I'm talking to a guy who said punk-eek has a problem because what would the mutated creature have to mate with--I mean there would have to be two sexually compatible major mutations at the same time and what are the odds of that?
If I didn't have a sense of humor, I'd be doing my tallhappy imitation on you. If you don't know what that is . . . Never mind.
Indeed you are. Now can you tell me how a part of the group (species) becomes geographically isolated from the rest of the group, substantially changes, becoming different in kind (i.e. "reproductively isolated") from the greater number of the same group (species) that didn't evolve? After all, by definition, one group must have mutated faster than the other group.
How could the "daughter" species produce creatures "reproductively isolated" from the "parent" species without being "reproductively isolated" from the other members of the "daughter" species, unless some members of the "daughter" species mutated favorably in the same way in the same generation?
If you want to propose evolution by small mutation to explain the emergence of variation in "daughter" species, then you have brought forward as a solution the problem that punk eek was brought forward to explain: the lack of transitional forms in the fossil record.