FOSSIL PROGRESSION?, DAVID M. RAUP, Chicago Field Museum, Prof. of Geology, Univ. of Chicago, "A large number of well trained scientists outside of evolutionary biology and paleontology have unfortunately gotten the idea that the fossil record is far more Darwinian than it is. This probably comes from the oversimplification inevitable in secondary sources: lowlevel textbooks, semipopular articles, and so on. Also, there is probably some wishful thinking involved. In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find predictable progressions. In general, these have not been found yet the optimism has died hard, and some pure fantasy has crept into textbooks...One of the ironies of the creationevolution debate is that the creationists have accepted the mistaken notion that the fossil record shows a detailed and orderly progression and they have gone to great lengths to accommodate this 'fact' in their Flood Geology." New Scientist, Vol. 90, p.832, 1981

taken from: http://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/flood.html

Phillip Johnson, in his book Darwin on Trial, 19 cites a letter from Raup published in "Science" in 1981 (vol. 213, p. 289), in which Raup stated: "A large number of well-trained scientists outside of evolutionary biology and paleontology have unfortunately gotten the idea that the fossil record is far more Darwinian than it is. This comes from the oversimplification in secondary sources: low-level textbooks, semi-popular articles, and so on. Also there is some wishful thinking involved . In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find predictable progressions. In general these have not been found - yet optimism dies hard and pure fantasy has crept into textbooks. ... One of the ironies of the evolution-creation debate is that creationists have accepted the mistaken notion that the fossil record shows a detailed and ordered progression and they have gone to great lengths to accommodate this 'fact' in their Flood geology." This raises the question of whether historical geology is science or pseudoscience.....

1. Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial (Downers Grove, IL 60515, U.S.A.: Intervarsity Press, 1991). In this book the author looks at the evidence for and against evolution from the point of view of an academic lawyer and finds a lack of probative evidence for the evolution case....

19. Johnson, Darwin on Trial (endnote 1 above), p. 170.

taken from: http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt79.html

"In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find predictable
progressions. In general. these have not been found-yet the optimism has
died hard and some pure fantasy has crept into textbooks. This is illustrated by other statements in the Root-Bernstein letter, such as: `Evolution postdicts certain immutable trends of progressive change that can be falsified.' This is simply not the case! In the fossil record, we are faced with many sequences of change: modifications over time from A to B to C to D can be documented and a plausible Darwinian interpretation can often be made after seeing the sequence. But the predictive (or postdictive) power of theory in these cases is almost nil." (Raup D.M., "Evolution and the Fossil Record", Science, Vol. 213, No. 4505, 17 July 1981, p.289).

taken from: http://members.iinet.net.au/~sejones/quotes/cequc001.html

"Darwin's theory of natural selection has always been closely linked to evidence from fossils, and probably most people assume that fossils provide a very important part of the general argument in favour of Darwinian interpretations of the history of life. Unfortunately, this is not strictly true."

(Dr. David Raup, Curator of geology, Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, 'Conflicts between Darwin and paleontology', Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, vol 50(1), January 1979, pg. 22)

taken from: http://www.bearfabrique.org/evorants/Fossi...IDEA%20Club.htm

RECORD IS CATASTROPHIC, DAVID M. RAUP, Chicago Field Museum, Univ. of Chicago, "A great deal has changed, however, and contemporary geologists and paleontologists now generally accept catastrophe as a 'way of life' although they may avoid the word catastrophe... The periods of relative quiet contribute only a small part of the record. The days are almost gone when a geologist looks at such a sequence, measures its thickness, estimates the total amount of elapsed time, and then divides one by the other to compute the rate of deposition in centimeters per thousand years. The nineteenth century idea of uniformitarianism and gradualism still exist in popular treatments of geology, in some museum exhibits, and in lower level textbooks....one can hardly blame the creationists for having the idea that the conventional wisdom in geology is still a noncatastrophic one." Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin (Vol.54, March 1983), p.21

taken from: http://www.bible.ca/tracks/dating-radiometric.htm

DAVID M. RAUP, U. of Chicago; Field Museum of N.H., "The charge that the construction of the geologic scale involves circularity has a certain amount of validity...Thus, the procedure is far from ideal and the geologic ranges are constantly being revised (usually extended) as new occurrences are found.", FMONH Bulletin, Vol. 54, Mar. 1983, p.21

taken from: http://www.creationapologetics.org/refuting/quotes.html