First of all, not sure what you mean by "aware". Aware of what? I was "aware" that "evolution is a fact" for most of my life (as well as being an atheist) until relatively recently when I decided to take a step back and take another look at the issue. I could say that you're the one who's not "aware" but that would be condescending and arrogant so I won't.
Also, regarding "quote mining": It's a completely legitimate tactic to use the statements of one's opponents to make a point. Everyone does it. And if you're a creationist, you're almost forced to do it regularly since the great majority of researchers in the sciences are evolutionists. Of course, you can use the quotes of creationists as well, but then people will say they don't matter because they're not "real" scientists. You can't win lol. More often than not, accusations of "quote mining" are simply bizzare.
The problem would be quoting out of context. But I maintain that this is definitely not true for the case in point. And the expanded quote you show only further strengthens the point. Embarrassment, uncomfortable paradox...It's not hard to see there's something important going on here...Gradualism not "seen" in the rocks...So where exactly am I guilty of this "quote mining" you speak of?
But here's something interesting...You claim that the modern theory of evolution does not require gradualism (that's probably why "evo devo" and the so-called third way of evolution is gaining in popularity as an alternative theory). Not only that, but apparently the fossil record is exactly what you'd expect it to be.
Here is how I see it, and how anyone not committed to evolution is bound to see it: You didn't find the fossils you were looking for, the missing fossils Darwin saw as a problem but expected would show up sooner or later. But lo and behold, there's something called the modern theory of evolution which actually doesn't require those particular fossils. In fact, the lack of those fossils is actually evidence of evolution! And since you already know evolution is true (you didn't explain how you know this) and evolution is happening (again, you didn't tell us how), this theory must be the right one, obviously. It's exactly what you'd expect. Statis? Evidence of evolution. Abrupt change? Evidence of evolution. Absence of evidence becomes...evidence. All you need is a new, ad hoc revision of your theory.
When you have a theory such that every imaginable fact can fit into it, you've got a problem. And as far as the fossil record showing evolution, I beg to differ. It's not just a lack of fossils that's the problem. The fossils are totally out of whack. Here are just a few problems:
- the famous Tiktaalik: "Trackways said to be 18 million years older than Tiktaalik, showing digits and alternating steps...These results force us to reconsider our whole picture of the transition from fish to land animals..."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100107114420.htm
- “although most textbooks include some sort of speculation on the evolutionary origin of feathers ... [a] morass of contradictory theories and muddy thinking ... occurs in ... much of the literature on this subject” - Dr. Klotz
- "Until now
we had assumed that more complex fully roofed nests had evolved from those without roofs. This study demonstrates that
in fact it was the opposite, in that these
simple nests evolved several times independently, and the bird families that
made this switch to simple nests are some of the most species-rich bird families today, such as the Australian honeyeaters.”
More Collapsed Darwinian Expectations | CEH
- Mechanism for photosynthesis already existed in primeval microbe
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/01/170131124132.htm
- "India gradually drifted away from Africa and Madagascar towards the north and collided with the Eurasian plate.
Scientists assumed for a long time that the subcontinent was largely isolated during its long journey through the ocean and unique species of plants and animals were therefore able to develop on it. However, paleontologists at the University of Bonn are now showing using
tiny midges encased in amber that there must have been a connection between the apparently cut off India and Europe and Asia around 54 million years ago that enabled the creatures to move around. The
surprising results are now presented in the journal PLOS ONE."
https://phys.org/news/2017-01-india-isolated-thought.html
This is just a tiny sample of a whole mountain of problems. Does evolution have any predictive power at all?
When you are at a stage where you are being "forced to reconsider your whole picture" in pretty much all the relevant areas, I think it's time to admit that what you have is not a "fact". It's a research project. And repeating something like a mantra doesn't make it true. This is the very least a rational, honest evolutionist would do.
And if you want to base your acceptance of evolution on "evolution in action", you have an even bigger problem. The changes we observe have to do with rearrangement of already existing genetic information. We've never observed a change where new information is added. It's not just that the changes are too small (in fact, sometimes they're quite big), it's that they're not the right type of change. People should keep this in mind whenever they see the mainstream media bloviating about "evolution in action".
And here's something about natural selection + mutation: "
We find that even in enormous populations, natural selection is often very inefficient at distinguishing between mutations that are beneficial and deleterious on average. In addition,
substitution rates of all mutations are dramatically increased by variable selection pressures. This can lead to
counterintuitive results. For instance, mutations that result in
a trade-off but are predominantly deleterious during their lifetime
can be much more likely to fix than mutations that are always neutral or even beneficial." Fate of a mutation in a fluctuating environment
Oh and by the way, since you're a geologist, you might be interested in this:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.13182/NT16-98
