Simpson misled Cheetham
david ford
_Science_ 267: 1421-2. The first two paragraphs:
In a 20-year debate about the pace of evolution,
paleontologist Alan Cheetham had always known
exactly where he stood. Since 1972, when Niles
Eldredge of the American Museum of Natural History
and Stephen Gould of Harvard University first proposed
their theory of punctuated equilibrium, some
paleontologists have argued that new species appear
suddenly in the geologic record, after millions of years
of evolutionary stasis. But Cheetham, like many of his
colleagues, thought differently. As a student of the
renowned evolutionary paleontologist George Gaylord
Simpson, Cheetham had learned that a species changes
gradually, through millions of years of natural
selection-- Darwin's survival of the fittest-- until it
is so different that it constitutes a new species.
That's the pattern he expected to confirm when he began
an exhaustive study of the filigreed remains of corallike
animals known as bryozoa, hoping to determine the pace
at which new species had appeared during the past 15
million years. But Cheetham, who works at the
Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural
History, was in for a surprise. "I came reluctantly to the
conclusion," he says, "that I wasn't finding evidence for
gradualism." What Cheetham did see, again and again,
was individual species persisting virtually unchanged
for millions of years and then, in a geologic moment
lasting only 100,000 years or so, giving rise to a new
species.
Ghiselin, Michael T. 1989. _Intellectual Compromise: The
Bottom Line_ (NY: Paragon House), 226pp.
Paragraphs on 136 and 137:
It has been said that scientists always protect their own
interests by being constantly on guard against what
might turn out to be sloppy or even dishonest work.
This is certainly a valid point, but it has to be qualified
in certain important respects. One of these is what may
be called the "emperor's new clothes situation," which
tends to make me believe that there is considerable merit
to the social constructionist view of science. Sometimes
a scientist gets into a position of generally recognized
authority, so that not only do his views get accepted
uncritically, but even facts that conflict with them get
discounted. Such a personage can do a great deal of
harm, even if driven by the purest of motives. Error is
not corrected until something unusual happens that
overcomes the inertial resistance to change.
....
While still a graduate student I read George Gaylord
Simpson's _Principles of Animal Taxonomy_. I
assumed that the parts I could not understand were due
to my lack of background and experience. Soon
thereafter I reread the same work, and it began to fall to
pieces. I began to call attention to Simpson's errors, and
this perhaps explains his hostility to my work on
Darwin. But it was a long time before I was willing to
come right out and say in print that Simpson's
philosophy of taxonomy was one long series of blunders
from beginning to end. Simpson, after all, had received
credit for the paleontological aspect of the synthetic
theory. A more critical attitude toward Simpson's work
has lately become fashionable, and it is hard to say what
the ultimate verdict will be. A couple of my friends
despise Simpson because they were assigned his works
for reading as undergraduates, and suffered because they
could not make sense out of them.
Compare with Cheetham's comment
G&E, in Students Refusing to Eat the Rotting Synthefish
http://tinyurl.com/y83c
my own indigestion with the Synthefish
http://tinyurl.com/y84x
Frank Reichenbacher
"david ford" <dfo...@gl.umbc.edu> wrote in message
news:b1c67abe.03120...@posting.google.com...
Simpson did not mislead anyone. If you knew anything substantive about the
debate, you would know that the upshot is that both sides can be right.
Species do change in small increments over time, and species do evolve
relatively suddenly after long periods of apparent stasis. In *no* scenario
does evolution happen in the few thousand years claimed by cretinists like
you.
How does this verify the implication that he 'mislead' anyone? All it says
is that, if you look closely you will find that some of his work was bad. So
what? The theory of evolution is way beyond depending on the quality of any
one scientist's work.
Frank
Thomas H. Faller
Therefore, the scientific method is wrong and we must rely on
the authoritative pronouncements of the relevant leaders.
Get a grip on reality, David.
Tom Faller
Rip
If you think Simpson got it wrong, wait until you read the one about
everything being created in 7 days. What a whopper that one is!
rich hammett
> ....
> While still a graduate student I read George Gaylord
> Simpson's _Principles of Animal Taxonomy_. I
Simpson, eh? I'll remember that name!
rich
--
-to reply, it's hot not warm
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\ Rich Hammett http://home.hiwaay.net/~rhammett
/ "Better the pride that resides in a citizen of the world;
\ than the pride that divides
/ when a colorful rag is unfurled."
John Wilkins
> In talk.origins david ford <dfo...@gl.umbc.edu>
> sanoi, hitaasti kuin hämähäkki:
> > ....
> > While still a graduate student I read George Gaylord
> > Simpson's _Principles of Animal Taxonomy_. I
>
> Simpson, eh? I'll remember that name!
>
> rich
You should - he was an amazing man, but he was wrong on a number of
issues (and he admitted as much during his career). This book is the
last gasp of the so-called "natural" taxonomy tradition (Mayr is, of
course, still gasping) in which overall similarity is the basis for
classification. At the time the book was highly influential, but in no
small measure because it spurred the later cladistics debates; Simpson
presented a useful target much the way Lyell did for Darwin and Wallace.
--
John Wilkins
DARK IN HERE, ISN'T IT?
wilkins.id.au
gen2rev
<bubba...@warmmail.com> wrote in <vt9r2k9...@corp.supernews.com>:
> In talk.origins david ford <dfo...@gl.umbc.edu> sanoi, hitaasti kuin hämähäkki:
> > ....
> > While still a graduate student I read George Gaylord
> > Simpson's _Principles of Animal Taxonomy_. I
>
> Simpson, eh? I'll remember that name!
Excellent...
> rich
Doc Smartass
> Subject: Simpson misled Cheetham
Dammit, I hoped you'd be talking about Homer Simpson.
Thanks for nothing.
--
Dr. Smartass
BAAWA Knight of Heckling -- a.a. #1939
Dissent is not a right.
It is a RESPONSIBILITY.
--me.
Dana Tweedy
John Wilkins
You'd think, with my kids being Simpsons devotees, that I would
recognise every possible line. I missed this one. Next time I will
listen to my heart, and not the voices in my head.
rich hammett
> Dana Tweedy <twe...@cvn.net> wrote:
No, John, I liked your answer, too. And until you wrote this,
I thought you had recognized the reference.