How is it taught in textbooks? Is it taught as a matter of degree, a matter of essence, or is macro-evolution simply used as shorthand for the extreme cumulative changes undergone since their last common ancestor by two divergent species?
The following is from my son's College Biology Textbook, Biology, Sixth Edition, Campbell & Reece, 2002, page 476:
"Speciation is at the boundary between microevolution and macroevolution. Microevolution is a change over the genetics in a population's allele frequencies, mainly by genetic drift and natural selection. ...Yet the cumulative change during millions of speciation episodes over vast tracts of time must account for macroevolution, the level of change that is evident over the time scale of the fossil record."
"Must" account for macroevolution? They sure don't sound too confident about that do they? This is an interesting admission.