Title: Punctuated equilibrium
Content: against phyletic gradualism, the idea that evolution generally occurs uniformly and by the steady and gradual transformation of whole lineages (called anagenesis). In this view, evolution is seen as generally smooth and continuous. In 1972, paleontologists Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould published a landmark paper developing their theory and called it "punctuated equilibria". Their paper built upon Ernst Mayr's model of geographic speciation, I. Michael Lerner's theories of developmental and genetic homeostasis, and their own empirical research. Eldredge and Gould proposed that the degree of gradualism commonly attributed to Charles Darwin is virtually nonexistent in the fossil record, and

Title: Stephen Jay Gould
Content: the theory of punctuated equilibrium, which he developed with Niles Eldredge in 1972. The theory proposes that most evolution is characterized by long periods of evolutionary stability, which is infrequently punctuated by swift periods of branching speciation. The theory was contrasted against phyletic gradualism, the popular idea that evolutionary change is marked by a pattern of smooth and continuous change in the fossil record. Most of Gould's empirical research was based on the land snail genera "Poecilozonites" and "Cerion". He also made important contributions to evolutionary developmental biology, receiving broad professional recognition for his book "Ontogeny and Phylogeny". In evolutionary

Title: Punctuated equilibrium
Content: of existing fossil data has shown, to the increasing satisfaction of the paleontological community, that Eldredge and Gould were correct in identifying periods of evolutionary stasis which are interrupted by much shorter periods of evolutionary change." Some critics jokingly referred to the theory of punctuated equilibrium as "evolution by jerks", which reportedly prompted punctuationists to describe phyletic gradualism as "evolution by creeps." The sudden appearance of most species in the geologic record and the lack of evidence of substantial gradual change in most species—from their initial appearance until their extinction—has , including by Charles Darwin who appealed to the imperfection

Title: On the Origin of Species
Content: to change slowly, but not at the same rate – some organisms such as "Lingula" were unchanged since the earliest fossils. The pace of natural selection would depend on variability and change in the environment. This distanced his theory from Lamarckian laws of inevitable progress. It has been argued that this anticipated the punctuated equilibrium hypothesis, but other scholars have preferred to emphasise Darwin's commitment to gradualism. He cited Richard Owen's findings that the earliest members of a class were a few simple and generalised species with characteristics intermediate between modern forms, and were followed by increasingly diverse and specialised

Title: History of zoology since 1859
Content: the gene-centered view (which held selection as the predominant cause of evolution) and the neutral theory (which made genetic drift a key factor) spawned perennial debates over the proper balance of adaptationism and contingency in evolutionary theory. In the 1970s Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge proposed the theory of punctuated equilibrium which holds that stasis is the most prominent feature of the fossil record, and that most evolutionary changes occur rapidly over relatively short periods of time. In 1980 Luis Alvarez and Walter Alvarez proposed the hypothesis that an impact event was responsible for the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. Also

Question: What is the name of the evolutionary theory suggesting that evolution has an uneven pace?
Answer: Punctuated equilibrium