafter, Donald Johanson and Tim White announced the discovery of a number ofroughly contemporaneous fossils (2.9-3.3 million years old) that they namedAustralopithecus afarensis, after the Afar region of Ethiopia, where theywere found. The most famous of Johanson and White's specimens is theskeletonAL-288-1, nicknamed "Lucy". Herfame is based not on her age (older material had already been recovered), but onher completeness. About 40% of her skeleton was recovered, and since mammalsare bilaterally symmetrical (the left side is a mirror image of the right side),we know much more than 40 percent of her anatomy.

Johanson and White believed that "Lucy" and the otherA. afarensis individualsthat they had found in Ethiopia were members of the same species asLeakey's Laetoli (Tanzania) specimens. On the basis of the more completeanatomical knowledge offered by the Ethiopian discoveries, Johanson felt thatthe species (including both the Laetoli and the Afar material) should beclassified as a member of the genusAustralopithecus, rather than thegenusHomo, as Leakey had suggested. Leakey apparently agreed with, or aleast did not reject the idea that the material could all be grouped in a singlespecies, but on the basis of the teeth, which were very human like, felt thatthe species should be assigned to the genusHomo. Johanson and Whiteagree that the teeth of the specimens are human like, but other detailsrecovered in Afar, details that were not available to Leakey in her Laetolimaterial, suggested a more "ape-like" form, and thusAustralopithecuswas a more appropriate name for the material. In other words, in Gould'sarticle, the actual "debate" concerned the best interpretation of the material,and not the details of the material itself.

With that context in mind, the quote is drawn from the following paragraph:

Johanson worked in the Afar region of Ethiopia from 1972 to 1977and unearthed an outstanding series of hominid remains. The Afar specimens are2.9 to 3.3 million years old. Premier among them is the skeleton of anaustralopithicine [sic] named Lucy. She is nearly 40 percent complete -- muchmore than we have ever possessed for any individual from these early days of ourhistory. (Most hominid fossils, even though they serve as a basis for endlessspeculation and elaborate storytelling, are fragments of jaws and scraps ofskulls.)

In other words, the import of the quote, in context, was to highlight theremarkable completeness of the "Lucy" skeleton, which served as the basis ofJohanson and White's preference for naming the material "Australopithecus"rather than "Homo".

Creationists may correctly note that fossil evidence of these very earlyhominids is largely in the form of fragments, and few complete or nearlycomplete articulated skeletons are available. However, this quote, in context,was written to emphasise one of the most well-known exceptions to this generalrule, the "Lucy" skeleton.

- Floyd

Quote #3.10

[Humans existed before, and are unrelated to,"Lucy"]

...'mitochondral (sic) Eve' hypothesis of modern human origins in Africa,suffered a blow in 1993, when the discovery of an important technicalfallacy in the computer program used to generate and assess evolutionarytrees debunked the supposed evidence for an African source ... disprovingthe original claim." - Stephen J. Gould,Natural History, 2/94,p.21

Representative quote miners:The Interactive Bible: Fossil Man: Evolutionist-Converter Quotes,Creation Apologetics: Quotes From Scientists on Evolution[1], andNorthside Church of Christ: Creation Versus Evolution: Fossil Man: No Evidencefor Evolution

[Editor's note: A more accessible cite is: Gould, Stephen Jay, "In theMind of the Beholder" inDinosaur in a Haystack(1995. New York: Harmony Books) p. 101-02.]

This is a very clear case of thoughtless copying of quote mines bycreationists, as the same misspelling of "mitochondrial" is repeated and thequote is led off with the same phrase (with the same capitalization)"Eve KICKED OUT, STEPHEN J. GOULD" in all examples found.

In any case, it is a rather strange quote mine, since it seems to be takingsides in an ongoing scientific debate over the precise origin ofH. sapiens between those who argue forthe "multiregionalist model" versus the adherents of the "out-of-Africa model,"rather than attacking evolutionary theory itself. However, it usually appearsunder a heading, "Man Even 'Before' Lucy", and may be intended to suggest thatthe famous "Lucy" specimen ofAustralopithecus afarensis is not relatedto humans, since it was found in Africa.

On the other hand, it has been suggested that this quote mine may be simplyintended to attack the out-of-Africa model because young-Earth creationistsprefer an origin of humans in the Tigris-Euphrates area of Iraq based on theirreading of where the Garden of Eden was located according to the Bible. Or itmay be intended to disparage the methodology of science in general by playingup an error in interpreting DNA evidence.

If the motive is to cast doubt on the possibility thatAustralopithecusafarensis is a human ancestor, the quote miners are obviouslymisunderstanding the point of the scientific dispute, probably out of ignoranceof the fossil evidence. As Gould says:

Everyone agrees that our immediately ancestral species,Homo erectus, moved out of Africa into Europe and Asia more than amillion years ago (where they became"Java Man" and"Peking Man" of the old textbooks).Multiregionalists argue that Homo sapiens evolved simultaneously fromHomo erectus populations on all three continents . . . [while] the"out of Africa" [proponents] argue thatHomo sapiens arose in one placeas a small population, and then spread throughout the world . . . [and] Europeanand AsianHomo erectus, and the later European Neanderthals as well,played little or no role in our origin, but were replaced by later invaders in asecond and much later wave of human migration.

Australopithecus afarensis existed between 3.9 and 3.0 million yearsago, whileHomo erectus lived between 1.8 million and 300,000 years ago.(See, for example, Jim Foley's FAQ"HominidSpecies".) In short, the argument between the multiregionalists andout-of-Africa adherents has to do with eventslong after Lucy lived anddied and certainly does not lend support to "Man" existing beforeAustralopithecus afarensis. As Gould notes, both sides agree that humanancestors arose in Africa and only disagree where, when and exactly whatpopulation of ourimmediate ancestors becameH. sapiens. Whileit is difficult or impossible to ever know for sure whetherAustralopithecus afarensis is a direct ancestor ofH. sapiens, themultiregional / out-of-Africa debate never was intended to shed any light onthat issue and has no logical or scientific relationship to it.

Given this, there is no need to go into a long explanation of Gould'sarticle. Suffice it to say that Gould was discussing the impact ofPunctuated Equilibria on certain issues and his bemusement at the surpriseexpressed in the popular press about certain results in science. One case hediscusses is this ongoing debate between the multiregionalist model and the"out of Africa model. As he describes his bemusement:

. . . I am intrigued by journalists' representation of thisdebate - particularly in their attribution of surprise to one side andexpectation to the other . . . Newspapers and science magazines invariablypresent multiregionalism as the orthodox or expected view, and out-of-Africa(or any other single place) as the surprising new kid on the block.

This is, according to Gould, a misconception that arises because:

We do not wish to view our global triumph as so fortuitouslydependent upon the contingent history of a small African population; we wouldrather conceive our exalted intellect as so generally advantageous that allpopulations, in all places, must move, in adaptive unison, toward the samedesired goal.

It is in this context that he drops in an aside, a complete paragraph inparentheses:

(The most famous version of the "Noah's ark" theory[2], the poorly named"mitochondrial Eve"hypothesis of modernhuman origins in Africa, suffered a blow in 1993, when discovery of an importanttechnical fallacy in the computer program used to generate and assessevolutionary trees debunked the supposed evidence for an African source.But inso disproving the original claim, correctiononly dictated agnosticism, not a contrary conclusion -- that is, the new treesare consistent with origin in a single place, but Africa cannot be affirmed asthe clearly preferred spot, though Africa remains as plausible as any otherplace by this criterion. Other independent sources of evidence, especially thegreater genetic diversity measured among African peoples, continue, in my view,to favor an African origin -- see Stoneking[3], in the bibliography, for a thorough and fairreview.)

The quote mine almost turns Gould's meaning on its head, making it seem thathe is announcing the demise of the entire out-of-Africa model, when, in fact,the new interpretation of the data leaves human origin in Africa a distinctpossibility. It also completely ignores Gould's mention of other evidence forout-of-Africa that he feels makes it more likely correct than not.

The highly selective nature of the quote mine makes it all but impossible tobelieve that the original miner did this out of mere ignorance ormisunderstanding of Gould's point. Therefore, this is instructive of at leastsome creationist's attitudes toward honesty and the right of everyone not tohave what they say misrepresented. The rest of the users either checked thesource, and therefore are just as guilty as the person they copied it off of,or they are merely too intellectually lazy and irresponsible to be bothered.

- John (catshark) Pieret

[1] This site states that its list ofquotes is "Compiled by: Sean D. Pitman M.D.". Dr. Pitman, a regular poster atthetalk.origins usenet group, informs us thathe isnot associated with thatsite nor has he ever been contacted by those who maintain it for permission touse his name. - Ed.

[2] Gould notes that the "out-of-Africa"model is sometimes called the "Noah's ark" theory (because it proposes "thatH. sapiens arose in one place as a small population, and then spreadthroughout the world", at p. 101).

[3] Stoneking, Mark 1993. DNA and recenthuman evolution.Evolutionary Anthropology 2: 60-73.

Quote #3.11

[Even evolutionists doubt fossil record shows transformation of oneorganism into another]

The known fossil record fails to document a single example of phyleticevolution accomplishing a major morphologic transition. - Steven M. Stanley(Macroevolution: Pattern and Process, 1979 p. 39)

Representative quote miners:Missouri Association for Creation: What Do the Fossils Say?,Institute for Creation Research: The Vanishing Case for Evolution, andBible Believers: The Case for Evolution Has NOT Been Proved!

The quote comes from the start of Chapter 3 (see Point 5):

Some distinctive living species clearly originated in the veryrecent past, during brief instants of geologic time. Thus, quantum speciationis a real phenomenon. Chapters 4 through 6 provide evidence for the greatimportance of quantum speciation in macroevolution (for the validity of thepunctuated model). Less conclusive evidence is as follows: (1) Very weak geneflow among populations of a species (a common phenomenon) argues againstgradualism, because without efficient gene flow, phyletic evolution is stymied.(2) Many levels of spatial heterogeneity normally characterize populations innature, and at some level, the conflict between gene flow between subpopulationsand selection pressure within subpopulations should oppose evolutionarydivergence of large segments of the gene pool; only small populations arelikely to diverge rapidly. (3) Geographic clines, which seem to preserve inmodern space changes that occurred in evolutionary time, can be viewed assupporting the punctuational model, because continuous clines that recordgradual evolution within large populations represent gentle morphologic trends,while stepped clines seem to record rapid divergence of small populations.(4) Net morphologic changes along major phylogenetic pathways generallyrepresent such miniscule [sp] mean selection coefficients that nonepisodicmodes of transition are unlikely. Quantum speciation or stepwise evolutionwithin lineages is implied. (5)The known fossil record fails to document a single exampleof phyletic evolution accomplishing a major morphologic transition and henceoffers no evidence that the gradualistic model can be valid.

The quoted text is part of a list that Stanley believes supports "quantumspeciation". And what is "quantum speciation"?

For the present, we can definequantum speciation simply asspeciation in which most evolution is concentrated within an initial interval oftime that is very brief with respect to the total longevity of the new lineagethat is produced. Implicit in this concept is the idea that during the rapid,early phase of evolution, the seminal population has not yet expanded from itssmall, initial population size. [bold in original] [pg. 26]

And since, as we see on page 39, Stanley writes that "quantum speciation isa real phenomenon", there should be no doubt that he believes that evolutionhas occurred. However, he doesn't believe that evolution happens by changingan ancestral species into descendant species, but rather by descendantsbranching off from ancestors, as we can see on page 211:

Major trends in evolution are the result, not of phyletictransition, but of divergent speciation. Most are phylogenetic trends:net changes produced by multiple speciation events.

He comes to this conclusion by examining the fossil record. But the minedquote would have the reader believe that the fossil record doesn't supportevolution, where as Stanley believes that it does.

- Jon (Augray) Barber

[Editor's note: In a blurb on the back cover of the paperback edition ofMacroevolution: Pattern and Process (1998. JohnsHopkins University Press; Reprint edition), Douglas J. Futuyama notes thatStanley's book "addresses from a paleobiologist's perspective, the questionof whether punctuated equilibria or gradualism offers the best account of thehistory of life."]

Quote #3.12

[Progressive evolutionary change is not observed in the fossil record]

We can tell tales of improvement for some groups, but in honest moments we mustadmit that the history of complex life is more a story of multifariousvariation about a set of basic designs than a saga of accumulating excellence. ...I regard the failure to find a clear 'vector of progress' in life's history asthe most puzzling fact of the fossil record. ... we have sought to impose apattern that we hoped to find on a world that does not really display it.",NaturalHis., 2/82, p.22

Representative quote miners:The Interactive Bible: Professor Knockout Quotes!,Institute for Creation Research: The Vanishing Case for Evolution, andAnswers in Genesis: The Links Are Missing

This article can be found inThe Flamingo's Smile, 1985 (New York: W.W. Norton & Co.) under thetitle "Death and Transfiguration", pp. 230-44.

[Editor's note: the very last line of the above quote appears inThe Flamingo's Smile as "we have sought to imposea pattern that we hoped to find on a world that does not really acquiesce"but that may have been a change by Gould during the editing of the book,just as the title of the article was changed.]

First of all, let's note an obvious bit of dishonesty. This quote is used bycreationists in a number of forms, from the relatively expansive example aboveto a single sentence: "I regard the failure to find a clear 'vector of progress'in life's history as the most puzzling fact of the fossil record." However,they all omit thevery next sentence: "But I also believe that we are now onthe verge of a solution, thanks to a better understanding of evolution in bothnormal and catastrophic times." No reasonable person can doubt that thisomission was intentional.

Having hijacked Gould's name for the proposition that there is some mysteryin the fossil record that contradicts evolutionary theory, the quote minersdeliberately omit the fact that Gould sees a possible solution. This ischicanery under the most charitable interpretation. Of course, if they havean argument to counter Gould's position and wish to make a case that this"puzzle" is both real and a problem for evolutionary theory, then they arefree to present it so that the reader can judge between them. That would bean honorable intellectual exercise. To simply mangle Gould's intent withomissions and ellipses demonstrates that honorable intellectual discourseis the farthest thing from the quote miner's mind.

So, what was Gould really discussing? It should not come as any surprisethat his subject was Punctuated Equilibria and, in particular, the possibleinterplay between it and mass extinctions. These great extinctions have beenknown from the very beginning of geology as a science and they serve as themarkers of the major divisions in the geological column. Gould begins by givinghis opinion that paleontologists have tended to mitigate the effects of themass extinctions, due to their preference (at least before Punctuated Equilibriawas formulated) for gradual and continuous change. According to Gould, theytended to depict these events as merely larger and more abrupt examples of theeveryday forces leading to extinction of individual species. In doing so,continuity across the mass extinction boundaries was emphasized and all signsof pre-extinction decline were touted as evidence that the peaks were neitherhigh enough nor abrupt enough to support an inference of a catastrophic change.

In a fairly complex discussion of then-new data and interpretations,completely ignored by the quote miners, he argues that these traditionalviewpoints are wrong. Relevant to the quote mine, he points to findings about"species-rich clades", evolutionary branches containing many species, versusthose of "species-poor clades" that never contained many species. Species-richclades tend to increase their numbers during normal times, winning increasingnumerical advantage over species-poor clades. He asks: "[W]hy, then, don'tspecies-rich clades take over the biosphere entirely?" He suggests that theanswer may lie in data indicating that species-poor clades do better in massextinctions because "The individual species in species-poor clades have widergeographic ranges and broader ecological tolerances than the narrow-nitchedtaxa of species-rich clades." In short, individual species that have remained"generalists", not adapted to some narrow means of making a living in a limitedgeographical area, have a better chance of surviving a radical change in theenvironment.

With that as the context, here is the passage that most of the quote minecomes from (pp. 240-41):

This contrary behavior of species-rich clades in normal and catastrophictimes preserves a balance that permits both species-rich and species-poorclades to flourish throughout life's history. More important in our context,this distinction emphasizes the qualitative difference between normal times andcatastrophic zaps. Mass extinctions are not simply more of the same. Theyaffect various elements of the biosphere in a distinctive manner, quitedifferent from the patterns of normal times.

As we survey the history of life since the inception of multicellularcomplexity in Ediacaran times (see essay 16 ["Reducing Riddles"]),one feature stands out as most puzzling -- the lack of clear order and progressthrough time among marine invertebrate faunas.We can tell tales of improvement for some groups, but inhonest moments we must admit that the history of complex life is more a storyof multifarious variation about a set of basic designs than a saga ofaccumulating excellence. The eyes of early trilobites, for example, havenever been exceeded for complexity or acuity by later arthropods. Why do wenot find this expected order?

Perhaps the expectation itself is faulty, a product of pervasive,progressivist bias in Western thought and never a prediction of evolutionarytheory. Yet, if natural selection rules the world of life, we should detectsome fitful accumulation of better and more complex design through time --amidst all the fluctuations and backings and forthings that must characterizea process primarily devoted to constructing a better fit between organisms andchanging local environments. Darwin certainly anticipated such progress whenhe wrote:

The inhabitants of each successive period in the world's history have beatentheir predecessors in the race for life, and are, insofar, higher in thescale of nature; and this may account for that vague yet ill-defined sentiment,felt by many paleontologists, that organization on the whole has progressed.

I regard the failure to find a clear "vector ofprogress" in life's history as the most puzzling fact of the fossil record.But I also believe that we are now on the verge of a solution, thanks to abetter understanding of evolution in both normal and catastrophic times.

What then is Gould's solution? That follows directly on the above:

I have devoted the last ten years of my professional life inpaleontology to constructing an unorthodox theory for explaining the lack ofexpected patterns during normal times -- the theory of punctuated equilibrium.Niles Eldredge and I, the perpetrators of this particularly uneuphonious name,argue that the pattern of normal times is not a tale of continuous adaptiveimprovement within lineages. Rather, species form rapidly in geologicalperspective (thousands of years) and tend to remain highly stable for millionsof years thereafter. Evolutionary success must be assessed among speciesthemselves, not at the traditional Darwinian level of struggling organismswithin populations. The reasons that species succeed are many and varied --high rates of speciation and strong resistance to extinction, for example --and often involve no reference to traditional expectations for improvement inmorphological design. If punctuated equilibrium dominates the pattern ofnormal times, then we have come a long way toward understanding the curiouslyfluctuating directions of life's history. Until recently, I suspected thatpunctuated equilibrium might resolve the dilemma of progress all by itself.

I now realize that the fluctuating pattern must be constructed by a complexand fascinating interaction of two distinct tiers of explanation --punctuated equilibrium for normal times, and the different effects producedby separate processes of mass extinction. Whatever accumulates by punctuatedequilibrium (or by other processes) in normal times can be broken up,dismantled, reset, and dispersed by mass extinction. If punctuated equilibriumupset traditional expectations (and did it ever!), mass extinction is far worse.Organisms cannot track or anticipate the environmental triggers of massextinction. No matter how well they adapt to environmental ranges of normaltimes, they must take their chances in catastrophic moments. And if extinctionscan demolish more than 90 percent of all species, then we must be losing groupsforever by pure bad luck among a few clinging survivors designed for anotherworld.

Then comes the last bit of the quote mine and the conclusion of the article(p. 242-43):

Heretofore, we have thrown up our hands in frustration at thelack of expected pattern in life's history -- orwe have sought to impose a pattern that we hoped to findon a world that does not really acquiesce. Perhaps now we can navigatebetween a Scylla of despair and a Charybdis of comforting unreality. If wecan develop a general theory of mass extinction, we may finally understandwhy life has thwarted our expectations -- and we may even extract an unexpectedkind of pattern from apparent chaos. The fast track of an extraordinary meetingin Indianapolis may be pointing the way.

Note again that the quote miners have separated this snippet from Gould'sproposition of a possible solution in what can only be a deliberate attempt tosow confusion as to his opinion of how serious a problem this is forevolutionary theory.

This article appears to be the beginnings of Gould's argument, laid out infull inWonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History,1990 (New York: W. W. Norton & Company), as to the contingent nature ofevolution and how, if we were somehow able to "replay the tape" of life onEarth since its beginning, we could not expect anything like what we see todayto result. That issue is beyond the scope of the Quote Mine Project but Istrongly recommendWonderful Life to those interested in the question, if forno other reason than it is a good read. For a discussion of the subsequentdebate over this idea of Gould's, see Chapter 12 ofSex and Death : An Introduction to Philosophy of Biology by KimSterelny and Paul E. Griffiths, 1999 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).

- John (catshark) Pieret

Quote #3.13

[If evolution is true, species should gradually appear in the fossilrecord with millions of transitional forms]

No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long.It never seems to happen. Assiduous collecting up cliff faces yieldszigzags, minor oscillations, and the very occasional slight accumulation ofchange -- over millions of years, at a rate too slow to account for all theprodigious change that has occurred in evolutionary history. When we do seethe introduction of evolutionary novelty it usually shows up with a bang,and often with no firm evidence that the fossils did not evolve elsewhere!Evolution cannot forever be going on somewhere else. Yet that's how thefossil record has struck many a forlorn paleontologist looking to learnsomething about evolution. - Niles Eldredge,Reinventing Darwin: The GreatDebate at the High Tableof Evolutionary Theory (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995), p. 95

Representative quote miners:Understand The Times: Evolutionary Leap Frog,Coalition of Christians for Biblical Creation: Two Models of Origins, andGenesis Park: Abrupt Appearance in the Fossil Record

This quote mine was made popular in creationist circles,I suspect, by Phillip Johnson in hisDefeating Darwinism by Opening Minds (Downers Grove, IL:InterVarsity Press, 1997, at pp. 60-61). A related bit of quote mining by Johnsonhas already been addressed in"Another Dishonest Creationist Quote".

In a section of Chapter 4 ofDefeating Darwinism with the subcaption "Critical Thinking inEvolutionary Biology", Johnson introduces the quote with the following:

I am not as impressed by such examples["the venerable bird/reptileArchaeopteryx, the "whale with feet" calledAmbulocetus, the therapsids that supposedly link reptiles to mammals, andespecially the hominids or apemen, like the famous Lucy"] as Darwinists think Ishould be, because I know that the fossil record overall is extremelydisappointing to Darwinian expectations. ... What is even more interesting isthat the evidence for Darwinian macroevolutionary transformations is mostconspicuously absent just where the fossil evidence is most plentiful --among marine invertebrates. (These animals are plentiful as fossils because theyare so frequently covered in sediment upon death, whereas land animals areexposed to scavengers and to the elements.) If the theory were true, and ifthe correct explanation for the difficulty in finding ancestors were theincompleteness of the fossil record, then the evidence for macroevolutionarytransitions would be most plentiful where the record is most complete.

Here is how Niles Eldredge, one of the world's leading experts oninvertebrate fossils, describes the actual situation . . . (p. 60)

By now it hardly needs to be said that Eldredge was discussing PunctuatedEquilibria in the quote. The quote appears in a chapter entitled"Evolution in Real Time", subheaded "Punctuated Equilibria and theEternal Species Wrangle", that begins:

No idea has excited more interest, sparked more debate, been more widely cited,and been more profoundly misunderstood in the post-1959 annals of evolutionarybiology than the notion of "punctuated equilibria" that I published withStephen Jay Gould in 1972.

As to the quote itself, after discussing the "gappiness" of the fossilrecord that has long been the traditional explanation for the appearance ofstasis (but is no less real for that), Eldredge continues:

I simply thought that the time had come to take the fossil record -- thepatterns of stability and change -- a bit more literally than had traditionallybeen the case. George Simpson had begun the process when he insisted that gapsdo not explain away the abrupt appearances of large-scale taxa -- meaning,large-scale events of evolutionary change. Simpson was perfectly contentto blame the absence of examples of gradual change within and between specieson gaps in the record, but found (to his everlasting credit) that the argumentcould not be stretched to encompass large-scale evolutionary change, such asthe derivation of whales or bats from terrestrial mammalian precursors.

I simply extended Simpson's argument to the level of the species. ...The persistent pattern of nonchange within samples, coupled with the abruptappearance of new species -- organisms marked with anatomical innovations --had to be telling us something about the way the evolutionary process works.After all, stasis was telling us that the old Darwinian picture couldn'treally be entirely right.

But I needed something more than pattern. I needed to explain why evolutionleaves an entirely different sort of pattern in the rock record than Darwinand his long string of successors, including many paleontologists -- hadsupposed. And I found a very ready source of explanation staring me right inthe face. I found it in Dobzhansky's and Mayr's work on species and thenature of the speciation process, specifically the derivation of descendantspecies from ancestral species through geographic isolation. Thus developedthe combination of pattern and process that Steve Gould and I called"punctuated equilibria" . . . Speciation, the fragmentation of an ancestralspecies into two or more descendants, is a component of the evolutionaryprocess. It takes speciation, it seems, to break the stranglehold of stasis,providing the context for lasting evolutionary change. Punctuated equilibriais simply the notion of speciation applied as the explanation for evolutionarychange interrupting vastly longer periods of monotonous stasis. It should havebeen noncontroversial. It wasn't. (pp. 96-97)

And yet, there is not a single mention of Punctuated Equilibria in thesection ofDefeating Darwinism containing the Eldredge quote.Could it be that Johnson himself is not aware of Punctuated Equilibria or whatEldredge was talking about? Hardly. Johnson himself gave a pretty goodexplanation of the concept at least four years earlier inDarwin on Trial (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2d ed.,1993):

[S]peciation (the formation of new species) occurs rapidly [2], and in smallgroups which are isolated on the periphery of the geological area occupied bythe ancestral species. Selective pressures might be particularly intense inan area where members of the species are just barely able to survive, andfavorable variations could spread relatively quickly through a small, isolatedpopulation. By this means a new species might arise in the peripheral areawithout leaving fossil evidence. Because fossils are mostly derived fromlarge, central populations, a new species would appear suddenly in the fossilrecord following its migration into the central area of the ancestral range.

[2] Terms like "rapidly" in this connection refer to geological time, andreaders should bear in mind that 100,000 years is a brief period to ageologist. ... (p. 52)

So why did Johnson skip an explanation of what Eldredge was discussing whenusing the quote in Defeating Darwinism? Perhaps the explanation lies inJohnson's own description of his aims in this book:

[T]herewas one book I needed to write very soon. I had taken on thescientific evidence for Darwinian evolution inDarwin on Trial in 1991, and I had gone into the philosophical,moral and educational consequences of Darwinism inReason in the Balance in 1995. Both books were successful andhelped to open up a renewed public debate about whether Darwinism is reallytrue. Both went into considerable detail about scientific and intellectualsubjects, however, and a lot of readers who needed to know the basic messagefound them heavy going.

There was clearly a need for a short book aimed at a different audience,one not quite so familiar with university-level subjects. In particular,I wanted to write for late teens -- high-school juniors and seniors andbeginning college undergraduates, along with the parents and teachers of suchyoung people.

These young people need to take advantage of the wonderful educationalopportunities our society offers, but they also need to protect themselvesagainst the indoctrination in naturalism that so often accompanies education.Textbooks and other educational materials today take evolutionary naturalismfor granted, and thus assume the wrong answer to the most important questionwe face: Is there a God who created us and cares about what we do? Youngpeople need to be prepared for the indoctrination, and for that they need toknow some things that the public schools aren't allowed to teach them.That's the main job of this book, and everybody I've talked to seems to agreethat it's a job that needs to be done.(Defeating Darwinism, p. 9-10)

In other words, Johnson is giving a "stripped down" account of his case(or should we say "counter-indoctrination"?) for those too unsophisticated, inhis opinion, to understand the scientific evidence. To be fair, asTerry Pratchett has famously quipped, all education is organized lying tochildren. The necessity for gearing education to the level of understandingof the student regularly requires that subjects be "dumbed down".

Still, the question remains: what level is appropriate for Johnson's targetaudience? Eldredge says of the concept:

Punctuated equilibria itself is a remarkably simple idea. It is a melding,in essence, of the pattern of stasis with the recognition that most evolutionarychange seems bound up with the origin of new species -- the process ofspeciation. (Reinventing Darwin, p. 94)

If high school juniors and seniors cannot understand the explanation thatJohnson himself gives (and leaving aside the issue of the contempt this displaysfor his intended audience) why, then, does he even drag Eldredge's quote intoit? Is the quote or, more correctly, the idea behind it, any moreunderstandable when separated from its context? There would seem to be noexcuse for using the quote, except to lend an air of scientific respectabilityto Johnson's assertions about the fossil record. As such, it cannot beconsidered "fair comment". Good education simplifies without needlessdistortion.

Johnson is, of course, free to dispute the validity of Punctuated Equilibriaas an explanation of the fossil record and it support of evolutionarytheory. But to use this quote out of that context merely distorts whatEldredge was saying in a way that isexacerbated, not excused, by thesupposed lack of understanding of the reader he is aiming to influence. Thesituation becomes even worse when it is propagated by other creationists who donot even have the scrap of justification provided by Johnson's "warning label".

- John (catshark) Pieret

Quote #3.14

[There is little or no evidence of evolutionary change in the fossil record]

The fossil record with its abrupt transitions offers no support for gradual change . . . - Stephen J. Gould, "The Return of Hopeful Monsters",Natural History 86:22 (1977)

[Editor's note: The article can be found on the web under the title"The Return of Hopeful Monsters". It appears inThe Panda's Thumb (1980. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., pp. 186-93) under the slightly different title "Return of the Hopeful Monster".]

Representative quote miners:Institute for Creation Research: Evolution: The Changing Scene,Bible Believers Net: The Case for Evolution Has NOT Been Proved!, andAbounding Joy!: Scientists on Evolutionism.

First the necessary recital: this quote comes from a discussion of Eldredge's and Gould's proposed theory of Punctuated Equilibria. Here it is in greater context:

Many evolutionists view strict continuity between micro- and macroevolution as an essential ingredient of Darwinism and a necessary corollary of natural selection. Yet, as I argue in essay 17, Thomas Henry Huxley divided the two issues of natural selection and gradualism and warned Darwin that his strict and unwarranted adherence to gradualism might undermine his entire system.The fossil record with its abrupt transitions offers no support for gradual change, and the principle of natural selection does not require it -- selection can operate rapidly. Yet the unnecessary link that Darwin forged became a central tenet of the synthetic theory. [1]

Note how the quote miners must cut off the sentence in mid stride (not all bother with an ellipsis) lest their readers be confused by facts and learn that Gould, in speaking of "gradual change", is not talking about "evolutionary change" being unsupported by the fossil record.

What was he alluding to? Since Gould referred to essay 17 inThe Panda's Thumb, entitled "The Episodic Nature of Evolutionary Change", let him explain it himself:

On November 23, 1859, the day before his revolutionary book hit the stands, Charles Darwin received an extraordinary letter from his friend Thomas Henry Huxley. It offered warm support in the coming conflict, even the supreme sacrifice: "I am prepared to go to the stake, if requisite ... I am sharpening up my claws and beak in readiness." But it also contained a warning: "You have loaded yourself with an unnecessary difficulty in adoptingNaturra non facit saltum so unreservedly."

The Latin phrase, usually attributed to Linnaeus, states that "nature does not make leaps." Darwin was a strict adherent to this ancient motto. As a disciple of Charles Lyell, the apostle of gradualism in geology, Darwin portrayed evolution as a stately and orderly process, working at a speed so slow that no person could hope to observe it in a lifetime. Ancestors and descendants, Darwin argued, must be connected by "infinitely numerous transitional links" forming "the finest graduated steps." Only an immense span of time had permitted such a sluggish process to achieve so much.

Huxley felt that Darwin was digging a ditch for his own theory. Natural selection required no postulate about rates; it could operate just as well if evolution proceeded at a rapid pace. ...

As noted in theIntroduction to the Gould, Eldredge andPunctuated Equilibria Quotes Gould is arguing for a "jerky, or episodic, rather than a smoothly gradual, pace of change" in evolution. But he also contends that evolution is fully supported by the empiric evidence, including the fossil record. [2]

Creationists are free to argue against Gould's conclusions, of course, but the fact that they are reduced to ripping his words from their context in a blatant attempt to distort his intent, only demonstrates that they don't have an argument worth stating.

- John (catshark) Pieret

[1] More about this article can be found in the response toQuote #41.

[2] See the response toQuote #3.2 and Gould's article"Evolution as Fact and Theory" inHens Teeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in Natural History. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., p. 258-260.

Quote #3.15

[Experiments would disprove evolutionary theory.]

"I can envision observations and experimentsthat would disprove any evolutionary theory I know." - Stephen JayGould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory," Discover 2(5):34-37(1981).

A more accessible citation for this articlewould be: Gould, Stephen Jay 1983."Evolution as Fact and Theory"inHen'sTeeth and Horse's Toes: Further Reflections in NaturalHistory. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., p. 258-260.

Representative quote miners:TheseQuotes Reveal The Credulity Of Evolutionists;EvolutionIs Dead andIntelligentDesign Evolution Awareness, Tri-Cities, WA: The Book ofQuotes.

This is a spectacular case of dishonesty or aspectacular case of a failure of reading comprehension. Here is thecontext:

"Scientific creationism" is aself-contradictory, nonsense phrase precisely because it cannot befalsified.I canenvision observations and experiments that would disprove anyevolutionary theory I know, but I cannot imaginewhat potential data could lead creationists to abandon theirbeliefs. Unbeatable systems are dogma, not science. Lest I seemharsh or rhetorical, I quote creationism's leading intellectual,Duane Gish, Ph.D. from his recent (1978) book,Evolution? TheFossils Say No! "By creation we mean the bringing into beingby a supernatural Creator of the basic kinds of plants and animalsby the process of sudden, or fiat, creation. We do not know how theCreator created, what process He used,for He used processeswhich are not now operating anywhere in the natural universe[Gish's italics]. This is why we refer to creation as specialcreation. We cannot discover by scientific investigations anythingabout the creative processes used by the Creator." Pray tell, Dr.Gish, in the light of your last sentence, what then is scientificcreationism?

Note that all of the above sites present thequote with a period at the end that does not appear in the text.This avoids tipping the reader off to the very significant phrasethat follows the quoted bit.

But, beyond that, there is a clear attempt toconfuse "disprovable" with "disproved" and represent this snippetas an admission of problems in evolution. Gould's statement is,instead, a strong argument for the health of evolutionary theoryand against creationism masquerading as science, making this one ofthe worst examples of quote mining in our collection.

- John (catshark) Pieret

Links to Other Gould, Eldredge and PunctuatedEquilibria Quotes

Gould, Eldredge and Punctuated Equilibria quotes fromelsewhere in the Quote Mine Project:

• Quote #3:Suddendiversification of multi-cellular life -- Eldredge
• Quote #4:Little evidencefor phyletic gradualism -- Gould, Luria, andSinger
• Quote #5:Difficult tofind fossils intermediate in morphology and stratigraphicposition -- Cracraft
• Quote #6:Taxa appearsuddenly -- Eldredge
• Quote #9:No empiricalevidence for sustained trends -- Gould andEldredge
• Quote #11:Trends areafter the fact render of evolutionary history --Eldredge
• Quote #12:Punctuatedequilibria rests on shaky ground -- Ricklefs
• Quote #13:Fossils donot prove that evolution occurs -- Kitts
• Quote #14:Paleontologists paid enormousprice for Darwin's argument -- Gould
• Quote #16:Multicellularanimals appear with a bang -- Gould
• Quote #17:Fossilscaused Darwin more grief than joy -- Gould
• Quote #18:Major groupsappear suddenly -- Futuyma
• Quote #19:Taxa appearsuddenly and without intermediates -- Eldredge
• Quote #21:The gaps arereal -- Wesson
• Quote #26:The majorproblem in proving evolution is the fossil record --Czarnecki
• Quote #27:Littleevidence of modification within species -- Smith
• Quote #28:The principleproblem is stasis -- Williamson
• Quote #29:Members of abiota remain stable -- Eldredge
• Quote #30:Fossilspecies remain unchanged -- Woodroff
• Quote #31:Paleontologists have long knownabout stasis and abrupt appearance -- Gould
• Quote #32:Paleontologists have beensearching in vain -- Eldredge
• Quote #33:Evolutionaryinterpretation is a circular argument -- Kemp
• Quote #35:Nothing muchhappens to most species -- Gould
• Quote #36:Non-changewas tacitly acknowledged -- Gould
• Quote #37:Paleontologists knew it butpreferred to ignore it -- Eldredge and Tattersall
• Quote #39:Absence ofgradual intermediate transitional forms --Eldredge
• Quote #40:Punctuationists and gradualistsboth agree the gaps are real -- Dawkins
• Quote #41:Fossil recordhas precious little intermediate forms -- Gould
• Quote #44:Fossil recordflatly fails to substantiate finely-graded change --Eldredge and Tattersall
• Quote #45:Gaps can notbe easily explained by poor fossil record --Eldredge
• Quote #50:Inability toconstruct functional intermediates -- Gould
• Quote #52:No evidencefor transitional creatures -- The Guardian Weekly
• Quote #54:Evolutionrequires intermediate forms and paleontology does notprovide -- Kitts
• Quote #55:Gaps are apersistent problem -- Williamson
• Quote #71:Paleontologists say fossilssupport gradualism knowing that it does not --Eldredge