Punctuated Equilibrium and the Validation of Macroevolutionary Theory 979
(at least not consistently so over such a broad range of disciplines), I must
conclude that punctuated equilibrium has something general, perhaps even
important, to say.
AN EPISODIC HISTORY OF PUNCTUATED EQUILIBRIUMEarly stages and future contexts
I have never enjoyed a reputation for modesty, so I believe that the following
introductory comments represent a genuine memory, not a bias following a bent of
personality. I was proud of our 1972 paper, and of my initiating oral presentation at
the 1971 meeting of the Geological Society of America in Washington, D.C. I
hoped that punctuated equilibrium would influence the practice of paleontology by
showing that the fossil record, read literally, might depict the process of evolution
as understood by neontologists, and not only reflect an absence of evidence
pervasive and discouraging enough to make the empirical study of macroevolution
virtually impossible at fine scale. Among the ordinary run of papers, this goal
cannot be called modest, so I maintained some hope for punctuated equilibrium
from the start. But I had no premonition about the hubbub that punctuated
equilibrium would generate—for two reasons internal to the theory and to
professional life, and also for our general inability to know the contingencies of
external history.
For the internal reasons, I simply did not grasp, at first, the broader
implications of punctuated equilibrium for evolutionary theory, as embodied in our
proposals about stasis and the necessary explanation of macroevolutionary pattern
by species sorting. I do clearly remember—and this recollection
9 - 37. A humorous perspective on punctuated equilibrium.