[ZX12R]

‘punctuated equilibrium’ the idea that evolution remains relatively stable for long periods then rapidly adapts under stressors has been kicked around for sometime.

Yes, I'm familiar with the idea. It was introduced to explain the fossil record, which suggests something like that is at work. I just don't think anyone knows yet, what that something is.

[philetus]

It was introduced to explain the fossil record”

Henry Gee, the chief science writer on nature, was quite candid in talking about the fossil record in 1999. Gee wrote the intervals of time that separate fossils are so huge that we cannot say anything definite about their possible connection through ancestry and descent.
He called each fossil an isolated point with no knowable connection to any other given fossil, and all float around in an overwhelming sea of gaps. In fact, he said that all fossil evidence for human evolution, between 10 and 5 million years ago —several thousand generations of living creatures
can be fitted into a small box.
Consequently, he concluded that the conventional picture of human evolution is a completely human invention created after the fact, shaped to accord with human prejudices. To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity as a bed time story, amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific.

[traviskicks]

yea, evolution is quite fascinating, it will be interesting to see what theories gain credence in the future.