The Lightning and the Sun
wis...@yahoo.com
Friend and foe agree that Devi's book is most significant.
ted
climber
There is a very large website about her writings and political
activity.
Climber
climber
R.Dean
with punctuated equilibrium in an effort to resolve an uncomfortable
paradox. What was this ""uncomfortable paradox"?
The appearance of stasis (lack of change) in the fossil record. From
their paper*:
"The empirical distribution of evolutionary tempos is as fundamental a
datum to our profession as amounts of variability are to geneticists.
Yet, just as geneticists could only identify variable traits,
paleontologists have worn blinders that permit them to accumulate
cases in one category only: they have sought evidence of slow, steady
and gradual change as the only true representation of evolution in the
fossil record. Two other classes of information were explained away or
simply ignored:
1 ) morphological gaps in stratigraphic sequences - which might have
suggested a punctuational view of evolution - were attributed to
imperfections of the fossil record;
2 ) evolutionary stasis, though recognized by all and used by
stratigraphers in the practical work of our profession, was ignored by
evolutionists as "no data."
And how did their theory resolve the problem?
Their theory proposed an explanation for what they perceived as the
problem. From the abstract:
"We believe that punctuational change dominates the history of life:
evolution is concentrated in very rapid events of speciation
(geologically instantaneous, even if tolerably continuous in
ecological time). Most species, during their geological history,
either do not change in any appreciable way, or else they fluctuate
mildly in morphology, with no apparent direction. Phyletic gradualism
is very rare and too slow, in any case, to produce the major events of
evolution. Evolutionary trends are not the product of slow,
directional transformation within lineages; they represent the
differential success of certain species within a clade - speciation
may be random with respect to the direction of a trend
Stasis is seen by G & E as data. This is reality - this is _fact_.
This fact is seen by G & E as an "uncomfortable paradox": an incongruity
between Darwin's theory and observations found in the earth's strata.
Their resolution is only a hypothesis. Stasis is a
fact.
Stasis and the pattern of the record that was known even before G & E.
However, since stasis was not expected or predicted by Darwin's theory,
it did not receive much attention. Indeed, stasis was seen in the strata
for more than a century, but scientist searching for evidence which
would confirm Darwin's theory saw stasis as "no data for evolution" and
rarely publish anything about their primary observation.
It's certain that Darwin knew about stability. He was made aware of it
by his critics. He spent considerable effort addressing stasis in his
1859 edition. But in his desire to document change, he was unconfortable
with stability and saw it in species as an unwelcome detail. The
overwhelming reality of stasis shows to a considerable extent the fossil
record does not accord well with the predictions of evolution.
Stasis means stability, unchanging, immutable. Evolution OTOH if it
means anything it means change, modification, transmutation
.
This fact motivated Stephen J Gould and Niles Eldredge find an
explanation for the pattern in the fossil record. In Gould's words: "For
several years Niles Eldredge, of the American Museum of Natural History,
an I have been advocating a resolution of this uncomfortable paradox".
see Gould, The Pandas Thumb, 1980, pg. 182
What G&E offered was punctuated equilibrium. Two things one should note:
the "paradox" they spoke of is:
1) the pattern seen in the fossil record, which is FACT.
2) punctuated equilibrium their resolution is THEORY.
Even though Darwin was made aware of the nature of the fossil record, by
his critics after he published his first edition.
See Eldredge, 1995, pg 67, 131
"He vastly preferred his original picture of gradual, even progressive
change".
See Eldredge, Reinventing Darwin, 1995 pg.67
The stark reality is" his theory did _not_ predict stasis, the "most
cardinal and dominant fact of the fossil record".
Gould Punctuated Equalibrium 2007 Post mortem, pg. 19
Most species appear abruptly in the earth's strata, followed by
long periods of stasis and then disappearance from the rocks looking
much the way they did when they first appeared. Furthermore, for more
than a century after Darwin, this fact was not widely published, this
known as publication bias. This "uncomfortable paradox" was observed by
paleontologist, while searching for evidence in support evolutionary
change, they saw stasis staring them in the face. But stasis was seen
"no data" for evolution and simply ignored. It rarely saw publication,
except in "summing up" articles.
See Gould pg 34 - 38
While I recognize that the fossil record is far from complete, but
absence of data or a poor fossil record does not explain away the fact
of stasis. Stasis is Data (Gould 2007 pg 31)
When a species first appears in the strata and countless years later,
often millions of years later, the species becomes extinct, looking
much the same as it did when it first appeared. This is conformation of
stability, but for a century this was hardly worth reporting.
Even more importantly, but troubling is the fact scientist searched for
evidence IN SUPPORT of Darwin's theory and ignored whatever data was
unexpected or contrary to expectations.
By using such methods, it's possible to "find" supporting evidence for
just about anything. And to no small degree, such tactics is responsible
for the success of the widespread acceptance of evolution
since the 1850s to the present.
It makes one wonder what else has been seen as "no data" for
evolution and ignored. Darwin offered a number of examples which had
been pointed out to him. One in particular that several paleontologist
had pointed out to him was the sudden appearance
of groups of allied species, including families and genera. He saw
this, if true was fatal to his entire theory.
He wrote: "....LONG before having arrived at this part of my work, a
crowd of difficulties will have occurred to the reader. Some of them are
so grave that to this day I can never reflect on them without being
staggered; but, to the best of my judgment, the greater number are only
apparent, and those that are real are not, I think, fatal to my theory.
These difficulties and objections may be classed under the following
heads: Firstly, if numerous species, belonging to the same genera or
families, have really started into life all at once, the fact would be
fatal to the theory of descent with slow modification through natural
selection.....
See Darwin on Line F373
The abrupt manner in which whole groups of species suddenly appear in
certain formations, has been urged by several palaeontologists--for
instance by Agassiz, Pictet, and Sedgwick, as a fatal objection to the
belief in the transmutation of species. If numerous species, belonging
to the same genera or families, have really started into life at once,
the fact would be fatal to the theory of evolution through natural
selection. For the development by this means of a group of forms, all of
which are descended from some one progenitor, must have been an
extremely slow process; and the progenitors must have lived long before
their modified descendants. But we continually overrate the perfection
of the geological record, and falsely infer, because certain genera or
families have not been found beneath a certain stage, that they did not
exist before that stage. In all cases positive palaeontological evidence
may be implicitly trusted; negative evidence is worthless, as experience
has so often shown. We continually forget how large the world is,
compared with the area over which our geological formations have been
carefully examined; we forget that groups of species may elsewhere have
long existed, and have slowly multiplied, before they invaded the
ancient archipelagoes of Europe and the United States. We do not make
due allowance for the enormous intervals of time which have elapsed
between our consecutive formations, longer perhaps in many cases than
the time required for the accumulation of each formation. These
intervals will have given time for the multiplication of species from
some one parent-form: and in the succeeding formation, such groups or
species will appear as if suddenly created.
www.classicreader.com/book/107/73/
Here again one can only wonder, what has since 1859 been passed up
as no data for evolution, and gone unrecorded.
I've uncovered some of a handful of references to the appearance
of whole groups, families, genera, but data is extremely rare.
Examples:
G.G. Simpson over half a century ago touched on this topic in his book.
"The Major Features of Evolution". 1953. But since the book is 58 years
old I will refrain from quoting from it.
But Eldredge more recently did discuss it.
"Most families, orders, classes, and phyla appear rather suddenly in the
fossil record, often without anatomically intermediate forms smoothly
interlinking evolutionarily derived descendant taxa with their presumed
ancestors."
Eldredge, 1989, Macro-Evolutionary Dynamics: Species, Niches, and
Adaptive Peaks, 1989, pg. 22.
Unfortunately, the origins of most higher categories are shrouded in
mystery; commonly new higher categories appear abruptly in the fossil
record without evidence of transitional ancestral forms.
D. M. Raup, and Stephen M. Stanley, 1971, Principles of Paleontology,
pg. 306.
"..one of the most striking and potentially embarrassing features of the
fossil record. The majority of major groups appear suddenly in the
rocks, with virtually no evidence of transition from their ancestors."
D. Futuyma, 1983, Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution, pg. 82.
So one can only wonder whether of not other such evidence has been found
and if so how would it be seen. Would it be seen as no evidence for
evolution: or would it be published? Can one doubt that if stability
and the real nature of the fossil record, had not been concealed, but
published would evolution or it's modern counterpart enjoyed the success
it has.
I am seriously contemplating creating a web page with the above, which
is little more than a Outline. I would document extensively, and expand
greatly.
I would entitle it Evolution, "THE PREDOMINANT AND CHARACTERISTIC
FEATURES OF THE FOSSIL RECORD - STABILITY OR EVOLUTIONARY CHANGE".
SUBTITLED: An Engineer Looks at Evolutionary Change.