Why is it that genetic similarity = common descent? Isn't that an interpretation not an observation?

So if transitional fossils were all that existed, then yes you would have some point but there are loads of other evidence.

But let’s start with each of these folks and my analysis of whether they were quote mined (also see the Talk Origins link on quote mining)…

Mary Leakey - 22 publications with 621 citations (pretty good record) - she laid a lot of the foundational work for early bipedalism in the transition from walking on four limbs to two. Why would she work on this for decades if she believed we were spontaneously popped into existence? - QUOTE MINED

Richard Lewontin - 116 publications with 10,000 citations (very impressive!) - what does he actually think about evolution? Well he coauthored a paper in 2004 called ‘Teaching Evolutionary Biology.’ So yeah, to use a quote of him like that - QUOTE MINED

Colin Patterson - 35 publications with 1,288 citations (also very good) - what does he think about evolution? One of his most cited papers ‘Congruence between molecular and morphological phylogenies’ discusses how any potential gaps in morphological phylogenies have been supplemented by molecular phylogenies (i.e. molecular evidence supports fossil evidence) - QUOTE MINED

Pierre Grasse - 14 publications with 780 citations (quite good as well) - what does he think about evolution? I don’t know French but this paper kind of sums it up (L’évolution de la symbiose chez les Isoptères). - QUOTE MINED

Niles Eldredge - 48 publications with 1601 citations (if you include his books with Steven J Gould and others he’s up to 20,000 citations). Anyways, here’s a book he coauthored: https://research.amnh.org/vz/ornithology/pdfs/Eldredge%20Cracraft80.entire%20book.pdf (the goal of the book was to unit systematics, the ordering of the Earth’s biota and evolution) - QUOTE MINED

George G. Simpson - 39 publications with 277 citations (a decent career) - just read his paper titles. It is so ironic that he is quote mined when he helped establish the impressive story of the fossil record - QUOTE MINED

Bruce McFadden - 160 publications with 2,364 citations - the quote from him about straight line evolution is a good quote as straight line evolution isn’t even a real thing and it is misleading! I agree. Also, he’s written about evolution and the chemical origins of life - QUOTE MINED

David Raup - 64 publications with 4,865 citations - just look at his publications ‘Fossil preservation and stratiagraphic ranges of taxa’ (i.e. Noah’s flood wasn’t global), or the ‘Role of Extinction in Evolution’ - QUOTE MINED

Robert Barnes - 3 publications 25 citations (though his textbook is on its 5th edition) - not exactly an expert but it’s pretty obvious given his focus on invertebrates (and their beginnings) we don’t have too much on them - this was also written first in the 1950s before many many many many transitional fossils were formed - SOMEWHAT QUOTE MINED

E.J.H. Corner - One major paper called ‘The Durian Theory or the Origin of the Modern Tree’ - the quote mine is mysterious as he writes ‘but I still think that.’ I wonder what came before it. Maybe he was comparing the Durian Theory to special creation (in 1949) and you can read about it on the Wikipedia article if you like - DEFINITELY QUOTE MINED AND IRRELEVANT TO FOSSILS

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