The fossil record fits best with progressive creation

[Edgar]

@Haywood

How’s this quote? "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 do not know—as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but they are abundant between larger groups.”–Stephen Jay Gould, “Evolution as Fact and Theory”

This is absolutely fascinating! Here we observe Gould clearly contradicting himself:
Compare what he says in 1981 - “Transitional forms … are abundant between larger groups” -
to what he said earlier, in 1980 (in The Panda’'s Thumb) - “The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology.”

Wow, what a difference - he’s gone from “extreme rarity” to “abundant”!

But how does one explain this contradiction? Well, what probably happened was, after letting Team Evolution down badly with his heretical comments about the fossil record in The Panda’s Thumb (see pp. 181-182), Gould (unsurprisingly) took a lot of flak from his very upset evo-peers - so much so that by the next year he’d backed down and tried to make amends by talking-up the fossil record.