02-27-2003, 03:49 PM
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#12
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Contributor
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Deep in the heart of mother-lovin' Texas
Posts: 29,689
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In regards to his quote of Gould:
Quote:
Gould appears to have no illusions about the evidence for evolutionary succession in the geologic column when he says:
"I regard the failure to find a clear vector of progress in life's history as the most puzzling fact of the fossil record. (Natural History, Vol. 93, p. 23)."
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From here (W. R. Elsberry treating Morris' similar (mis)use of the quote):
Quote:
Date: Sat May 11 1996 23:52:04
On page 4, paragraphs 2 & 4, Morris says,
"No Order in the Fossils. Not only are there no true transitional forms in the fossils; there is not even any general evidence of evolutionary progression in the actual fossil sequences."
[...]
"I regard the failure to find a clear 'vector of progress' in life's history as the most puzzling fact of the fossil record.... we have sought to impose a pattern that we hoped to find on a world that does not really display it" (Stephen J. Gould, 1984).
First off, this quote does not address "order in the fossils", and is thus a non sequitur to Morris' heading.
I found the part up to the ellipsis under "Death and transfiguration", collected in "The Flamingo's Smile", page 241:
"I regard the failure to find a clear 'vector of progress' in life's history as the most puzzling fact of the fossil record. But I also believe that we are now on the verge of a solution, thanks to a better understanding of evolution in both normal and catastrophic times."
Morris' ellipsis covers two long paragraphs, neatly covering the immediate amelioration of the initial statement of Gould's. Further, my copy differs in the final line following the ellipsis:
"Heretofore, we have thrown up our hands in frustration at the lack of expected pattern in life's history -- or we have sought to impose a pattern that we hoped to find on a world that does not really acquiesce. If we can develop a general theory of mass extinction, we may finally understand why life has thwarted our expectations -- and we may even extract an unexpected kind of pattern from apparent chaos. The fast track of an extraordinary meeting in Indianopolis may be pointing the way."
Gould's "but" involves the interaction of punctuated equilibria and mass extinctions, where strategies of easy speciation and specialization may be favored by PE, but rarer speciation, generality, and wider distribution are favored by mass extinctions. Mass extinction, writes Gould, can reset many of the adaptive gains made in various lineages by elimination of those lineages.
Gould illustrates by mentioning the trilobite eye as being unsurpassed in arthropods for "complexity or acuity". By saying that there is no clear "vector of progress", Gould is talking about the fact that extant arthropods haven't adapted more complex or acute eyes -- not that there was no progress involved in getting to the state seen in trilobite eyes.
Finally, let's consider Gould actually discussing "order in the fossils":
"But life regulated by history still has order -- firm, ineluctable, definite, testable pattern. Its order is the topology of its proper metaphor -- the tree of life. Its order is genealogy, connection by branching and descent. [...]"
[End quote -- S.J. Gould, "The rule of five", In: TF'sS, p. 210]
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