Haven't we all?
Where is the equivalent of punk-eek on your spectrum?
Many E folk still say this is a valid portion of the ToE.
The gradient is an analogy.
But it isn't a bad one. Take a look at the width of the yellow band and compare it to the width of blue or red.
The fact hat some transitions take place faster than others does not mean they take place in one step.
The "rapid" transitions of punk eek would still involve thousands, or hundreds of thousands of generations.
As for anteaters and aardvarks -- gee, maybe you've found the silver bullet. Want to bet on it as more and more genomes are decoded?
It is posible to devise a test of the TofE given current technology. For example the TofE predicts that genetic similarities between species are more likely to be related to the timing of their last common ancestor than to their place in the economy of nature. Therefore if we pick 2 groups of mammals and predict DNA similar/different then test this with gene sequencing the TofE would have to make a prediction (since any genetic finding is compatible with ID the same would not be asked of it). No tricks here, all species meet the accepted definition of mammal as the females secrete milk and they all have hair on some part of their bodies at some point in their lives. Their putative fossil ancestors meet the criteria for mammals in having 3 ossicles and a single dentary bone for a mandible. In group #1 we’ll put the spiny anteater, the banded anteater, the scaly anteater, the giant anteater and the aardvark. In the second group we’ll put the arctic fox, the giant panda, the walrus, the mink and the tiger. The TofE would have to predict that the species in group #2 would be more closely related genetically. If this would turn out not to be the case perhaps evolution would’t be falsified but it would have recieved a serious injury to one of its key hypotheses.Source