1) If species evolved by micromutation then the fossil record would be full of transitional forms. There would be nothing else. In fact, there are no examples of fossil forms that are not fully functional, integrated organisms. Species always appear fully formed in the fossil record and disappear the same way.This page is down just now, but give it a look when it comes up. It has nice examples of smooth change in the fossil record.
Most of the best examples are from deep sea sediments. Why? Some of those surfaces have not suffered a single period of erosion in millions of years.
By comparison, the sharp and skinny layers of sediment that line the road cuts in the mountains where I live represent periods of deposition. In between are periods of no deposition, and often erosion. So the scenario is that a lot of sediment is laid down. The ground shifts and some is washed off. The ground shifts again (tectonic forces on the march) and deposition resumes. But now it's a different environment containing different species.
Are you familiar with what punctuated equilibrium itself says, and not what Duane Gish and/or medved say about it? The essence is that big changes happen not only in a time, but in a place, and radiate out from there. Dig in the right place and you will find those elusive transitionals. Until then, you see only a "sudden replacement."
We have many instances of this from the fossil record now. We know that it's basically the model that applies. Just for instance, we had no fossil record of really early man until we looked in East Africa. That's where it happened. We had no fossil record of really early whales until we looked in the Pamir/Himalayan Tethys Sea sediments. That's where it happened.
What you see from creationists about punk-eek is basically lawyering based upon strawman mischaracterizations. The irony is that you know they read Stephen J. Gould. They've mined every argument he ever had with scientists of a more gradualist bent for snippets to "prove" there are no transitionals.
Dig in the right place and you will find those elusive transitionals. = They haven't found the right place yet. No evidence.
..we had no fossil record of really early man until we looked in East Africa. There, we collected tidbits from diverse areas, glued them together, called it "evidence" and got grants for more research.
Imbedded in this response is the Sagan-esque tact that says "If you can't observe facts that support your theory - just add more time to the theory! Eventually, you will have a model that permits the possibily that anything could have happened."
These explainations contain so many twists that I have to ask that age old question: How do you have enough faith to believe that?
This has been fun, hasn't it?
Russ