I've done more research than I would care to admit over the last few days, and I have come to some conclusions regarding some matters that have yet to be raised in this thread. I don't really have time to go into them at the moment as the explanations are approaching essay like proportions.
So, here's the thing.
At the time the new synthesis came into being, it came about, basically, because of Mendels genetics. All of a sudden, population genetics and similar studies were the new kids on the block and the kings of the table, meanwhile, Geology, and paleontology were the poor kids feeding off the scraps at the table. Nobody was interested in what stratigraphy, and specifically fossilized marine invertebrates had to say.
In those fields, basically, we had assemblages that extended tens of millions of years and were global in distribution. This evidence, they felt, was being largely ignored by the others, because it was widely regarded that the fossil record was too incomplete to be of any use. The paleontologists, more or less, wandered off and developed their own field, paleo biology. One of the things they noted, was that in their assemblages of marine bivalves, things would happen like... You would have Inoceramus labiatus, and you would have Inoceramus dungveganensis. It was clear, especially when compared with (for example) Inoceramus steenstrupi that there was a progression. There were certain morphological features relating to things like the morphology of the growth rings, and the shape of the shell, that showed a clear progression, with an equally clear stratigraphic progression.
All without intermediate forms.
To put it another way.
Morphologically and stratigraphically there is no intermediate between Inoceramus dunveganensis and Inocermaus labiatus.
They found this problematic, I gather, because they took from the new synthesis that there should be an intermediate form between these two that overlapped stratigraphically and shared morphological features with both. So they developed the field of paleobiology.
It was in this context, from what I have been able to gather, that the hypothesis of punctuated equilbrium was first formulated. The argument then became one of reductionism versus holism. Some (for example Gould) argued that macroevolution and microevolution were seperate processes, some argued that macroevolution was reducible to microevolution. At the time there were 4 dimensions recognized to evolution 1:Genetics; 2
evelopment; 3: All possible Phenotypes; 4:The adaptive filter. The debate that was had was whether macroevolution was, like microevolution, a manifestation of these four dimension, or a fifth dimension in its own right.
These days, as I understand it, things have changed. After a 'bit of a to-do' in the eighties, that started with the conference and was aggravated by some papers published by Gould at the same time, the people at the big-boys table started paying more attention to paleobiology and paleontology. It wasn't easy, it wasn't pretty, at times it was even ugly, but now paleontology and paleobiology are equal partners at the bigboys table instead of feeding on crumbs at the kiddies table.
That, however, is the context that Lewins news editorial must be considered in. It is an overly enthuesiastic report written by a supporter of puntuated equilibrium at a time when paleobiology and paleontology were regarded as the poor country cousins with nothing serious to offer because everybody knows the fossil record is incomplete and therefore virtually useless, right?
