Punctuated Equilibrium and the Validation of Macroevolutionary Theory 1001
all the beliefs and predictions of the Modern Synthesis.) We now make the crucial
error of deciding that our punctuations must require a new evolutionary mechanism
unsuspected by Darwinian gradualism—probably a new style of genetic change
directing the process of speciation. But we have only made a fundamental mistake in
scaling, for our punctuations are slow enough in microevolutionary time to record the
ordinary workings of natural selection.
I cringe when I read characterizations like this because such statements only
indicate that the perpetrators haven't read our papers, and must either be expressing
their fears or some undocumented gossip that passes for wisdom along academic
grapevines. As quotations throughout this chapter amply demonstrate, we have
always taken a position contrary to these charges. We didn't err in failing to recognize
that a paleontologist's punctuation equals a microevolutionist's continuity. Rather, we
based our theory upon this very idea from the start, by demonstrating that the
conventional allopatric model of speciation scales as punctuation, not as gradual
change through a long sequence of strata, in geological time. Clearly, we could not
have located anything theoretically radical in the punctuations of our theory—since
we built our model by equating these punctuations with ordinary microevolutionary
events of peripatric speciation!
It is true that we staked no unconventional claims for evolutionary theory in our
original paper (Eldredge and Gould, 1972)—while urging substantial reform of
paleontological practice—but only because we hadn't yet recognized the implications
of punctuated equilibrium in this domain. It is also true that we began to urge
theoretical reform in subsequent papers (beginning in Gould and Eldredge, 1977, and
continuing in Gould, 1982c, 1989e, and Gould and Eldredge, 1993), but we have
never based these proposals on the speed or nature of punctuations. Again, as
demonstrated by citations throughout this chapter, we locate any revisionary status
for punctuated equilibrium in its suggestions about the nature of stasis, and
particularly its implications for attributing macroevolutionary phenomena to causes
operating on the differential success of species treated as Darwinian individuals.
Ordinary speciation remains fully adequate to explain the causes and phenomenology
of punctuation.
- If (as argument one holds) punctuated equilibrium includes no theoretical
novelty, and if the theory has enjoyed such intense discussion in both popular and
professional literature, then we must have created this anomaly by using rhetorical
skills to flog our empty notions in a quest for personal fame. So we hyped, and the
media followed like sheep. Dawkins (1986) writes, for example: "Punctuationism is
widely thought to be revolutionary and antithetical to neo-Darwinism for the simple
reason that its chief advocates have said that it is: said so, moreover, in loud and
eloquent voices, making frequent and skillful use of the mass media. The theory, in
short, stands out from other glosses on the neo-Darwinian synthesis in one respect
only: it has enjoyed brilliant public relations and stage management." (Do I detect a
whiff of jealousy in this expostulation?)
I reject this argument about mass media on two grounds: first, for its
condescending