Criticizing neo-Darwinism

I am not sure this example elucidates process of origin of new Orders. As far as I can judge forams belong to one Order and what they observed was speciation within the Order.One of the best critic of darwinism on my opinion who summarized antidarwinian thoughts is John Davison and he did so in his Manifesto. He expressed also this interesting view elsewhere:

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It is perfectly possible that life originated as many times as there are Orders of animals and plants.

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It struck me many times when reading about new mammalian Orders that they arouse no one know how and why and no one know exactly from what ancestors. Darwinists anyway agree that mammalian Orders arouse "abruptly". They use "adaptive radiation" or Yucatan meteorite catastrophy & empty niches or some tectonic events or other hypothesis to explain the phenomenon. Maybe it would be better to reconsider it again, because maybe "missing link" never existed as John Davison claimed and mammalian Orders aroused de novo, call it miracle.Quotation of John Davison:

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There may have literally been tens of thousands of either origins or, more likely, that many front loadings of a lesser number of original creations. The origin of life was a miracle, and thousands of miracles are no more miraculous than one.

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Also the following abstract fully support notion that mammalian Orders arouse abruptly and no one know how and why:

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Modern orders of mammals that appeared abruptly on northern continents coincident with the global warming event marking the Paleocene-Eocene boundary are hypothesized to have originated on the Indian subcontinent, but no relevant paleontological information has been available to test this idea.

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Geology, vol. 31, Issue 12, p.1097 Publication Date: 12/2003

Evolution proposes these niches were filled by the observed processes of descent with modification and natural selection. What processes do you believe filled these niches, what is the evidence for them, and have they ever been observed?You see, John Davison fails to convince anyone because he's unable to muster any evidence supporting his views. We don't accept an evolutionary framework because it's the one that appeals to us most. We accept it because it's the one best supported by the evidence. What evidence is it that causes you to believe that fully formed life can just pop into existence?It isn't evidence that persuades you, of course, but lack of evidence. Wherever the paleontological record is incomplete, ambiguous or blank, creationists step in and write whatever particular ideas they feel are most compatible with their religious beliefs. Unable to develop a rational answer, ancient man looked at lightning and said "God", and in the same way creationists now look at gaps in the paleontological record and puzzling microbiological processes and proclaim "God". This isn't science but surrender of the intellect to the unknown.In order to get their ideas into science classrooms, creationists usually make every effort to characterize their views as true science, and faux paus such as miracles and other "rabbit out of hat" solutions to scientific puzzles work against these efforts since they're an admission that the views aren't scientific at all. Resort to miracles is simply an admission that you have no scientific evidence, and therefore no scientific view. In fact, if you continue pursuing miraculous intervention as a solution, then you should be taking your arguments to the religious forums. The science forums are for discussion of views that have a scientific foundation, except for the [forum=-11] forum, where arguments can be advanced challenging ideas like naturalism and so forth.--Percy

New "orders" always started as new species with little to remark them from sibling species. That is the way branching structures grow -- at the ends of the existing branches.What you don't seem to get (among several aspects of evolution and biology, etc.) is that "orders" are really a figment of human thinking and nothing more. They are a product of a dated way of thinking of the world. Lineaus pre-dates Darwin's theory after all.Enjoy.

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Neither you have the evidence that opposite happened. At least I have never heard about an experiment showing how ancient fish transformed by natural selection into homo sapiens. Yet that doesn't mean if somebody at those ancient time claimed that lightning arose via chance (random mutation) he had more scientific view, don't you think? The name of this forum is Evolution versus creation. So I don't see reason why not to discuss here exactly such issues. Btw. I am not convinced - as well as Karl Popper once - that darwinism is science.

I don't think this is what you really meant to say. Obviously there is evidence, you've been using the fossil record as evidence yourself. What you're talking about is the interpretation of the evidence.When geological scientists of the past looked at the fossil record, Louis Agassiz was a famous example, they saw a record of sudden extinction and sudden creation. They concluded that a number of creation events must have taken place. Your views sound very similar to theirs.However, two significant things occurred that rebutted such thinking, at least in scientific circles. First, as the fossil record became more and more complete it became clear that more and more gaps in the fossil record were being filled. More and more of what appeared at first to be sudden creation gradually fell into a framework of relatedness to pre-existing life.The other significant event was the discovery of genetics, which formed the basis of heredity and provided a mechanism for change in species over time, the very process that Darwin introduced in Origin of Species without even knowing the mechanism behind it.So today we understand the processes behind of evolutionary change, and projecting those mechanisms back onto an increasingly complete fossil record reveals a remarkable consistency with evolutionary theory. Novel fossils are discovered all the time, and never has anything been discovered that doesn't fit into an evolutionary framework.If God truly has been periodically popping creatures into existence fully formed, then he does so in a way fully compatible with evolution. Biological innovations never migrate between separate lineages, something God could certainly do. Why would God create an innovation for sharp eyesight for the hawk and not also give it to the lion? Evolution says this couldn't happen, of course, but God could make it happen. Yet somehow, things like this of innovations crossing lineage boundaries are never found.An even more severe problem for you is that there is no scientific evidence for the main actor in your scenario, God, and no evidence of what his powers actually are or how he actually operates.So that's why it's accurate for me to say that the evidence supports evolutionary theory and provides no support at all for a God-based approach. I'm not sure how to reply to this. Are you poking fun at evolution, or do you really not know that evolution believes fish are immensely distant evolutionary cousins of humans. The split between fish and land life took place some 300-400 million years ago. Combined with your previous paragraph, I'm beginning to wonder if we're having a serious conversation here. This forum exists because creationists want treatments of evolution reduced and treatments of creationist views added in public school science classrooms. In order to accomplish this goal, creationists have made significant efforts over a number of decades to convince the public that their views are scientific. To this end they removed God from creationism, called it creation science, and tried to pass laws requiring its inclusion in public school science curriculums. These efforts were struck down by the courts, and so creationists tried to distance themselves even further from Biblical accounts with Intelligent Design, which makes no claims about the intelligent agent and which makes no claims based upon the Bible.So this site exists to examine the claim that creationism is science. If you simply want to concede that it isn't science and that it is just Christian beliefs from the Bible, that's fine by me.--Percy

But the reality is little different. It was Darwin's idea that evolutionary process is gradual. Fossil records should only prove the idea (like all mimics should have "survival advantage" in case of darwinian idea of mimicry. In darwinism there is always postulated first idea and reality should accomodate aftewards.). It is also not very correct that gaps in the fossil record were being filled. If it was correct than Eldredge and Gould wouldn't conceive "punctuated equilibrium" hypothesis. I take it for granted (from Gould's Pandas thumb book as well) that many new organisms showed up in geological columns abruptly. And never could be. Any hypotheticaly weird organism that would appear would fit into darwinian schema. See platypus. Have darwinists any problem with such curious creature? Not at all. If there are striking similarities between skulls of unrelated sabretooth species
in South America there is omnipotent explanation - Natural selection shaped it so. But obviously Natural selection has no problem endow hawk with sharp eyesight and bats with sonars. But according darwinism the common ancestor of homo sapiens and nowadays carp is an ancient fish, isn't it? My point is mainly that (neo)darwinism is wrong. That there is concept claiming that Natural selection is no way evolutionary force and that Natural selection as well as sexual selection only maintain status quo of extant species removing extremities.It is very bald assumption of darwinism that from some observation showing small changes (like change of beaks length in finches) we can extrapolate that homo sapiens evolved from ancient fish via similar changes. Edited by MartinV, : sabretooth added

Actually, the reality is just as I've described it. Evolution is a gradual process of accumulated change. We observe it all the time. Every time a cell divides a small number of errors are created. It is the accumulated errors over long time periods combined by their pruning by natural selection that is evolution. Projecting this process backwards in time is consistent with the fossil record. Understanding this is fundamental to understanding evolution. If you don't believe that almost every reproductive events contains errors, if you don't believe that evolution as we understand it from the evidence in our possession does not allow sudden leaps, if you don't believe natural selection eliminates unfavorable changes, then you just don't understand evolution, and in that case it's no wonder that you continue to criticize evolution for things it doesn't say.Notice I didn’t say that evolution explains the episodic and incomplete nature of the fossil record, which has nothing to do with evolution. It is due to the unpredictable nature of fossilization. Almost all deceased animals very quickly end up as food for other life, even their bones, and anything left quickly succumbs to weathering and decay. Very few deceased creatures are the victims of a lucky accident (for paleontologists) that buries them quickly and preserves their bones, and sometimes but very rarely even some soft tissue, for millions of years. This is why a walk in the forest doesn’t find you climbing over huge piles of bones everywhere from decades, centuries and millennia ago.Fossilization is also a process confined primarily to lowland regions, and to lake, sea and ocean floors, because these are areas of net deposition of sediments. These are the regions where the products of erosion from upland regions are deposited. Fossilization almost never happens in upland regions, and for this reason the fossil record of life of upland creatures is almost entirely absent. You can no more conclude from the fossil record that upland creatures didn’t exist until a few thousand years ago than you can conclude that the sudden appearance of a creature in the fossil record means that the creature was suddenly created.Reconstructing evolutionary history from the fossil record is like trying to reconstruct a film of a parade from a bunch of randomly collected still photographs taken by onlookers. To conclude that the giant Snoopy balloon just popped into existence simply because in one picture he’s not there and in the next he is would not be a mistake anyone would make, and in the same way one can not assume that the sudden appearance of a creature in the fossil record is anything more than the record of a chance event that preserved a creature of this particular species for the first time. Sudden creation is a false conclusion that can only be reached if you falsely believe the fossil record is complete. This isn't true, either. Fossils of previously unknown species are being discovered all the time. While there is the occasional find of something uniquely new such as a species on a previously unknown twig or branch, for the most part most new fossil species fall into an area intermediate between already known species. And if you were anywhere near correct then Eldredge and Gould would agree with you, but they don't, so let me briefly explain why. There's a lot of details you're missing about the theory of punctuated equilibria, but the pertinent one here is that Eldredge and Gould did not conclude that the evidence supported sudden creation. Punctuated equilibria posits that species can experience long periods of relative stasis given a stable environment, such as was the case with triceratops for millions and millions of years in the western United States, but that environmental change combined with small population size could cause relatively rapid speciation in just some 10's of thousands of years, perhaps even less in some cases. 10,000 years is a very, very long time, but on geological time scales it is but an instant. The likelihood of individuals of a small species population in a narrow geographic region being preserved in such a short time period is small, and even smaller is the likelihood that any such fossils would happen to be discovered by paleontologists.So the view that Eldredge and Gould viewed the fossil record as evidence of sudden creation is incorrect. They only viewed it as evidence that relative stasis punctuated with occasional rapid change was more common than believed at the time. No, this would again be incorrect. For example, many creatures from mythology, if fossils of them were found, would disprove evolution, not support it. Winged horses, minotaurs, centaurs, griffins, the discovery of the fossils of any of these would be very strong evidence against evolution. That's why it is such strong evidence for evolution that no fossil has ever been discovered that did not fit into an evolutionary framework. Monotremes like the platypus are strong supporting evidence for evolution because they are intermediate between the reptilian ancestors of mammals and marsupial mammals. The very name monotreme refers to an anatomical peculiarity found in reptiles that the monotremes share.Now if we found an intermediate between mammals and birds living on some faraway island, that would not fit into an evolutionary framework and would be strong evidence against evolution. But we've never found such a thing. You've missed the whole point, which had nothing to do with different innovations in different creatures. The point was that God could provide a particular new innovation to any creatures that could make use of it, but for some reason he never did so. When complex eyes first appeared (eyes with focal ability and light intensity control), God could have given them to all creatures immediately, but he didn't. Unrelated lineages had to develop their own version of complex eyes gradually over millions of years. The appearance of complex eyes in any lineage only occurred after a long period of evolution, instead of suddenly appearing in all lineages everywhere simultaneously. Yes, of course, but what you originally said was, "At least I have never heard about an experiment showing how ancient fish transformed by natural selection into homo sapiens." Do you really believe that knowledge derives solely from designed experiments? Observation, data gathering, reconstruction, analysis, correlative studies, etc., all these play a major role in science, particularly sciences like cosmology and evolution. Yes, I know what your point is. And the problem with your point is that you have no evidence supporting you. In order to make your point you must show how the processes we understand so well today of replication with change combined with selection forces cannot produce the change observed in the fossil record. What makes evolution a science is that it is a theory consistent with the evidence, thsu giving it great explanatory and predictive power. If God were truly the creative force then we could expect to find literally anything in the fossil record, but we never do. Everything we find is consistent with evolution. You could just as ridiculously claim that it is a bald assumption that a glass falling by changing its position incrementally every microsecond will continue all the way to the floor. Once a finch species' beak has changed in size to become larger, what is to prevent evolutionary forces from causing a change to become larger yet again? Creationists denial of change but inability to present any mechanism preventing change is why their views never become accepted within scientific circles. And that's why creationists take their case not to scientists but to the lay public, which already believes in past lives, Bigfoot, UFOs, talking to the dead and Scientology, and so has no trouble believing anything creationists care to tell them.--Percy

You are almost right. Natural selection is a process which drives a population towards an evolutionarily stable state, where it then hovers in an equilibrium. However, if a part of that population moves into a different environment or if the environment changes (a new predator or volcanic island etc) then the fitness landscape for that sub-population will be different than the fitness landscape of the parent population. Therefore, the evolutionarily stable strategy for the sub-population differs from the parent population. Since natural selection drives a population towards the evolutionarily stable state (by trimming those extremities away), the sub population will evolve in a different 'direction' than the parent.Such processes occurring time and again lead to further and further divergence from the original equilibrium point.This is how punctuated equilibrium is essentially looked at - times when the fitness landscape remains largely constant outnumber the times when changes occur. Thus we see a history of mostly equilibrium punctuated by relatively shorter periods of change.It would be foolish to think fitness landscapes do not change - and every time one does natural selection will either trim the excesses away so that extinction occurs, or the survivors will be closer to the equilibrium as will their children (and the extremities here will be trimmed so the next generation either doesn't happen or is closer to the equilibrium).

I think I found out how Gould misused Nietzsche. I finally understood that Gould wanted to invoke Nietzche so that he could have a different and supposed by him better thought than J. Huxley. My grandfather always said that if someone thought they could get by with minimal activity under a high status quo they were wrong. Waddington earlier marked out the problem with Neo-D as one with only one common environment. The problem OF INTERPRETATION (and Percy’s etc . ) seems to be as when you as an organism, can react back and change the environment itself.Below is the general outline of a page I am working on on “vicariant time”, it may help to explain some of Percy’s comments.

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Is Macrothermodynamic rejuvenization the mechanism of vicariance and explanation of stasis as data within the width of a Croizat track?

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I will focus on three things. The shape phenomenological thermodyanmics imparts to a relation of ontogeny and phylogeny. Gould’s change in emphasis on punctuated equilibrium from the 1970s to the 2000s and the logic of Panbiogeography as it moved from strictly within the work of Leon Croizat to its current globalization. It will be subtly important to heed the rule that Immanual Kant had lectured on, back in about 1800, “With respect to the enlargement and demarcation of our knowledge, the following rules are to be recommended: -
1*. To Determine our horizon early, but yet not until we can determine it ourselves, which usually is not before the age of twenty.
2*. Not to change it easily and often (not to pass from one to another).
3*. Not to measure the horizon of others by our own, and not to regard that as useless which is not useful to us; it would be unreasonable to which to determine the horizon of others, since we do not sufficiently know either their capacities or their purposes.
4*. Neither to extend it too much, nor to limit it too much. For he who wants to know too much, in the end knows nothing; and on the other hand, he who thinks of some things that they do not concern him, often deceives himself; as for example, if the philosopher supposed that he could dispense with a knowledge of history.
5*. To determine previously the absolute horizon of the whole of the human race (in past and future times), and in particular
6*. To determine the place that our science takes in the horizon of all knowledge. [210] For this an Encyclopedia of science is serviceable, as a kind of map of the world of the sciences.
7*. In determining one’s own horizon, to examine carefully for what branch of knowledge one has the most ability and inclincation; what is more or less necessary in reference to certain duties, what is not compatible with necessary duties.
Lastly, 8*. To try always rather to enlarge our horizon than to narrow it.

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Does supramolecular information restrain vicariant form-making as an evolutionary constraint?

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4.4 Vicariant Form- making and Evolutionary Constraints (Grehan, Craw and Heads)

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“Vicariant patterns of spatial differentiation impose biogeographical constraints on the process of evolution. One implication o the reality of vicariant form-making to understanding evolution is that we must consider the possibility of processes that will allow an ancestor to change form over a wide geographic range and not at some specific point or center of origin. These processes will be more than an external influence such as natural selection because the evolutionary differeentiationa dn diversification has proceeded in the face of many different environements. Characters and taxa are not randomly distributed, but comprise main massingss of characters for individual taxa and spatial relationships shared by unrelated taxa in the form of standard or generalizaed tracks. These patterns suggest that biological significance of biogeographic constraints is not limited to the effects of local ecology on the fitness of individual populations. Biogeographic constraints imply a more general process of biological evolution involving mechanisms that are a consequence of biological processes that have been variously identified in evolutionary biology as morphological, biological, developmental , or phylogenetic constraints.”

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Does the quantification of macrothermodynmaics qualify to aggregate main massings of characters via downward causation from higher levels?? What is this system that unites these processes into a mechanism. Is it substance stability??

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Gould has revealed in one sentence a potential prejudice in the organon of his own instruction. Page 884-5

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“In summary, then, the assertion of predominant stasis in the geological history of most paleospecies - one of th two primary claims of punctuated equilibrium - has provoked an interesting debate in evolutionary theory, with implications for some of the most basic concepts and perspectives in our science. First, and if only as a comment about the contemporary sociology of science, the recognition of stasis as a norm of controlling relative frequency at the level of punctuated equilibrium (at least for conventional sexual species of Metzoa), has spurred general interest in phenomena of stability and non-change throughout other levels of evolutionary inquiry (see, for example Maynard Smith, 1983). We do not yet know ( see fuller discussion on pp.928 - 931) whether or rather how much, stasis across all scales might be attributed to structural similarity in nature’s materials and processes - thus rendering this common pattern as an interesting parallelism (to use our evolutionary jargon) with genuinely homologous causal elements across scales, rather than a fortuitous convergence of similar overt patterns for disparate and merely analogous reasons. But we stand at the threshold of such an inquiry.

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Second, and even more generally, the validation of predominant stasis as a norm would impel us to recast the basic problematic of evolution itself. If, following our conventional assumptions from Darwin to now, change represents the norm for a population through time, then our task, as evolutionary biologists, lies in specifying how this expected and universal phenomenon operates. But if, as punctuated equilibrium suggests, stasis represents the norm for most populations at most times; and if, moreover, stasis emerges as an active norm, not merely a passive consequence (as modeling of Jackons and Cheetham, 1995, strongly suggests in documenting stasis at too high a relative frequency for models based on neutralism, directional selection, or any set of assumptions that do not include some active force promoting stasis directly) - then evolutionary change itself must be reconceptualized as the infrequent breaking of a conventional and expected state, rather than as an inherent and continually operating property of biological materials, ecologies and populations.”

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Gould’s linguistics does not seem to phenomenalize the case that evolutionary change itself can be both a relatively infrequent breaking of a conventionally expected state and a continually operating property of biological reality because he uses the notion of parallel or orthogonal biological jargon at the place that proximate space consists of differences in association, commutativity, and distribution instead.

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Well back in the 70s, Georgi Gladyshev began publishing his polymer chemistry analogy as a model for evolutionary change in general. Since then the idea has become significantly qualified. In 2004, Dr. Gladyshev wrote,’The substantiation of the thermodynamic model of biological evolution (phylogenesis) and aging (ontogenesis) becomes possible due to the discovery of the law of temporary hierarchies and due to the development of basic ideas of the hierarchic thermodynamics. The selection (identification) of the quasi-closed thermodynamic and kinetic systems I the living world^4 allows one to study the biological evolution (on all hierarchic levels) and organisms againg which take into account the principle of minimization of the specific value of Gibbs(Helmholtz) function.”

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He gave a the description of his proposal quite extensive intensional detail, with (2004 p11) “The processes in the examined system resemble (model) the phenomenon of metabolism in the living system. This system (as a non-stationary one) is gradually transformed, becoming enriched with thermodynamically stable supramolecular structures. The latter are formed with predominant participation of chemically energy - intensive substances delivered to the system or formed in it ( as a result of a number of thermodynamically advantageous chemical reactions). The energy - intensive substances that accumulate in the system can, in principle, include various nucleotides, complex peptides and sugars, lipids, and some others. The chemical equilibrium constants of the formation of such compounds (e.g. from lower molecular substances reaching the system from solution) are usually quite small. However, this is not an obstacle to the accumulation of these substances in the system: sorbtion processes remove them from the “reaction zone” causing a shift of chemical equilibrium towards the formation of these compounds. Thus, “removing” the formed (as a result of chemical transformations) components from the reaction zone, thermodynamics of supramolecular interactions promotes a shift of non-advantageous chemical processes towards the formation of the reaction products mentioned above. When individual supramolecular structures are isolated, chromatin-type structures may , in principle, be formed due to the emergence of primitive membranes and other, complex supramolecular formations. These structures should remain in the system for a long enough period due to the high supramolecular stability.

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It is evident that the more stable a supramolecular structure, the longer it can survive in a system where metabolism takes place. Indeed nucleic acids (chromatin) form the most stale supramolecular structures in living organisms. This makes it possible to retain the genetic information accumulated in the course of evolution for a long time, passing it on through inheritance.”

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In extension GG said,
And in PRKM p 167 . (This example may help the reader believe in the effectiveness of the thermodynamic theory when ascertaining the direction of the evolution and development of living organisms)These products add”young chemical matter” to the biotissues, “building material” that corresponds to the xomposition of a young organism. In thermodynamic terms (and in thelight of known facts) , this rejuvenates the organism’s tissues. This is easy to see having analyzed the approximate equation - an analogue of Gibbs -Helmholtz .

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On the whole Macrothermodynamics (supply quote from into to PRKM”The existence of different time scales in the world of biological matter prompts ome conclusions on the interdependent . The prefix macro - in the term “Macrothermodynamics . ) results in an expected state of a relative slowing down of evolutionary change as a continually operating propery of biomaterials. If the aggregation process implicated conforms to panbiogeographic main massings within the width of standard track whatever the time scale then phenomenological thermodynamics (provide def from PRKM etc) can supply the discipline that synthesizes a hierarchic homology of translation in space and form making as both a mechanism of vicariance and explanation of stasis “as data”. As Zaraguata and and Cao code, the extraction of hierarchic homology where Gould asks of parallels is possible in geography delimiting the time frames that Gladyshev law operates. This (extra to be programmed row) was drawn by me here, in a prior time.

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Macrokinetics (Gladyshev) provides a framework to explore the full analysis of Z Z and C’s homologue symbol at Gould’s narration of orthogoncal and parallel no matter other data matrices””used in the work. The homologues become subject to massings of energy intensity aggregated. If the patterns of aggregations match biogeographic divisions vicariance, stasis, and the hierachic expansion of evolutionary theory may all survive with the same effect of the 1st 2nd laws of thermo and Gladyshev’s law. The difference of the symbol and homologue then needs its own atomic logic while Gould’s logic is shown to be overly divisive by using a partition wrongly instead of quantum mechanics.

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===================Partition=======================
After discussing order for free Gould writes,p1214 “ A Darwinian can argue that flexibility linked to future capacity for change arises exaptlively as a lucky consequence of features actively evolved for immediate organismic advantage. But such capacities can also evolve by direct selection, at a higher level, for species- individuals who win differential reproductive success by their propensity for living though external cries that consign closely related species-individuals to extinction.

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But his two sentences here which were one in an earlier part of the book may reflect less an ability to relate Neitche to components (quote p 1217 “The whole history of a “thing”, an organ, a tradition can to this extent be a continuous chain of signs, continually reveaing new interpretations and adaptations, the causes of which need not be connected even amonst themselves, but rather sometimes just follow and replace one another at random. The “development” of a thing, a tradition, an organ is therefore certainly not a progressus towards a goal, still less is it a logical progressus , taking the shortest route with least expenditure of energy and cost, . ) but more the failure to have any available computer presentation of homologues as parts of individuals. The MST (via higher order vertex structure) may indeed help to create algorithms and encodings that find semophrant phsysiology in hierarchic order Gould only attributed to the difference of aptation, exaptation and adaptation (in two senses). Thus by stressing logic where causality was Gould may have missordinated the notion of “relative frequency” plausibly.

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Show that this if fully compatible with Wright’s shifting balance and that Gould misused Mayr’s notion of speciation while Mayr insisted that bean bag genetics could not help out natural history. This would be thus wrong. There seems to be nothing at odds with Huxkly’s saying of “going into new areas and new substances” . ”The major processes in evolution thus consist essentially in a greater extension of life’s activities into new areas and into new substances; in a greater intensity of exploitation; and in a progressive increase of life’s control over and independence of the environment. Superimposed upon these processes, and having little or no bearing upon them, are the processes of species-formation we have just described which are the comsequences of accidents in the environment or in the genetic machinery of life. Much of the minor systematic diversity to be observed in nature is irrelevant to the main course of evolution, a mere frill of variety superimposed upon its broad pattern. We may thus say that, while it is inevitable that life should be divided up into species, and that the borad proceeses of evolution should operate with species as units of organization, the number which thus necessitated is far less than the number which actually exist. Species-formation constitutes one aspect of evolution; but a large fraction of it is in a sense an accident, a biological luxury, without bearing upon the major and continuing trends of the evolutionary process.’(page 389 the modern evolutionary synthesis

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Grehan, Heads and Craw wrote page 100, “Evoltutionary biologists refer regularly to taxa at all levels as having descended from asingle, common progenitor and to allied species and genera as descending from the same parent or parent form. Thus, species and other natural taxa are regarded a the descendants of initially uniform, undifferentiated, and local populations, entities, or even single individuals. A classic example is Darwin’s (1859) proposal that the ancestor a s species endemic to isolated islands was either a fertile individual or a viable seed. Mayr’s (1942) concept of speciation begins explicity with uniform species that differentiate into subspecies, with subsequent differentiation of each of these into new species,and this idea is still current in biology(Heads 1985).

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An alternative notion of ancestors was proposed by Rosa (1918), who maintained the species label but postulated that differentiation, as visible phenotypic differences, had already occurred before the appearance of descendent taxa.”

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Mendel wrote, “systematics of peas . .”Their systematic classification is difficult and uncertain. If we adopt the strictest definition of a species, according to which only those individuals belong to a species which under precisely the same circumstances display precisely similar characters, no two of these varities could be referred to one species. According to the opinion of experts however, the majority belong to the species Pisum sativum; while the rest are regarded and classed, some as sub-species of P. sativum, and some as independent species, such as P. quadratum, P. Saccharatum, and P. umbellatum. The positions however, which may be assigned to them in a classificatory system are quite immaterial for the purposes of the experiments in question, It has so far been found to be just as impossible to draw a sharp line between hybrids of species and varities as between species and varities themselvels.”p3-4 “Plant- Hybridisation.

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Accordingly we are reaching the time in the extension of evolutionary thought where the taxanomic considerations (naming) ARE NOT independent of the new material of the experiments and theory. The extent to which Gould’s structure of evolutionary theory bounds this limitation of observational vs theoretical biology(note this division of pure and applied biology is different than what happens in physics where one has experimental(observational) and theoretical physics instead) is how Mayr could both object to my numeration(1987 personal observation) and Gould’s lack of population study for higher level considerations.

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This is revealed in Gould’s distancing his own contribution away from Lerner’s concept of Genetic Homeostasis. Lerner had said,(Lerner (1950) applied the term genetic homeostasis to the tendency of a population to maintain a genetic composition leading to an optiumum balance, a definition which appears to be equivalent to the genetic inertia . conceptually visualized

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Gladshev on Mendel

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What is required is to show how species move into the new area of Panbiogeography and the new substance of macrothermodyanmics and how this is not in any contradication to Wright’s position on a shifting balance. We find that lack of advance in theortical biology of taxogeny despite the continued employmtent of taxomy is a consequence of a failure to teach Wright’s conscription and simply visualize the difference of adaptive landscapes built from gene combinations in individuals vs gene frequency in populations. This was due to theoretical difficulty of working out linearly continuous motion in a discontinuous space and explains why Lewontin’s desire to see theortical biology explode since the 60s failed. Physics did not need this development because it simply tries to work with non-linearity directly but this can not help obviously the need to separate population thinking of the dominant relative frequency and gene combinations geometrically visuzlized in a organism that Huxley demoted to of limited potential progress. Nietche does not help here either again. Wittegenstein’s influence on Russell is enough to recognize that Gould will not even in death enable the differenceof “progressus toward a goal and logical progresuus” as said by Neithche at the biomechanical efficency gains of Huxley to any of HIS progress modified because with thermodynamics we are considering electrolytics (post-electrotonics), eletrodybnamics, causes of point mutations and mechanics (quantum or relativistic or Newtonian) as well in Russell entire thought on matter dividing Neitche’s contingency with every difference in variation found by natural philosophy experients after Morganites style no matter the taste of the day .

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Logical in-circuit development results( use Russell atomic logic in Panbiogeography to the divisions of circiuit of spontaneous energy of Gladyshev in Croizat’s method . Nietchse did not distinguish Gladyshv’s law from 1st and 2nd laws of thermo thus he lumped organ with tradition no matter the sign vehicle of Woodger’s functor of Russell’s development of logic. He probably simply used lazzie fair ideas. We need a new use of economics in biology and the use of evolutionary knowledge to inform ecosystem engineering to avoid the building before thematierals are available in the plurivaocal wrongess of theowords so far.

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+++++++++++++++++++++end partiion+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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The trick is to find away to disagree with Bertrand Russell while he thinks that Frege showed logically that Kant was wrong about 7+5 =12 *BEING* synthetic but agree with him to a logic of contradiction that Cantor shewed Kant’s “antinomies of infinity” to be disposed of. This has to do with traits being either semophorants, holomorphs or OTUs(operational taxanomic units)WHILE WE STILL DO NOT HAVE computer programs able to extract synthetic hierarchic information on evolutionary individuals in a post-NE0-Darwinian biology. Philosophers at Cornell simply say that the synthetic a priori does not exist. They charge this interpretation against transcendental idealism they experience differently.

I quoted this sentence becuase it reminded me that Bertrand Russel made a cute observation about approach to the animal behavior research by Germans and Americans. I dare say that his observation could be extrapolated to Evolution itself (instincts and mimicry evolved by "random mutation" discussed elsewhere is very good example) considering the fact that German evolutionary thinking after WWII waned and Universities influenced by long German influence adopted neodarwinism (with some prominent exceptions like Portmann, Schindewolf, Neubauer...)

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Bertrand Russell once observed that animal behaviorists studying the problem-solving abilities of chimpanzees consistently seemed to detect in their experimental subjects the "national characteristics" of the scientists themselves. A divergence in the findings of the practical-minded Americans and the theoretically inclined Germans was particularly apparent.

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Animals studied by Americans rush about frantically, with an incredible display of hustle and pep, and at last achieve the desired result by chance. Animals observed by Germans sit still and think, and at last evolve the solution out of their inner consciousness.

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This "inner consciousness" reminds me so to "die Innerlichkeit" or "internal factors" that neodarwinism dismissed complelety. Edited by MartinV, : No reason given.

I suppose that is not an idle comparison.Coming from the opposite side that 7 + 5 = 12 IS synthetic, Peter Suber
(Page not found : Earlham College)
deals with an Einstein quote(in footnote 7) , “Kant’s ”erroneous opinion’ of the character of mathematics was “difficult to avoid in his time,” that is, prior to the development of non-Euclidean geometries.”I think I have been able to apprehend what Albert meant here. It is only in the context of having to read the many posts on EvC that attempt prop up atheism combined with my own reading of Kant that has not left this German’s quote as the thinking chimp.When it comes to America well, Emlen of Cornell was quoted to have said( in The Audubon Society Encyclopedia of North American Birds by John K. Terres), “Behavior is more than organic expression, it is the means by which an animal maintains its relation with the environment, the vital link between the living organism and the surrounding world in which it evolved and of which it is a part. Simulus and response are the basic attributes of environment and organism respectively in this relationship.” In the Darwnian perspective presented, as a link wherein the creatures evolved, the critters would be continually reacting to forces of the environment, locomoting in all kinds of directions, until by chance the animal sustains maintenance of its vitality.Neither the thinking German nor the moving American is ours however.Waddington had said, “Systems in Neo-Darwinist evolution must find some way of reconciling two rather conflicting requirements: (a) they must have a method of storing genetic information in a form which is sufficiently unresponsive to environmental influences to be reliable, and (b) they must interact the environment sufficiently to feel the effects of environmentally-directed natural selection.Any system which incorporated both these requirements into a single substance, which acted both as memory-store and environment reacter, would almost certainly have to exhibit Larmarckian effects in which the environment could produce changes in the content of the stored genetic information." (page 39, in Population Biology and Evolution edited by Richard Lewontin)But the words from “form” to “content” show that Waddington was influence like Super by the idea that Kant gave two ways to analysis (grammar and contradiction). This is not so. The “information” is stored at best in “a shape” or figure, NOT a form. Waddington said this because he is trying to say something about phenotypes. If we already accept what THEY (phenotypes) are, one can think more about what “time” Einstein meant by moving about in Cantor’s discontinuous space but continuously until one reaches a limit by thinking and then not thinking, but which is not necessarily “erroneous” today, the opinion becoming more a state of bio-theory than a theory of epistemology.Thus it is only if contradiction were NOT included that one would have “content” changed. This is missed by saying that 7+5=12 is not synthetic but is deduced as classes of classes. This can be more easily understood if one rejects the difference of genotype and phenotype outright. This also explains why Gould had insisted on reading and accepting Mayr’s history as one of a transition from Lamarckianism to Darwinism. Lamarck’s words however betray a slightly different story if one accepts that Einstein was only referring to Kant’s method rather than his elements. Genes change everything, well, that is my opinion.I dont find Kant's reasoning obscure. I found Emlen's reference to "organic expression" to be such.Edited by Brad McFall, : missing ""

The New England Journal of Medicine published an article how Oscar the Cat predicts death. The case is interesting, because if true the science is obviously unable to explain it. It is similar to migration etc. where the science is groping as well. Sheldrake supposes some unknown abilities in animals. According Sheldrake we all know about such things from our neigbourhood - at least we have heard about such cases, but the science doesn't pay attention to them.http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/357/4/328----I intented to send it at "Instincts - evolution or better answer?" but I put it here by mistake.Edited by MartinV, : No reason given.

Hi Martin,You're citing an opinion piece, not a scientific article, and it has nothing to do with evolution anyway. You might want to try introducing this in one of the [forum=-11] threads.--Percy

Long ago, long before I joined the evc bb, nwr started this thread, thusly--

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Parasomnium nicely summarized the neo-Darwinian position I was criticizing, with

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"Not wishing to blow my own horn, I must say I find nothing more plausible than the fact that, if hereditary information randomly changes, which is a fact, and if the environment can only sustain the better adapted, which is also a fact, then the environment can only sustain the better adapted, which is also a fact. A long cumulation of these changes naturally leads to extremely well adapted, very complex structures."

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That's the account I find problematic. It is roughly the same as the "Selfish Gene" account popularized by Dawkins. While I find that account problematic, I do not question that evolution occurred. I just want a better formulation than that of traditional neo-Darwinism.

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This topic is for discussing the problems with that particular neo-Darwinian account. It is not for arguing whether evolution happened or is happening.

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This has since become a semi-dead thread, and 'nwr' has become inactive. I would like to revive it, if I may, with my take on the issue.
There is, of course, no requirement that anybody respond to my points, but I personally require that any responses that are directed at me be civil, courteous, and informative [i.e., more than vacuous gainsaying or falsified opinion repeated as if repetition would make it fact], else I'll simply ignore them. Indeed, I will follow my usual practice wrt to 'trolls' and 'flamers', and simply refuse to so much to read any subsequent posts with their monikers on them. There are already several in this forums who have earned this distinction in another thread. I will not read or respond to their stuff in this thread either, although I'm sure that at least some will post their characteristic replies to just about anything I say. Of course, others are free to respond to them, but if, in doing so, these others refer to me in insulting and disparaging ways, then I will ignore any further posts that they subsequently address to me.To repeat what 'nwr' said, this thread is about critiqueing 'neo-darwinian theory', [more accurately 'fisherism' than 'darwinism'], something usually labelled 'the modern synthesis', or "RM+NS", or just plain, 'darwinism', and which was laid out by 'parasomnium [who is also listed as 'inactive'], above. Yes, modern evolutionary biology has advanced far beyond this 'neo-darwinian' stage, but the issue is not all modern evolutionary concepts, hypotheses, and understandings, but only those entailed by the forementioned hypotheseis, ['darwinism', also known as 'selectionism'], as defined by parasomnium.My critique of the notion that 'parasomnium' finds "plausible" begins with his statement, " hereditary information randomly changes, which is a fact". There are two main 'sins of omission' in that statement. The fist is, that by failing to mention it, he implies that there are no 'no-random', i.e., intentional and systematic, teleological changes in genetic information. But that is not necessarily the case, and it is very important to any theory of evolutionary causation. I would assume that he did failed to mention non-random, non-accidental, organism-directed genetic information change, not through carelessness, but because he assumed that no such thing exists, at least insofaras neo-darwinian 'theory' is concerned. He also failed to take note that when speaking of changing information within a system, [such as a genome or organism], that information can be changed in any one of three ways--1/brand new information can be added to the total. 2/ old information can be totally lost, and 3/old information can be damaged and rendered partial and incomplete. Moreover, by making the cause of any of these changes a random, anomalous, irregulat, and unpredictably accidental one, he implies that change 1/ and change 3/ are identical; which is illogical, since less can never be more.He then adds--"the environment can only sustain the better adapted, which is also a fact", but isn't. Not unless you play games with the words 'environment' and 'adapted', making them so general and all-encompssing as to become nebulous, meaningless and absurd. At which point his statement becomes the vacuous tautology that those that the enviroment sustains are the better adapted, and vice-versa. Which is perfectly "plausible", but silly. And rendered even sillier, unfortunately, by the inane ( but accidental, I'm sure) redundancy of the entire phrase, "if the environment can only sustain the better adapted, which is also a fact, then the environment can only sustain the better adapted, which is also a fact".And finally, he says, "A long cumulation of these changes naturally leads to extremely well adapted, very complex structures." I belive that when he says, "naturally", he intends, "mechanically, deterministically", since that is the customary sense in which Materialists, Mechanists, Physicalists, Naturalists, and Positivists [i.e., Darwinists], use that word. But the notion that a series of accidental genetic changes confronted by a meaningless tautology is the cause and explanation for, "extremely well adapted, very complex structures", is at best dubious. It does not strike me as the least bit plausible.More later.

Hi Elmer,You've posted like this before: As I already informed you at least a couple times previously, ignoring posts causes problems of its own. If you believe some who respond to you are violating the Forum Guidelines then you should raise these issues in the General Discussion Of Moderation Procedures 13.0 thread and allow the moderators to do their job.Since you continue to issue these preemptive "If I don't like your tone I'll ignore you" warnings while ignoring my requests that you not do so, I'm suspending you for 24 hours.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director