What cracks are those? In 1964, puntuated equilibrium hadn't been proposed yet as far as I know. It resolved a lot of problems that evolutionary scientists had found with the gradual continual evolution model. As I said in my earlier post, the TOE changed as a result of new fossil evidence.
I never heard of Gish before. When I looked him up in response to your post I found the following comment on the web [Source]:
... Gish's debates are canned---he repeats more or less the same stories and arguments against evolution over and over, from place to place, from month to month, from year to year. The same arguments are even reproduced in his books and articles. Because of the nature of debates, it's inevitable that some of Gish's arguments get refuted by various scientists over time, often more than once. But Gish just goes to the next debate without ever changing any of his storyline. He succeeds at this, because in the next city, with a new audience and a new scientist to debate, who's to know that his argument got shot down, with evidence, by that other evolutionist last week?
I know posters like that on FR on other topics. The critique of Gish continued on that web site:
In his debates, much of Gish's diatribe is directed towards the fossil record and the alleged lack of transitional forms between earlier and later forms of life. Gish has admitted that if transitional forms can be shown to exist, then creationism is dead (see Debates-Parrish 1991). Creationists, including Gish, are able to deny the existence of transitional forms because they use their own home-made definition of the term. For example, Gish claims that to be intermediate, fossils must be on a direct line of descent with each other and that transitional creatures would have to possess half-formed, and therefore useless, body parts (Gish 1985, 1995). But evolution does not happen that way and the well-known theory of punctuated equilibrium solves many supposed problems with the fossil record (Gould and Eldredge 1972).
I would suggest reading Gish instead of relying on the word of critics who were biased against him before they wrote their criticism. That way you’ll see exactly what Gish said, instead of what other people said about him.
One of the weaknesses of punctuated equilibrium is that it is part of the defensive reaction put up by evolutionists. This reaction is antithetical to science because it begins with a premise (the truth of evolution) and then it tries to imagine ways that the premise can be true. Not scientific, but it runs rampant among evolutionists.
In science if an idea is not supported by objective, physical evidence, the idea is supposed to be rejected.
As if well-known makes it somehow correct. My leg. but I digress.
Do you evolutionists actually believe in punctuated equilibrium?
It's pretty funny. When a man argues that the first cell could not have sprang to life because its too complicated, the evolutionary scientist argues that it it happened a little bit at a time and really was no big deal. But when a man argues against ASBE (All Species By Evolution) saying that we're not finding the billions of intermediate species fossils that we should be, then the evolutionary scientists argue that it happened in spurts, where multiple benefits were being prepared for before they were of any use.
Reminds me of the guy who murdered somebody, but who plead innocent on account of insanity. At first the defendant's lawyer argued for insanity and the prosecutor argued that the defendant was sane. Then the judge sentenced the defendant to life in a mental ward. But a year later, the defendant decided he's feeling fine now - so now the prosecutor and the defendant's lawyer are arguing over the exact same thing, but now they've both changed sides - now the prosecutor is arguing that the defendant is insane and the lawyer is arguing for sanity!
Is that how it works in science? Is it like a corrupted court system where they argue one line of reasoning one day then just the opposite the next day, depending on what point they are trying to make?
So when we're talking about tiny cells which don't leave fossils, then it's a slow gradual process. But if we're talking about stuff that should have left fossils, then it goes in jumps!
What is the best evidence for punctuated equilibrium? Isn't it just a result of "We know we evolved but since there are so many missing links they must have equiliberally punctuated?"
By the way, I realize that evolutionists don't like to admit to the vast missing links, but they do well know about them and it bothers some of them otherwise we wouldn't have bright minds proposing things like punctuated equilibrium.
So when the prediction is first made that all species came by evolution, it can be rightly be said that "We just haven't found all dem bones yet." But after enough time we ought to expect to be seeing some more of these billions of intermediate (and I do mean incrementally intermediate - not a few sparse handfuls that jump millions of years and could well be produced by the degree of variation observed in dogs in the last 200 years) Anyway, after enough time of nothing like we should be getting, one must ask the question "Maybe we've been had." Just how long can we go on before we see that the bill isn't just late - it's entirely missing?
-Jesse