Many Creationist sources give this quote:
"In any case, no real evolutionist, whether gradualist or punctuationist, uses the fossil record as evidence in favour of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation."This quote is out of date, of course. By now we have more transitional fossils. And Ridley was referring to Old Earth special creation, since he certainly believes that the fossil record is incompatible with Young Earth special creation.Who Doubts Evolution?, New Scientist, 25 June 1981, p.831
The quote is just one sentence. Let's see what comes next:
In any case, no real evolutionist, whether gradualist or punctuationist, uses the fossil record as evidence in favour of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation.This does not mean that the theory of evolution is unproven.He goes on to explain his best evidence in each of these three categories. In the first category, he gives species that have come into existence in this century. Under biogeography, he gives the strange idea of a ring species. Under taxonomy, he mentions how arbitrary genetic arrangements just happen to be identical in different creatures. In short, he is not at a loss for reasons to support the theory of evolution. He happens to be a zoologist, so he thinks that the zoological evidence is the good stuff.So just what is the evidence that species have evolved? There have traditionally been three kinds of evidence, and it is these, not the "fossil evidence", that the critics should be thinking about. The three arguments are from the observed evolution of species, from biogeography, and from the hierarchical structure of taxonomy.