What would cause a person to view the fossil record as “terrible”? There are uncountable trillions of preserved remains of living things in the ground, but what if they refuse to cooperate neatly with what you want them to demonstrate?
Every person has a worldview, a set of beliefs that cause you to interpret everything, including science and your mind, in a certain way in accordance with what you hold to be true and what matters. This means that scientific paradigms also will spring forth only in the fertile soil of whatever you fertilized your mind with.
Find more quick and thoughtful considerations of science and worldview on my YouTube channel.