Oolon Colluphid

These are both areas I’m still working on (which is the bluffer’s way of saying I don’t know much about it ). I too would have thought that palaeontology was bound to generally work at larger scales than within-species. (I guess that’s what you mean by microscopic? -- sure there are actual microscopic fossils in fine enough sediments, and changes in eg the minute teeth of carpolestids (early primates, or maybe a side group ) need a microscope to be seen.) Most fossils are so incomplete as to only be ascribable to family level (eg with many Eocene-Oligicene bird fossils). The fossil record rarely lets us see really close up.


Hence, to me, another problem with punk eek. On the one hand, allopatric speciation (where an isolated population evolves elsewhere from its original gene pool -- think Galapagos tortoises) is bound to sometimes lead to an apparent sudden change in what’s found in a place, if the old homeland is invaded by these descendants that prove more successful. But allopatric speciation is hardly a new idea linked to PE.

On the other, assuming that gaps and jumps in the fossil record require some extra bit of theoretical kit to explain them is doing exactly what creationists do -- something new appears, so it must have been created (cf ‘there must have been a punctuation event&#8217 .

But a gap doesn’t mean there must not have been anything there, hence creation; given the resolution with which palaeontology can look at change, we’d have to be very lucky to see anything below genus level. The point being that, when we are that lucky, what we see is pretty smooth changes, not sudden jumps. We see this from carpolestid teeth to the Phacops trilobite Gould (I gather) first noticed PE in. Hence punk eek explains nothing new, other than to put a slightly different spin on what was already thought. All it attacks is what Dawkins has termed ‘constant speedism’, which no-one really thought to be the case anyway.

‘We get periods if stasis and periods of rapid change’ is banal, not some great revelation. The PE says that gaps are there because that’s how nature works. But when we can see into the gaps, what we see is good ol’ Darwinian gradualism. Maybe that’s a misrepresentation of what PE is about, but it’s based on how it has been presented... At best, PE is a shift of emphasis, but unlike ‘selfish genes’, it doesn’t make you see the world differently, what it leaves this reader with is the impression of a light breeze in a very small teacup. Add to this the fact that in pushing this hardly seismic idea, Gould has aided creationism through the emphasis on gaps and seeking an (ad hoc-looking) additional rule to explain them: like we didn’t know there were gaps, but the existence of gaps is irrelevant because all the evidence we do have fits evolution... why else would we think there’s a link between relevant fossils? Creationists have a God of the Gaps in the fossil record; punk eek is a Theory of the Gaps.

Back to the question... ethology is the branch of biology concerned with animal behaviour. Since ‘behaviour’ only really gets interesting in macroscopic animals, yeah, it’s pretty much not concerned with the really little critters . And since it’s a bit hard to spot behaviour in a bone or fossil, yeah, it’s only to do with living creatures .

(Sure, you can interpolate behaviour from bones and fossils, but it’s not quite the same thing... erm... I suppose... Is there such a thing as palaeoethology?)

Cheers, Oolon

Oolon Colluphid

Sorry, your info is thirty-five years out of date

From <a href="http://www.freethought-web.org/ctrl/gould_biography.html" target="_blank">here</a>:

“When five-year-old Stephen Jay Gould first marveled at the towering Tyrannosaurus skeleton in the American Museum of Natural History, he decided to spend his life studying fossils. Although few children in Queens, New York, shared his early fascination for evolution, he never considered any other career but paleontology.

Now professor at Harvard University and curator of its Museum of Comparative Zoology, Gould attended Antioch College, then returned to Manhattan, for graduate work in paleontology at Columbia University. For his doctoral thesis he investigated variation and evolution in an obscure Burmudian land snail, anchoring his later theorizing in intense scrutiny of a single group of organisms, as Darwin had done with Barnacles.”

From <a href="http://encarta.msn.com/index/conciseindex/56/056B6000.htm" target="_blank">his Encarta entry</a>:

“Gould, Stephen Jay (1941- ), geology professor, paleontologist, philosopher of science, and author of books on evolution and the fallacies of biological determinism.”

From <a href="http://www.meta-library.net/bio/gould-body.html" target="_blank">here</a>:

“Palaeontologist and writer - Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology and Professor of Geology at Harvard.”

From <a href="http://www.thelavinagency.com/bio/index.cfm?sid=104" target="_blank">here</a>:

“Dr. Stephen Jay Gould is a Professor of Geology and Zoology at Harvard University and is curator for invertebrate palaeontology at the University's Museum for Comparative Zoology.”

From <a href="http://www.annonline.com/interviews/961009/biography.html" target="_blank">here</a>:

“He graduated from Antioch College and received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1967. Since then he has been Professor of Geology and Zoology at Harvard University. He considers himself primarily a palaeontologist and an evolutionary biologist, though he teaches geology and the history of science as well.”

So yeah, he did study snails... for his doctoral thesis. Are you sure you’re not confusing him with that other evolutionary Steve, <a href="http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/jones.html" target="_blank">Steve Jones</a> (author of Darwin’s Ghost (aka Almost Like a Whale)? He really is a snail specialist.

Ref the rest of what you wrote, thanks for the clarification. So, fair enough, but still, so what? What additional information does PE reveal that wasn’t already obvious?

To parallel the fact and theory line we use on evolution itself, PE is a fact... and something already well known. The theory to explain it is... uh... straightforward Darwinian RM&NS. It’s been shown that natural selection tends to stabilise a population in a stable environment; tweak the environment and changes ensue. The remainder is simple allopatric speciation, which Darwin himself recognised. Nothing else is on offer to explain PE, and nothing else is needed. Unless of course (as they used to say on That’s Life) you know different!

Cheers, Oolon

bluefugue

I think Dawkins would say -- er, I think he has said, somewhere in Climbing Mt. Improbable -- that junk DNA can be explained by natural selection. Junk DNA is parasitic DNA that is good at getting itself copied, that has adapted to existing in the genome of an organism, etc. Natural selection doesn't favor it because it helps the organism's survival -- it favors it because it helps its own survival. This ties into Dawkins' "gene's-eye" view of natural selection, in which he perceives an individual organism as a collection of genes that have adapted well to one another.

Oolon Colluphid

Just to pick a nit, the genome is the collection of genes that have adapted well to each other: genes for meat digestion in the same genome as those for sharp teeth, sprinting ability and camoflaging colouration. An individual organism is the vehicle; a body is a genome's way of passing on the genes. All part of the 'long reach of the gene' idea (good chapter title, can't remember just now which book ).

Oolon the Dawkinsian

bluefugue

Well, yeah, but you know what I mean. By the way, I think "The Long Reach of the Gene" was in the updated (1989) version of The Selfish Gene, but that chapter was, I gather, just a digest of what Dawkins wrote in The Extended Phenotype.

[ February 12, 2002: Message edited by: IesusDomini ]</p>

Oolon Colluphid

I imagined you would know really

I'm embarrassed to say I've not read to the end of the second edition yet. I read the first edition in about 1984, and Watchmaker when it came out. I suppose I ought to, if I'm to comment here...

Cheers, Oolon

Quetzal

Didn't say I agreed with Gould. Hmph. I'm much more on the Dawkin's end of the continuum. I personally think Gould has consistently overstated his case, especially with PE and the Cambrian radiation. My main problem with PE is that it doesn't take into consideration (observed in modern species) habitat tracking, among other explanations for the seeming "choppiness" of the fossil record upon which Gould basis his whole theory.

I'm with Oolon: my reaction to most of Gould's theories is, "Yeah, we knew that. So?"

bluefugue

Well I suppose if you've read "The Extended Phenotype," then you already know all of what Dawkins said in the "long reach of the gene" chapter (and in greater detail). The previous chapter (the 1st of the two new ones in the 1989 edition), "Nice Guys Finish First," is worth reading too though -- a good precis of the evolution of altruism by way of game theory. But again, nothing you're not familiar with, I'm sure.

[ February 12, 2002: Message edited by: IesusDomini ]</p>

deddogg

Whoa! I think this thread just went through a punctuated equilibrium event! I check it, and there is nothing new and come back later and its more than doubled!

Liquid, I look forward to the remainder of your post.

Morpho, yes, I think this topic is now on the clearer end of the mud spectrum for me. I am learning a lot though, so it is worth my time! I appreciate your input.
I understood that Gould's complexity theories are an area of contention, but why exactly is that? Please excuse my newbie-ness. Is it only a contention with Dawkins school of thought or is it something bigger than that?

Oolon, I am curious about the gap situation with creationists. Is that really the only argument they have besides the fallacy that Liquid cleared up for me previously? If so, why does there not appear to be a change in the debate? That would seem to be a major defeat, to me, if you can answer their single, main objection, right?

Oh yes, I think what I really meant was: Is DNA in the palaeontology jurisdiction? (or ethology for that matter as well) I imagine they must deal with it but are they experts in the matter?

BTW, I think there is such a thing as palaeoethology, its called Jurassic Park 1, 2, and 3.

[ February 12, 2002: Message edited by: deddogg ]</p>

bluefugue

Creationists have lots of arguments (whether those arguments are any good is another matter). And they will never admit defeat because, for one thing, they have a political and religious stake in the outcome of the debate. In general, their underlying objection to Darwinism is not that it is bad science (though obviously they do attack it on those grounds), but that it fosters a materialist/atheist philosophy in public schools which they see as corrosive of their Christian heritage and indeed of the very fabric of human morality.