Those who wish to discuss it may copy responses here.
I would like everyone to go slow and do a good job of the analysis. Do not confuse things more. Thanks.
Missing Links
This mainstream evolutionary biologists essentially admits there are no 'missing links' and says change happened suddenly...
"No Missing Link? Evolutionary Changes Occur Suddenly, Professor Says"
EXCERPTS:
"Jeffrey H. Schwartz, University of Pittsburgh professor of anthropology in the School of Arts and Sciences, is working to debunk a major tenet of Darwinian evolution. Schwartz believes that evolutionary changes occur suddenly as opposed to the Darwinian model of evolution, which is characterized by gradual and constant change. Among other scientific observations, gaps in the fossil record could bolster Schwartz's theory because, for Schwartz, there is no "missing link."
"...However, it is not only the current molecular theory that intrigues Schwartz, but the failure of the scientific community to question an idea that is more than 40 years old: "The history of organ life is undemonstrable; we cannot prove a whole lot in evolutionary biology, and our findings will always be hypothesis. There is one true evolutionary history of life, and whether we will actually ever know it is not likely. Most importantly, we have to think about questioning underlying assumptions, whether we are dealing with molecules or anything else," says Schwartz."
Moderator initiated topics is something I've been interested in encouraging moderators to do, but I wanted to have a PAF discussion about how we should approach it first, but as long as you've kicked this off already my suggestions would be:
State that you're beginning a topic that you intend to moderate.
Clearly identify and describe the issue.
Identify what you believe to be the significant opposing positions on the issue.
Any comments about how best to approach this from you or the rest of the moderator team?
I was trying to save off topic discussions somewhere else and save our newbie some time.
Closed due to lack of interest.
You're not sensing lack of interest but lack of context. It sounds like this proposal is attempting to address some issue that came up recently in another thread or threads, or maybe with a specific member. Can you provide a link or more info?
Sounds like the latest in a long line of scientists quoted out of context by the media to fit their narrative of equal opposing consensuses.
So you say. How about actually showing how it is out of context?
You might do this by either showing the Schwartz wasn't saying what he is supposed to be saying or that he is but it doesn't matter as much as the poster thinks it does.
quote:Book Description This work provides a compendium of uniform descriptions and illustrations of fossils from all the major sites that document the human evolutionary past. It focuses on the documentation of morphology, the essential basis for all further analysis of human biological history. The fossils are presented site-by-site in alphabetical order, with each site entry containing the morphological description, fossil illustrations, information on location, history of discovery, previous systematic assessments of the fossils, geological, archaeological, and faunal contexts, dating, and references to the primary literature.
He is the lead author in the list, so it seems he has the creds.
I'm with Subbie here (who posted while I was composing... )
appearance of changes as opposed to the changes themselves
It looks at first blush like he's proposing something akin to PE, but believes that changes are even more abrupt than Gould theorized.
It seems that it is the appearance of change that he is questioning.
From reading all of the links provided so far, it appears that what he is proposing is that while change (ie: mutation of parts of the DNA source) happen fairly regularly, that those changes might be suppressed during most periods, only to be expressed during periods of high stress.
If that is actually what he is saying, I'd hazard that it is a reasonable addition as opposed to a revolution, of the process.
It looks at first blush like he's proposing something akin to PE, but believes that changes are even more abrupt than Gould theorized.
That was the impression that I got, too. I was going to say this on mpb's thread before it got ruled off-topic, so I'll say it here:
The fossil record shows a tremendous number of transitional fossils demonstrating macroevolution, but very few "missing links" that demonstrate microevolution -- but who cares, since creationists accept microevolution anyway?
I'm going to repeat Dr. Theobald's ape-to-human picture:
Now, if someone can accept that microevolution can produce all of the different felines from a single "cat kind" (as creationist baramology advocates), then that someone shouldn't have any trouble seeing how microevolution can proceed from one of the stages shown to the next.
What is missing in many lineages are sequences showing the slow, imperceptible gradations from one species to another predicted by the strictest model of traditional Darwinism. Punctuated Equilibrium expains why we see this pattern, and Schwartz seems to be advocating a particular mechanism for this.
However, macroevolution is clearing indicated in the fossil record. Not only do transitional forms exist in abundance that are clearly related to earlier species, but all the known species exist on the standard phylogenic tree predicted by common descent.
We see sequences of different species, A-B-...-H, where each species is clearly related to the preceding species, and where it is not a stretch to imagine microevolving from one species to the subsequent one. Yet A is clearly a different taxon from H, and indication of macroevolution. B, C, D, ..., G are all transitionals, and they all exist -- people have held them in their hands and described them.
The missing links are between A and B, between B and C, and so forth. But these missing links shouldn't pose a problem to those who accept microevolution since the differences between A and B are so small.
quote:Maresca, Bruno and Schwartz, Jeffrey H. (2006) "Sudden Origins: a general mechanism of evolution based on stress protein concentration and rapid environmental change." The Anatomical Record, Part B: The New Anatomist, Vol. 289B: 38-46.
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