The history of most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism: 1. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless. 2. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and “fully formed.â€
Stephen Jay Gould