The third argument is more direct: transitions are often found in the fossil record. Preserved transitions are not common—and should not be, according to our understanding of evolution (see next section) but they are not entirely wanting, as creationists often claim. The lower jaw of reptiles contains several bones, that of mammals only one. The non-mammalian jawbones are reduced, step by step, in mammalian ancestors until they become tiny nubbins located at the back of the jaw. The "hammer" and "anvil" bones of the mammalian ear are descendants of these nubbins. How could such a transition be accomplished? the creationists ask. Surely a bone is either entirely in the jaw or in the ear. Yet paleontologists have discovered two transitional lineages of therapsids (the so-called mammal-like reptiles) with a double jaw joint—one composed of the old quadrate and articular bones (soon to become the hammer and anvil), the other of the squamosal and dentary bones (as in modern mammals). For that matter, what better transitional form could we expect to find than the oldest human, Australopithecus afarensis, with its apelike palate, its human upright stance, and a cranial capacity larger than any ape’s of the same body size but a full 1,000 cubic centimeters below ours? If God made each of the half-dozen human species discovered in ancient rocks, why did he create in an unbroken temporal sequence of progressively more modern features—increasing cranial capacity, reduced face and teeth, larder body size? Did he create to mimic evolution and test our faith thereby?Evolution as Fact and Theory, by Stephen J. Gould.
I've linked you Don Lindsay's Speciation by Punctuated Equilibrium how many times now, and yet you cling to the Duane Gish version. How is this excusable?
Duane Gish? Or Ernst Mayr? Your understanding of punk eek is not as widely and uniformly accepted as you portray. Some quotes from a (pro-evolution) review of "The Dynamics of Evolution":
The opening essay by Ernst Mayr is a broad attempt to explain what the theory of punctuated equilibrium is and what the debate has been about. Mayr describes the different things that have been labelled "punctuated equilibrium", with a concern to clarify some points of uncertainty. His view is generally very favourable; apart from some of the more extreme ideas regarding saltationism (production of new species by large single mutations) which he sees Gould as having toyed with for a few years, he believes that most of the claims associated with punctuated equilibrium are in fact either true or in the process of being tested, and that the issues involved are significant.
...The only really dissenting voice in this discussion is that of Antoni Hoffman. His essay is a general attack on the theory of punctuated equilibrium; he claims that the weak form (that rates of evolutionary change vary) is trivial and says nothing that wasn't known to Darwin, the strong from (macromutations and saltationism) is false, and the moderate form (widespread stasis in evolutionary lineages) is untestable. He does admit that punctuated equilibrium has had heuristic value in sparking debate and suggesting research. Again it is evident that there is confusion about whether (and how strongly) Gould actually pushed saltationism, but it is clear that he no longer does so; hence criticism of the "strong" version of punctuated equilibrium is now peripheral to the main debate.
The funny thing is that you consider the meager evidence below (from your link) to sufficiently explain away the overwhelming evidence of morphological stasis in the fossil record:
Yes. Several examples of this exact scenario are known. For example, there's a marine microfossil, a trilobite, a brachiopod, and some dinosaurs (including a Tyrannosaurus).
You've told me many times that punk eek is not saltationism. And Junior has patiently explained that under punk eek variation occurs by small mutation, just like in regular old evolution, except that under the punk eek paradigm populations become isolated. Under either theory then, we should expect to see a myriad of transitional forms. In fact, that's all we should see. Instead, the overwhelming majority of fossils collected indicate morphological stasis, sometimes over what are purported to be enormous amounts of time.
This is the central, fatal problem of evolutionary theory which evolutionists strive mightily to avoid.