Question

Niles Eldredge found evidence in trilobite fossils of a pattern of evolution in which short periods of large change are mixed in with longer periods of little or no change. This pattern is called what

Answer 1

Punctuated Equilibrium. Championed by the late Stephen Jay Gould, this kinda makes sense if you think about it. basically, it just says that if there's no major evolutionary pressure to change (i.e., evolve) on a particular population, that population will pretty much stay the same. In other words, evolution is VERY not-proactive, and cannot "evolve" to meet future circumstances.