“Unable to demonstrate an unbroken series of fossils showing transitional forms, paleontologists have attacked the concept of Darwinian gradualism...they suggest that gradualism should be replaced by “punctuated equilibrium”.”

- Plant Systematics; S.B. Jones, Jr. and A.E. Luchsinger, 1979

That means that evolution is not a gradual unfolding but that changes in organisms are results of the status quo being upset (punctuated) by random events such as floods, droughts, global warming, and war.