How Crazy does Evolution Seem?

[Purple Knight]

This is not a question of whether or not evolution is crazy, but how crazy it seems at first glance.

That is, when we discard our experiences and look at claims as if through new eyes, what do we find when we look at evolution? I Believe we can find a great deal of common ground with this question, because when I discard my experience as an animal breeder, when I discard my knowledge, and what I've been taught, I might look at evolution with the same skepticism as someone who has either never been taught anything about it, or someone who has been taught to distrust it.

Personally my mind goes to the keratinised spines on the tongues of cats. Yes, cats have fingernails growing out of their tongues! Gross, right? Well, these particular fingernails have evolved into perfect little brushes for the animal's fur. But I think of that first animal with a horrid growth of keratin on its poor tongue. The poor thing didn't die immediately, and this fits perfectly with what I said about two steps back paying for one forward. This detrimental mutation didn't hurt the animal enough for the hapless thing to die of it, but surely it caused some suffering. And persevering thing that he was, he reproduced despite his disability (probably in a time of plenty that allowed that). But did he have the growths anywhere else? It isn't beyond reason to think of them protruding from the corners of his eyes or caking up more and more on the palms of his hands. Perhaps he had them where his eyelashes were, and it hurt him to even blink. As disturbing as my mental picture is of this scenario, this sad creature isn't even as bad off as this boar, whose tusks grew up and curled until they punctured his brain.





This is a perfect example of a detrimental trait being preserved because it doesn't hurt the animal enough to kill it before it mates. So we don't have to jump right from benefit to benefit. The road to a new beneficial trait might be long, going backwards most of the way, and filled with a lot of stabbed brains and eyelids.

Walking backwards most of the time, uphill both ways, and across caltrops almost the entire trip?

I have to admit, thinking about walking along such a path sounds like, at very least, a very depressing way to get from A to B. I would hope there would be a better way.

[brunumb]

It is not my intention here to argue a point by point case against evolution, I did say that the fossil evidence (discontinuity everywhere we've found fossils) is inexplicably inconsistent with the claimed process (continuity) and I'm satisfied that this is the case.

Do you believe that the fossil record is consistent with the biblical account of creation by a deity? If so, what particularly fits with that origin of species?

[brunumb]

I consider this to be a demonstrably true statement that any open minded investigator could go and check for themselves. It is on that basis that I declare evolution stands falsified, the evidence is inconsistent with empirical expectations.

It would help my understanding of your case if you could elaborate on "the evidence is inconsistent with empirical expectations" by providing some specifics.

[JoeyKnothead]

...
...
I've said what I've said, engaging in a debate with more back and forth is not my intention so lets leave it at that.

The fact is you believe what you already believe and it seems you are satisfied with that and have no doubts about evolution, therefore any discussion about it between us will almost certainly be a waste of time.

Here's my thing... I propose that when we engage in these debates, we do so with the understanding other folks might be them alooking in on em.

Debate is, kinda by definition, a back and forth kinda thing. I declare me something, that'n there fusses about it, and I fuss me right back.

Such that, when we declare "...therefore any discussion about it between us will almost certainly be a waste of time", well that strikes me as an acknowledgement that one ain't got em no good argument.

I further propose... I furpose... when such a statement's made, the reasonable, logical conclusion, based on one's prior posts, is that bulls and feathers have em up and become inextricably entwined.

[Sherlock Holmes]

It is not my intention here to argue a point by point case against evolution, I did say that the fossil evidence (discontinuity everywhere we've found fossils) is inexplicably inconsistent with the claimed process (continuity) and I'm satisfied that this is the case.

Do you believe that the fossil record is consistent with the biblical account of creation by a deity? If so, what particularly fits with that origin of species?

Very hard to say, the Genesis account is very very terse and may even be paraphrased rather than literal, I just cannot say with confidence. But creation by an intellect - as I understand the term - does seem the more plausible of the two alternatives, the record of discontinuity (which is at its most start in the Cambrian) seems to be totally inconsistent with a naturalistic process of gradual, continuous morphological change.

[Sherlock Holmes]

I consider this to be a demonstrably true statement that any open minded investigator could go and check for themselves. It is on that basis that I declare evolution stands falsified, the evidence is inconsistent with empirical expectations.

It would help my understanding of your case if you could elaborate on "the evidence is inconsistent with empirical expectations" by providing some specifics.

The fossil record is the main evidence that life has passed through a discontinuous process of some sort, dramatically new morphologies just seem to appear with few if any credible precursors, these observations are precisely what one would expect if an intelligence were involved. I've said that the entire fossil record exhibits discontinuity, the Cambrian exemplifies this but it is everywhere, all fossils we find seem to be part of this discontinuous record where abrupt morphological changes seem to be the key characteristic. You are free to question this and prove me wrong if you want to do that.

The claim (belief) is that the discontinuities are only apparent, an artifact of preservation and so on, but why should one accept that? what if in fact the development of life was indeed discontinuous where abrupt dramatic changes arose in minimal time, would not the fossil record look exactly as it does look?

The discontinuous record is evidence of a discontinuous process so far as I'm concerned and that is a legitimate rational way to regard this.

There are those who say "yes, yes, yes, I know it looks as if they just arose without evolving but that is not what really happened trust me" but I'm sorry I do not trust I observe and rationalize and take the evidence as I find it.

[Sherlock Holmes]

...
...
I've said what I've said, engaging in a debate with more back and forth is not my intention so lets leave it at that.

The fact is you believe what you already believe and it seems you are satisfied with that and have no doubts about evolution, therefore any discussion about it between us will almost certainly be a waste of time.

Here's my thing... I propose that when we engage in these debates, we do so with the understanding other folks might be them alooking in on em.

Debate is, kinda by definition, a back and forth kinda thing. I declare me something, that'n there fusses about it, and I fuss me right back.

Such that, when we declare "...therefore any discussion about it between us will almost certainly be a waste of time", well that strikes me as an acknowledgement that one ain't got em no good argument.

I further propose... I furpose... when such a statement's made, the reasonable, logical conclusion, based on one's prior posts, is that bulls and feathers have em up and become inextricably entwined.

This is true but I want to avoid a "debate" as such because my failure to ultimately convince you may appear to others as a failure in my analysis, particularly those who may already disagree with my position. This is a personal issue, each of us has to decide for ourselves how we decide what to believe.

If you are convinced, have zero doubts that evolution is true (some, like Dawkins et-al even claim it is a fact!) then by definition you are not starting with a neutral open mind and that means that no matter what I might say or argue you'll never alter your view, if you (as many here no doubt do) say inwardly "I know evolution is true, therefore his argument about X or Y must be dismissed...) then a debate has little value other than an opportunity for rhetoric.

[Difflugia]

dramatically new morphologies just seem to appear with few if any credible precursors,

This is false. If there were "few if any precursors," cladistic analysis wouldn't produce intelligible data. Instead, models of descent generated from cladistic data align very closely with molecular phylogenies.

I've said that the entire fossil record exhibits discontinuity, the Cambrian exemplifies this but it is everywhere, all fossils we find seem to be part of this discontinuous record where abrupt morphological changes seem to be the key characteristic. You are free to question this and prove me wrong if you want to do that.

Prove you wrong? At this point, it's just an unsupported assertion. Maybe you should at least find something written by a paleontologist that makes that claim. For the moment, though, and for the sake of argument, let's assume that your claim is actually true.

The claim (belief) is that the discontinuities are only apparent, an artifact of preservation and so on, but why should one accept that?

Maybe you should expand your study to include something as incredibly novel as a textbook.

Donald R. Prothero, Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters, p. 55:

Fossilization is still a highly improbable event, and most creatures that have ever lived do not become fossils.

How do we know this? A whole subfield of paleontology, known as taphonomy (Greek for “laws of burial”), is dedicated to understanding how and why organisms become fossils.

what if in fact the development of life was indeed discontinuous where abrupt dramatic changes arose in minimal time, would not the fossil record look exactly as it does look?

No.

pp. 57-58:

In some places, the record of fossil shells is very dense and continuous, and these are places where paleontologists focus their attention in studying things like evolution. They know that not every species is preserved, of course, but they have enough data to see how evolution occurs in the groups that do fossilize.

Most single-celled organisms, like amoebas and paramecia, are soft-bodied and never fossilize. But a few groups, such as the amoeba-like foraminiferans and radiolarians, have beautiful shells made of calcium carbonate or silica that fossilize very well. These single-celled protistans live by the millions in the oceans, and their shells are so abundant that on many parts of the seafloor the entire sediment is made of nothing but the shells of foraminiferans. The coccolithophorid algae secrete tiny button-shaped plates of calcite only a few microns in diameter. In shallow marine waters, however, coccolithophorids can live in enormous densities, and they accumulate thick piles of the limy sediment we know as chalk.

For organisms as abundant as these, the fossil record is extremely good. All the micropaleontologists need do is collect a few grams of sediment from the outcrop or from a core drilled in the deep-sea bottom and put them on microscope slides and they have thousands of specimens spanning millions of years of time.

Once again, though, let's accept your claim for the sake of argument. If there are two plausible explanations for an observation (which you seem to accept, despite your earlier assertion that the fossils are so "discontinuous" that any given fossil has "few if any precursors"), then we should find a way of distinguishing between the explanations. Both cladistic and molecular analysis do that and overwhelmingly support that evolution is "continuous."

p. 139:

Thus, by using only the shared derived characters, we can construct a branching diagram of relationships of any three or more organisms. This kind of diagram is known as a cladogram (fig. 5.3). Cladograms only make statements about who is related to whom and show the evidence of that relationship by listing the derived characters at the branching points, or nodes. The power of cladograms is that they make minimal assumptions about how, why, and when these changes evolved; they only show the pattern of relationships and not much more. More importantly, a cladogram is instantly testable. All of the characters are out on display on the nodes, naked and exposed for scrutiny. Anyone who wishes to do a better job can immediately look at all the evidence and try to come up with a better hypothesis by falsifying the existing cladogram.

p. 145:

Molecular approaches have been particularly useful where there isn’t much evidence from the anatomy or the fossil record of organisms to determine their evolutionary relationships. For example, the external form of most bacteria is pretty stereotyped, and most early bacteriologists underestimated their diversity. With the advent of genetic analysis, however, scientists such as Carl Woese have shown that there are several different kingdoms of bacteria, including the most primitive organisms of all, the Archaebacteria, which mostly live in extreme environments such as hot springs and anoxic conditions. Scientists have debated for years about how animals, plants, fungi, and bacteria might be related, but molecular phylogeny has provided an answer that could never have been solved by traditional methods. The relationships of the major groups of multicellular animals were also hotly debated for over a century, but molecular techniques, in combination with newer ideas about embryology and anatomy, have provided an answer that is no longer disputed. Thus the molecular evidence provides an independent way of discovering the family tree of life and, in many instances, has given us answers that could not have been obtained by any other method.

So far, your in-depth study just seems to match the uninformed creationist talking points that you denigrated earlier.

The discontinuous record is evidence of a discontinuous process so far as I'm concerned and that is a legitimate rational way to regard this.

And paleontologists from the 1800s agreed with you. Some of them, anyway.

There are those who say "yes, yes, yes, I know it looks as if they just arose without evolving but that is not what really happened trust me" but I'm sorry I do not trust I observe and rationalize and take the evidence as I find it.

I don't trust people that just claim things without support, either. I hope you're not one of these people.

[Sherlock Holmes]

dramatically new morphologies just seem to appear with few if any credible precursors,

This is false. If there were "few if any precursors," cladistic analysis wouldn't produce intelligible data. Instead, models of descent generated from cladistic data align very closely with molecular phylogenies.

I've said that the entire fossil record exhibits discontinuity, the Cambrian exemplifies this but it is everywhere, all fossils we find seem to be part of this discontinuous record where abrupt morphological changes seem to be the key characteristic. You are free to question this and prove me wrong if you want to do that.

Prove you wrong? At this point, it's just an unsupported assertion. Maybe you should at least find something written by a paleontologist that makes that claim. For the moment, though, and for the sake of argument, let's assume that your claim is actually true.

The claim (belief) is that the discontinuities are only apparent, an artifact of preservation and so on, but why should one accept that?

Maybe you should expand your study to include something as incredibly novel as a textbook.

Donald R. Prothero, Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters, p. 55:

Fossilization is still a highly improbable event, and most creatures that have ever lived do not become fossils.

How do we know this? A whole subfield of paleontology, known as taphonomy (Greek for “laws of burial”), is dedicated to understanding how and why organisms become fossils.

what if in fact the development of life was indeed discontinuous where abrupt dramatic changes arose in minimal time, would not the fossil record look exactly as it does look?

No.

pp. 57-58:

In some places, the record of fossil shells is very dense and continuous, and these are places where paleontologists focus their attention in studying things like evolution. They know that not every species is preserved, of course, but they have enough data to see how evolution occurs in the groups that do fossilize.

Most single-celled organisms, like amoebas and paramecia, are soft-bodied and never fossilize. But a few groups, such as the amoeba-like foraminiferans and radiolarians, have beautiful shells made of calcium carbonate or silica that fossilize very well. These single-celled protistans live by the millions in the oceans, and their shells are so abundant that on many parts of the seafloor the entire sediment is made of nothing but the shells of foraminiferans. The coccolithophorid algae secrete tiny button-shaped plates of calcite only a few microns in diameter. In shallow marine waters, however, coccolithophorids can live in enormous densities, and they accumulate thick piles of the limy sediment we know as chalk.

For organisms as abundant as these, the fossil record is extremely good. All the micropaleontologists need do is collect a few grams of sediment from the outcrop or from a core drilled in the deep-sea bottom and put them on microscope slides and they have thousands of specimens spanning millions of years of time.

Once again, though, let's accept your claim for the sake of argument. If there are two plausible explanations for an observation (which you seem to accept, despite your earlier assertion that the fossils are so "discontinuous" that any given fossil has "few if any precursors"), then we should find a way of distinguishing between the explanations. Both cladistic and molecular analysis do that and overwhelmingly support that evolution is "continuous."

p. 139:

Thus, by using only the shared derived characters, we can construct a branching diagram of relationships of any three or more organisms. This kind of diagram is known as a cladogram (fig. 5.3). Cladograms only make statements about who is related to whom and show the evidence of that relationship by listing the derived characters at the branching points, or nodes. The power of cladograms is that they make minimal assumptions about how, why, and when these changes evolved; they only show the pattern of relationships and not much more. More importantly, a cladogram is instantly testable. All of the characters are out on display on the nodes, naked and exposed for scrutiny. Anyone who wishes to do a better job can immediately look at all the evidence and try to come up with a better hypothesis by falsifying the existing cladogram.

p. 145:

Molecular approaches have been particularly useful where there isn’t much evidence from the anatomy or the fossil record of organisms to determine their evolutionary relationships. For example, the external form of most bacteria is pretty stereotyped, and most early bacteriologists underestimated their diversity. With the advent of genetic analysis, however, scientists such as Carl Woese have shown that there are several different kingdoms of bacteria, including the most primitive organisms of all, the Archaebacteria, which mostly live in extreme environments such as hot springs and anoxic conditions. Scientists have debated for years about how animals, plants, fungi, and bacteria might be related, but molecular phylogeny has provided an answer that could never have been solved by traditional methods. The relationships of the major groups of multicellular animals were also hotly debated for over a century, but molecular techniques, in combination with newer ideas about embryology and anatomy, have provided an answer that is no longer disputed. Thus the molecular evidence provides an independent way of discovering the family tree of life and, in many instances, has given us answers that could not have been obtained by any other method.

So far, your in-depth study just seems to match the uninformed creationist talking points that you denigrated earlier.

The discontinuous record is evidence of a discontinuous process so far as I'm concerned and that is a legitimate rational way to regard this.

And paleontologists from the 1800s agreed with you. Some of them, anyway.

There are those who say "yes, yes, yes, I know it looks as if they just arose without evolving but that is not what really happened trust me" but I'm sorry I do not trust I observe and rationalize and take the evidence as I find it.

I don't trust people that just claim things without support, either. I hope you're not one of these people.

For now I'll respond:

1. How does the author know it was an "improbable" event? Not finding things could indicate it was improbable or it could mean the things we seek never did exist, how can you tell?
2. Fossils of soft bodied primitive life are well known and common in places like Cheng-Jiang, in strata that immediately precedes early complex Cambrian life, no trace whatsoever has ever been found of presumed transitionals.
3. "In some places, the record of fossil shells is very dense and continuous" what places? what fossils?
4. "they have enough data to see how evolution occurs in the groups that do fossilize" they do? what data exactly shows this?
5. Molecular "analysis" has no place here, we have no access to genetic material from the Cambrian era.
6. The "branching diagram" is not evidence, it is an interpretation of evidence.

There are of course many books like the one you cite, I've got some of them myself, but they primarily interpret evidence, they seek out areas of perceived consistency and brush aside, downplay area of inconsistency, the reason is the authors already "know" evolution took place and so evidence in support is embraced and evidence that's counter can be ignored because we know evolution is true so these cases do not matter.

Referring to me as an "uninformed creationist" or that a textbook on the subject is "incredibly novel" to me are ad-hominem attacks and have no place in our discussion.

[Difflugia]

For now I'll respond:

I'm honored.

1. How does the author know it was an "improbable" event? Not finding things could indicate it was improbable or it could mean the things we seek never did exist, how can you tell?

By reading a book on taphonomy. If you're actually claiming that fossilization isn't an improbable event, you should probably support your claim.

2. Fossils of soft bodied primitive life are well known and common in places like Cheng-Jiang, in strata that immediately precedes early complex Cambrian life, no trace whatsoever has ever been found of presumed transitionals.

They're "common" under a limited number of conditions, which is evidenced by the fact that you can specify one particular location and we know what you're talking about (Burgess Shale formation, anyone?). If, on the other hand, you're claiming that such conditions are common in general, you should probably support your claim.

3. "In some places, the record of fossil shells is very dense and continuous" what places? what fossils?

Since you haven't actually supported any of your own claims yet, I don't think we're to the point in the discussion where we question the opinions of experts. Since I've only provided generic support for my own so far, a similar bar shouldn't be difficult for you to clear yourself. One step at a time.

4. "they have enough data to see how evolution occurs in the groups that do fossilize" they do? what data exactly shows this?

Are you actually making a claim that they don't and will now support it? Or is this still "just asking questions?"

5. Molecular "analysis" has no place here, we have no access to genetic material from the Cambrian era.

This is a shifting of the goal posts and a non sequitur. Your (still unsupported) claim was that fossilization is discontinuous, not that we are exclusively discussing the Cambrian. Even if we are, though, molecular data provide enough resolution that we can infer ancestry back at least to the origin of eukaryotes themselves, which predates the Cambrian. You could, of course, dispute that, but you should probably support your own positions first if you intend to play fair.

6. The "branching diagram" is not evidence, it is an interpretation of evidence.

For a particularly broad definition of "interpretation," that's true, but by that definition, even the term "discontinuous" would be an "interpretation" rather than the evidence that you claim it is. The ability to place the data in trees that are consistent with alternate choices of characters as well as molecular data is itself evidence that evolution is continuous. As an example, if any organisms had the combination of hair, mammary glands, feathers, and septate lungs, then its placement in the tree with mammals or birds would depend on which characters were selected. We don't see such combinations in real life.

There are of course many books like the one you cite, I've got some of them myself, but they primarily interpret evidence, they seek out areas of perceived consistency and brush aside, downplay area of inconsistency, the reason is the authors already "know" evolution took place and so evidence in support is embraced and evidence that's counter can be ignored because we know evolution is true so these cases do not matter.

Then you should easily be able to support this unsupported claim. It is "of course" false.

Referring to me as an "uninformed creationist" or that a textbook on the subject is "incredibly novel" to me are ad-hominem attacks and have no place in our discussion.

Are you proposing that neither of us engages in rhetorical ad hominem quips anymore? That's fine. Or are you indulging in a bit of chutzpah by implying that your own responses have been lacking them?

[Sherlock Holmes]

For now I'll respond:

I'm honored.

1. How does the author know it was an "improbable" event? Not finding things could indicate it was improbable or it could mean the things we seek never did exist, how can you tell?

By reading a book on taphonomy. If you're actually claiming that fossilization isn't an improbable event, you should probably support your claim.

I don't see how reading a book serves as evidence that fossilization was rare. Said rarity is an interpretation of what we find, another interpretation is that it was not as rare as claimed and the lack of ancestral fossils ia a real absence of things to fossilze.

The claim is that ancestral forms existed (for example the ancestry of Anoamlocaris) why should I believe these ancestors did exist when there's absolutely no fossile evidence for them?

Why is my suggestion that the absence of ancestor fossils might be due to an absence of ancestors any more needy of evidence than the claim fossilization was rare?

2. Fossils of soft bodied primitive life are well known and common in places like Cheng-Jiang, in strata that immediately precedes early complex Cambrian life, no trace whatsoever has ever been found of presumed transitionals.

They're "common" under a limited number of conditions, which is evidenced by the fact that you can specify one particular location and we know what you're talking about (Burgess Shale formation, anyone?). If, on the other hand, you're claiming that such conditions are common in general, you should probably support your claim.

The point is that one cannot infer that conditions are the reason we find no Cambrian ancestors when there are places where conditions can be seen to have been superb by fossilizing ameobas and other soft tiny organisms yet curiously non of the claimed ancestors ofr any of the complex large Cambrian fauna.

Why were no Cambrian ancestors fossilized in Cheng-Jiang when we can see that preservation conditions were so good that tiny soft organisms were fossilized en-mass?

Whereever we have found Cambrian fossils we also find the same absence of ancestors, the pattern is that ancestors are never found anywhere that's evidence of absence I think.

3. "In some places, the record of fossil shells is very dense and continuous" what places? what fossils?

Since you haven't actually supported any of your own claims yet, I don't think we're to the point in the discussion where we question the opinions of experts. Since I've only provided generic support for my own so far, a similar bar shouldn't be difficult for you to clear yourself. One step at a time.

What "claim"? that the Cambrian explosion reveals an abrupt, sudden appearance of complex life? That is not my claim, this is what paleontologists say! it is they who refer to it as the Cambrian "explosion". They would not refer to it that way if the evidence of ancestors was prevalant, but it isn't.

Now I don't "claim" that the there were no ancestors but I do argue that such a claim is consistent with the evidence, and one is being reasonable to rergard the claim that there were hundreds of thousands of generations that just somehow never ever every got fossilized as rather a stretch.

4. "they have enough data to see how evolution occurs in the groups that do fossilize" they do? what data exactly shows this?

Are you actually making a claim that they don't and will now support it? Or is this still "just asking questions?"

No I asked for examples of fossils that demonstrate an evolutionary link between disparate organisms. If you have fossil evidence that proves such a linkage may I see it please?

5. Molecular "analysis" has no place here, we have no access to genetic material from the Cambrian era.

This is a shifting of the goal posts and a non sequitur. Your (still unsupported) claim was that fossilization is discontinuous, not that we are exclusively discussing the Cambrian.

The fossil record is discontinuous.

Even if we are, though, molecular data provide enough resolution that we can infer ancestry back at least to the origin of eukaryotes themselves, which predates the Cambrian. You could, of course, dispute that, but you should probably support your own positions first if you intend to play fair.

Only if one assumes evolution was at work. You cant use an argument based on the assumption live evolved as support for the argument life evolved.

6. The "branching diagram" is not evidence, it is an interpretation of evidence.

For a particularly broad definition of "interpretation," that's true, but by that definition, even the term "discontinuous" would be an "interpretation" rather than the evidence that you claim it is.

Yes I agree, I totally agree that the discontinuity is an interetation of what we observe.

The ability to place the data in trees that are consistent with alternate choices of characters as well as molecular data is itself evidence that evolution is continuous.

These trees may not have existed though, the "branches" linking distinct organisms might never have existed, they are presumed because evolution is presumed. The trees are a statement about definite relationships, parent/child relationships that are not observed, only inferred.

As an example, if any organisms had the combination of hair, mammary glands, feathers, and septate lungs, then its placement in the tree with mammals or birds would depend on which characters were selected. We don't see such combinations in real life.

And of what of that? how does not finding some arbitrary set of features in a single organism serve to support evolution?

Let me say again - the fossil record - falsifies evolution, it is not what a reasonable person would expect to find if evolution were true. The organisms that are missing are always the same organisms no matter where we find Cambrian fossils we also note that the missing things are also missing in every other place we find Cambrian fossils. Darwin was extremely unhappy about this and nothing has been found since then to clear this up.

There are of course many books like the one you cite, I've got some of them myself, but they primarily interpret evidence, they seek out areas of perceived consistency and brush aside, downplay area of inconsistency, the reason is the authors already "know" evolution took place and so evidence in support is embraced and evidence that's counter can be ignored because we know evolution is true so these cases do not matter.

Then you should easily be able to support this unsupported claim. It is "of course" false.

Referring to me as an "uninformed creationist" or that a textbook on the subject is "incredibly novel" to me are ad-hominem attacks and have no place in our discussion.

Are you proposing that neither of us engages in rhetorical ad hominem quips anymore? That's fine. Or are you indulging in a bit of chutzpah by implying that your own responses have been lacking them?

I'm asking for politeness rather than dispraging wordplay which serves to discredit me by association.

Focus on falsification, if evolution is falsified then it matters not what other areas we can use to salvage it, falisfication is the death knell of any theory.

Just type this into Google "is the fossil record discontinuous".