"Rather, Schwartz argues, they have not been found because they don't exist, since evolution is not necessarily gradual but often sudden, dramatic expressions of change"
Someone on another thread today was trying to explain to me that evolution was gradual and now this guy says it's often sudden. And you wonder why people have a hard time accepting TOE.
> Someone on another thread today was trying to explain to me that evolution was gradual and now this guy says it's often sudden.
Yes? There's no conflict here. Gradual change with occasional leaps. This is only a problem for those who refuse to recognize that nature tends to be a tad chaotic.
Dear Lady, don't get the idea this concept is saying a large scale saltational event is occurring, it is more like a slow 'partially or totally hidden' bit of evolution occurring before its relatively sudden expression.
If this mechanism, or process if you prefer, is the active process in a population... oh, evolving legs let's say, the legs would not end up being full blown legs like yours or mine, but simply a larger scale 'change' to existing features, such as fins, than we would normally expect, or it could result in 'leg buds' where an existing skeletal feature is replicated in another place or modified in place - such as an additional segment of bone is added. For true legs to result from these 'buds' it would still take hundreds of generations. Remember what geological time really means.