dealt with this morning of course i just missed it about your thoughts on stephen jay gould's concept of punctuated equilibrium as an enhancement of darwin the concept that. evolution really macroevolution the species evolution is not generally this slow gradual process but rather there are periodic disasters that happen that wipe out ninety plus percent of a of an individual or group and the small subset of their group that is most. adapted to the new environment even though they may have been maladapted to the earlier environment are the ones that continue to survive and maybe even that accounts for gaps in the fossil record i'm curious your thoughts on about. well what you have just outlined is not really punctuated equilibrium although you could be forgiven for thinking that because punctuated equilibrium was expressed in such a confused way perhaps everybody would be forgiven for muddling up at least three different things what you've just described is the phenomenon of mass extinction which is indeed very important and every few every twenty or thirty. million years or so you ma