Is the blunderbuss a misleading visual metaphor for stasis and punctuated evolution?

Abstract

I discuss the usefulness of the so-called \"blunderbuss pattern\" of phenotypic evolution as a visual metaphor for stasis and punctuated evolution that was originally put forward in Uyeda et al. (2011) in their highly influential paper \"The million-year wait for macroevolutionary bursts\". I argue the blunderbuss pattern is not surprising, and in some cases it is misleading. I review several publications that cite Uyeda et al. (2011) that seem to be confused about the meaning of the pattern and what it implies. I do not critique the original analysis within Uyeda et al (2011), but show the blunderbuss pattern itself would be produced even when assuming a Brownian motion (completely gradual) model of phenotypic divergence. Finally, I discuss how the interesting results of the paper have been overlooked in favor of the surprisingly powerful, but also misleading visual metaphor of the blunderbuss.