... the fossil record grows, and more theoretical research is done, we will be able to more accurately asses the importance of Punctuated equilibrium as opposed to gradualism as the theory of speciation. There are many different definitions of the term 'species'. Creationists believe that species are discrete fixed entities, and that their form has not changed since their creation. Books such as Darwin's 'The Origin of the Species' discounted this theory and suggested that species evolved over time by the process of Natural Selection. Philosophers such as Lock and Leibniz believed that species are not real entities, but are constructs of the human mind, trying to impose order on organisms. Unlike creationists, such a Nominalist approach states that species are not discrete, but continuous, and that the term 'species' has no biological basis and that a species merely has its name to distinguish itself. The Phenetic species concept places the emphasis ...

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