[FRIAM] Question from an evolutionary ignoramus

[Russell Standish]

Off the bat, I would suspect that low sample rates would make a
punctualist process seem graduated, as it would mask the high
frequency signal. But possibly you are right if the sampling was
uneven, and this unevenness was not taken into acount. Not having
worked with paleontological data first hand, I can't really comment.

Cheers

On Sat, Jun 09, 2007 at 08:20:18AM -0600, Robert Holmes wrote:
> So that's a rather long preamble to my actual question: is Gould's
> punctuated equilibrium real or (like Dawkins) do we really have an
> incremental "creeping" evolution that we only get to see very very
> occasional snapshots of in the fossil record? According to some erudite
> boffin on NPR yesterday (so it must be true) the fossil record contains
> considerably less than 1% of the estimated dinosaur species (not
> individuals!). If you observe creeping evolution at such a low sample rate,
> wouldn't that look like punctuated equilibrium?
> 

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