al standards these changes are very gradual. In this sense, punctuationists really are arguing from a gradualist perspective. As Richard Dawkins (1986) put it, punctuationism should be characterized as “’gradualistic, but with long periods of “stasis” (evolutionary stagnation) punctuating brief episodes of rapid gradual change’. Therefore, the theories of gradualism and punctuationism share many elements in common with one major issue on which they diverge. First, both agree that there are gaps in the fossil record, and in doing so, they reject the theory of creationism. Second, neither gradualists nor punctuationists agree with the tenets of saltationism, because scientific evidence refutes the major premises of this theory. In addition, both gradualists and punctuationists agree that evolutionary change does not proceed in a constant and smooth fashion. Both theories assert that evolutionary change is followed by a period of stasis, but the punctuationists believe, that this period of stasis is marked by an active resistance against evolutionary change. Thus, theorists of the punctuationist school should quit looking to completely discredit the gradualist school of thought, because they share many premises in common with each other. Instead, the focus should be placed on identifying the strengths and weaknesses of both arguments in terms of the fundamental difference concerning periods of stasis....
