Biological evolution Quote by Stephen Jay Gould

Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms.

— Charles Darwin

Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists-whether through design or stupidity, I…

— Stephen Jay Gould

...the argument from absence of transitional types boils down to the striking fact that such types are always lacking unless they have been found.

— George Gaylord Simpson

“Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and palaeontology does not provide them.”

— David Kitts

It remains true, as every paleontologist knows, that most new species, genera, and families, and that nearly all categories above the level of families,…

— George Gaylord Simpson

Established species are evolving so slowly that major transitions between genera and higher taxa must be occurring within small rapidly evolving populations that leave…

— Steven M. Stanley

Every paleontologist knows that most new species, genera, and families, and that nearly all categories above the level of family appear in the record…

— Anonymous

There are gaps in the fossil graveyard, places where there should be intermediate forms, but where there is nothing whatsoever instead. No paleontologist..denies that…

— David Berlinski

All classifications in this world lack sharp boundaries, and all transitions are gradual.

— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The primitive history of the species is all the more fully retained in its germ-history in proportion as the series of embryonic forms traversed…

— Fritz Muller

The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as a trade secret of Paleontology. Evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have…

— Stephen Jay Gould

Wherever we look at the living biota … discontinuities are overwhelmingly frequent…The discontinuities are even more striking in the fossil record. New species usually…

— Ernst Mayr