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Notes:
This chart illustrate the concept of “abrupt appearance” followed by “stasis” (no change), which is the predominate finding in the fossil record. Creatures appear fully-formed when first found in the oldest rocks and tend to vary very little over the course of time until they either disappear from the fossil record (become extinct) or are still present today.
Because the fossil record shows abrupt appearance and stasis, the evolutionary theory of “punctuated equilibrium” was developed by Gould and Eldredge for speciation, which basically says that we don’t see evolution in the fossil record because it happens fast (in the evolutionary timescale, which can still mean a few million years) in small isolated groups. It is an argument from lack of evidence. Abrupt appearance and stasis is what the creation model would predict.