A centipede that lived 45 million years ago exhibits perfect characteristics that are indistinguishable from those of modern-day specimens. If living specimens provide no evidence that evolution ever happened, if no evidence of any intermediate form has ever been unearthed, this shows that the fossil record refutes the theory of evolution. As in all other branches of science, the theory of evolution has been completely discredited by the fossil record as revealed by paleontology. Many evolutionists admit the truth of this, as does Stephen Jay Gould: The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology . . . We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life"s history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study. (S. J. Gould, "Evolution"s Erratic Pace," Natural History, Vol. 86, No. 5, p. 14, May 1977.)