In Search of Deep Time

"In Search of Deep Time: Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of
Life" by Henry Gee [1999] (chief science writer, "Nature" magazine)


"The obstacle to this certain knowledge about lineal ancestry lies in
the extreme sparseness of the fossil record. [... Illustrative example
here of fossil civets; not humans ...] In addition, we cannot know if
the fossil [civet] found at LO5 was the lineal ancestor of the
specimens found at Olduvai Gorge or Koobi for a. It might have been,
but we can never know this for certain. The intervals of time that
separate the fossils are so huge that we cannot say anything definition
about their possible connection through ancestry and descent."


"New fossils are fitted into this pre-existing story. We call these new
discoveries 'missing links', as if the chain of ancestry and
descent were a real object for our contemplation, and not what it
really is, a completely human invention created after the fact, shaped
to accord with human prejudices. In reality, the physical record of
human evolution is more modest. Each fossil represents an isolated
point, with no knowable connection to any other given fossil, and all
float around in an overwhelming sea of gaps."


"The failure of bother views of evolution rests, once again, on the
failure to understand that Deep Time cannot sustain scenarios based on
narrative. I return, once again, to the thought experiment that is
central to my argument: next time you see a fossil, ask yourself
whether it could have belonged to your direct ancestor. Of course, it
could by your ancestor, but you will never be able to know this for
certain. To hypothesize that it might be your ancestor, then, is
futile, because your hypothesis would be untestable. So, to take a line
of fossils are claim that they represent a lineage, is not a scientific
hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same
validity as a bedtime story - amusing, perhaps even instructive, but
not scientific." END GEE MATERIAL
From talk.origins