“A large number of well trained scientists outside of evolutionary biology and paleontology have unfortunately gotten the idea that the fossil record is far more Darwinian than it is. This probably comes from the oversimplification inevitable in secondary sources: low level textbooks, semi-popular articles, and so on. Also, there is probably some wishful thinking involved. In the years after Darwin , his advocates hoped to find predictable progressions. These have not been found yet the optimism has died hard, and pure fantasy has crept into textbooks…”.
Evolutionist David Raup, Curator of Geology at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, New Scientist, Vol. 90. p. 832.