Stephen Jay Gould, Niles Eldredge, paleontologist for vertebrates at the American Museum of Natural History, and Steven Stanley, paleontologist at John Hopkins University, are the main proponents of a new concept in evolution that became known as punctuated equilibrium38,46,47 (discontinuous equilibrium). These theorists, along with an increasing number of others, have finally started to acknowledge that there is no evidence for gradual change in the fossil record.
Charles Darwin, the great high priest of evolution, stated that evolution occurred slowly and gradually, and during this time, very small, almost imperceptible changes accumulated in each evolving line, causing existing species to evolve into other species over long periods of time. This idea is called phyletic gradualism, and it reached its peak as a dogma of authority in the mid-1900s, through the powerful influence of evolutionists such as Julian Huxley, G.G. Simpson, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Ernst Mayr, G.L. Stebbins, John Maynard Smith, as its main architects. Phyletic gradualism was the concept that dominated this neo-Darwinian mechanism of evolution, also known as the synthetic theory.
Gould states, however, that it is now time to bury neo-Darwinism or the synthetic theory of evolution. He writes:
“…but if Mayr’s characterization of the synthetic theory is correct, then it, as a general assumption, is effectively dead, despite its existence in textbook orthodoxy.”48
Defenders of the idea of discontinuous equilibrium emphasize that species appear in the fossil record fully formed, generally remain for long periods of time, and then disappear from the record, looking in many ways the same as when they first appeared. This stability of form is called stasis and is a very real part of the record, according to Gould and his punctuationalists. Then, other species appear in the record, fully developed, presumably related to the previous forms, but no transitional forms can be found linking one species to another. This evidence is obviously contradictory to the neo-Darwinian mechanism of evolution. How can evolutionary theory be distorted to fit this fact?
The punctuationalists have offered as an answer a broken way of evolution. According to this scheme, once a species develops, it multiplies into one large population and is maintained as unchanged for one, two, five, or ten million years, or even longer. Then, for some unknown reason, a relatively small number of individuals in the population become isolated, and through some unknown mechanism, they rapidly evolve into a new species (by “rapidly,” we mean something on the order of several tens of thousands of years). Once the new species is developed, it either becomes rapidly extinct or multiplies into a large population. This large population then persists for one or more million years. The long period of stasis is part of the process called the period of equilibrium, and the period characterized by rapid evolution is punctuation (interruption) – hence the term punctuated equilibrium.
According to punctuationalists, the large population that persists for many hundreds or millions of years gives an adequate opportunity for the deposition of fossils. The period of rapid evolution, on the other hand, especially because it involves a relatively small population, does not allow for fossilization. Therefore, there are no transitional forms found between species.
This idea of interrupted equilibrium, which many welcome as a solution to the problem posed by the fossil record, is actually not a solution at all. First of all, interrupted equilibrium is not a mechanism. No one knows why and how one species might rapidly evolve into a new species. In fact, this concept contradicts our knowledge from the science of genetics. The genetic apparatus of a lizard, for example, is 100% dedicated to producing another lizard. The idea that this highly complex, finely tuned, highly integrated, surprisingly stable genetic apparatus, which includes thousands of hundreds of independent genes, could be drastically altered and rapidly reintegrated in such a way that the new organism not only survives but is actually an improvement over the previous form, is the opposite of what we know about that apparatus and how it functions.
Furthermore, this idea is without empirically noticeable scientific evidence. The only evidence for it is the lack of transitional forms. According to punctuationalists, since one form obviously did not evolve slowly and gradually into another, then it must have evolved just as rapidly into a new form.
Everything from Darwin, creationist scientists insist that the absence of transitional forms is proof of special care, but now punctuationalists, following the proven advice, ‘if you can’t beat them, join them,’ claim that the absence of transitional forms is proof for evolution – according to the punctuational mode.
The most harmful accusation against the punctuational seed of evolution, however, is the fact that it does not offer any solution to the serious problem that the fossil record poses for the theory of evolution. This serious problem is not the absence of transitional forms between species, but the absence of transitional forms between higher categories – families, orders, classes, and phyla. For example, while the absence of transitional forms between various species of unicellular organisms, and the absence of transitional forms between, say, various species of sea urchins becomes a serious problem, the enormous gap created by the absence of transitional forms between unicellular organisms and complex invertebrates, such as sea urchins, is a problem of monumental proportions. Let’s repeat, the absence of transitional forms between, say, various species of herrings may seem like a problem for evolutionary theory to evolutionists, but the lack of a single transitional form between invertebrates and fish, or between fish and amphibians, presents problems of insurmountable sizes.
The idea of punctuated equilibrium was found to explain the absence of transitional forms between species, but it doesn’t even touch, let alone solve, the problem of truly large gaps in the fossil record. Perhaps this is the reason why Gould, one of the architects of the punctuated equilibrium model of evolution, still feels compelled to predict ‘the return of the monsters that promise.’ The growing popularity of the term punctuated equilibrium in evolution is yet another indication of the bankruptcy of the theory of evolution.
- Literatura
- S. M. Stanley, Macroevolution, Pattern and Process, Freeman, San Diego 1979.
- S. M. Stanley, The New Evolutionary Timetable, Basic Books, New York 1981.
- S. J. Gould and N. Eldredge, Paleobiology 3:115-151 (1977).
- S. J. Gould, Paleobiology 6:121 (1980).