(RB)- It isn't quoted from anyone else or revised. It was quoted directly from you! FR quoted directly from you as well!

(D)- PP and I considers that as a leap of faith! :lol

(RB)-But let me answer your question, or rather, I shall attempt to rephrase it in such a way as to be reasonably intelligible. If I have misunderstood, please tell me!
How is it that evolution theorizes slow changes but catastrophes (punctuated evolution) need big ones?
In fact you see both. There are many examples of slow changes over time in things such as invertebrates, mollusks, plants, etc. But there are also big changes, where nature seems to "experiment" - after extinction events. Where do these big mutations suddenly come from?

(D)- “Stress” – Is that as extension to your question, or an answer to your question? :?

(RB)-Have you heard of hypermutation?

(D)- Yes, but only through the IE, I would consider the use of both words separately as in Hyper=accelerated, and Mutations=to point mutation (Hyper-mutation)!
I agree with “hypermutation” if you can accept the meanings, as rapid, point or 3D mutation. Let me explain why.
In the Whiptail’s evolvement into a asexual genetic makeup, I question that it is a leap of faith to let the similarities rest between the human species, and those of another evolved species. Both have arrived on the “macro”-evolutionary level. Both would seem to be subjected to gene-mutation on either level.
For things of the macro-evolutionary level are composed of things of the micro-evolutionary level, or of the genetic-reality of stored DNA!
I would be interested in an intelligent discussion of the DNA, sequence, but wordings such as “Where the organism to create changes deliberately shifts around segments of DNA?
That conversation might include the use of the word “Stress”, or perhaps more to the point “Toxic Stress on both the macro/micro levels”

Isn’t that what you are saying?

(RB)-That's one possible mechanism. Another is that creatures under stress are more likely to have mutations.
But changes in the DNA don't stop even in animals that don't seem to have changed physically for millions of years.
Mutations accumulate in the DNA over time (that's how the idea of "molecular clocks" works) - even if these do not appear as physical changes.
If an organism is adapted to it's surroundings, it can reach some sort of an equilibrium state.
Only a change in the environment or population will allow changes to manifest themselves.

(D)- I agree if you are limiting the discussion to the parent, but disagree when the offspring is involved.
This would seem to be the case with the whiptail lizard. The parents of the whiptail were not affected, and the genetic makeup of either went on to preserve the parents lineage, but the one birthday of the offspring did not reproduce the parents lineage, and did in fact, clone itself.
The babies of the clone reproduce clones, and not the species of either parent.

I only indicated that humans are subjected to the same environmental conditions as the whiptail’s parents, so why is it a leap of faith to suggest it could happen to humans.

Human life begins, with the zygote, and the zygote begins when a cell is formed, by the union of two, gametes, that kick starts the developing individual (human, or otherwise) produced from such a cell.

Where today’s “toxic” environments are producing hyper-mutations in the micro-world at an accelerated rate, it suggests to me, that the possibility is feasible, and the leap is from the micro-world to the macro-world, just one birthday away!

(RB)-I didn't doubt you over the lizards - for instance I know that crocodile young have their sex determined by the temperature of the eggs during incubation. However, I fail to see how reptilian examples can have any meaning in a discussion of human evolution, as that was how the question was phrased.

(D)- I hope we are in some kind of agreement that the original example was conducive to the aforementioned conversation between John, and myself!
For I wish to start another thread concerning the words that create us, connect us, and divide us at the same time. :)

Too, That thread would concern the developement of the awareness child that is the creation of the animals that become aware!