Does the Darwinian theory require modification or replacement?

Darn that Pigliucci. His words keep getting in the way of your ideas.

Notice the names in the middle of your quote? Eldredge & Gould?
Notice the names in the quote I posted upthread? Eldredge & Gould?He's talking about E&G because they are credited with a little something know as punctuated equilibrium.Now let's take a peek at this bit of your quote: Pigliucci's talking about gradual change. And about how micro to macro doesn't always occur gradually. Sometimes the change from micro to macro occurs real quick! Hence the "punctuated" in punctuated equilibrium. He is not talking about micro not leading to macro.Now let's take another look at that quote from upthread! See how I did that there? E&G linked micro to macro.Furthermore, had you bothered to read the paper you quoted, you would have noticed that E&G are part of what Pigliucci calls the ES, not the MS.See? Right here in the section called An Extended Synthesis? And right here? Just a little bit later in the section? Did you get a chance to skim the conclusion? Now let's take one last look at a snippet of your quote. The MS. Not the ES.Howzabout you show me where Pigliucci said micro doesn't lead to macro? That would be mighty impressive.Edited by molbiogirl, : No reason given.

Sheesh, can't you come up with any new mistakes? This is getting tedious.For the nth time: all known mechanisms of genetic variation are, by definition, part of the modern theory of evolution.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Hi Shadow,Let me ask you a couple questions.Biology is the study of life. If we were to discover a new form of life, would it still be part of the field of biology? I assume your answer is "Yes."The modern synthesis is the combination of evolution and genetics. As we discover new genetic processes, why do you think they shouldn't be part of the modern synthesis?Naturally Shapiro should be asked the same question.--Percy

"I want to argue that the ‘sudden’ appearance of species in the fossil record and our failure to note subsequent evolutionary change within them is the proper prediction of evolutionary theory as we understand it." --- Gould, "Bushes and Ladders," Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1977, pp. 61-62."The modern theory of evolution does not require gradual change. In fact, the operation of Darwinian processes should yield exactly what we see in the fossil record." --- Gould, "The Episodic Nature of Evolutionary Change", The Panda's Thumb: Reflections in Natural History, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1980, pp. 182-184."Eventually we (primarily Niles) recognized that the standard theory of speciationErnst Mayr's allopatric or peripatric schemewould not, in fact, yield insensibly graded fossil sequences when extrapolated into geological time, but would produce just what we see [...] The literal record was not a hopelessly and imperfect fraction of truly insensible gradation within large populations but an accurate reflection of the actual process identified by evolutionists as the chief motor of biological change. The theory of punctuated equilibrium was, in its initial formulation, little more than this insight adumbrated." --- Gould, "Punctuated Equilibrium in Fact and Theory," Skeptic, 1 (3): 49.

Yes, lets look at the abstract for that paper ...Pigliucci writes:
Evolutionary theory is undergoing an intense period of discussion and reevaluation. This, contrary to the misleading claims of creationists and other pseudoscientists, is no harbinger of a crisis but rather the opposite: the field is expanding dramatically in terms of both empirical discoveries and new ideas. In this essay I briefly trace the conceptual history of evolutionary theory from Darwinism to neo-Darwinism, and from the Modern Synthesis to what I refer to as the Extended Synthesis, a more inclusive conceptual framework containing among others evo-devo, an expanded theory of heredity, elements of complexity theory, ideas about evolvability, and a reevaluation of levels of selection. I argue that evolutionary biology has never seen a paradigm shift, in the philosophical sense of the term, except when it moved from natural theology to empirical science in the middle of the 19th century. The Extended Synthesis, accordingly, is an expansion of the Modern Synthesis of the 1930s and 1940s, and one that--like its predecessor--will probably take decades to complete.So misleading claims, check!No paradigm shift, check!Enxtension of current theory to acount for new findings, check!Yeah, it really sounds like they are tearing down the whole structure of modern evolutionary theory, oh no, wait! It doesn't sound like that at all, it sounds like what we have been telling you for this whole thread. The modern synthesis is roughly a century old and unsurprisingly we have learned a hell of a lot of new things in that century.Pigliucci's extended synthesis already exists, it is called modern evolutionary biology and it is spread throughoutI agree. Science is just going ahead. But where is there that strikingly simple easy belief that classical Darwinism expllains life's diversity? I think now somebody is legitimate to think twice before accepting such a claim.

Even your use of 'classical' in the phrase 'classical Darwinism' shows that you realise that the Darwinism concept has been up-dated.Anyone saying "Darwin was completely wrong!" or "Darwin was completely correct!" would be wrong.
He is not famous for being 100% correct.
He is famous for pointing us in the right direction with high accuracy.

I guess this depends exactly what you consider 'Classical Darwinism', But I doubt you'll find anyone in evolutionary biology who would say that Darwin's original work, or even the modern synthesis of the first half of the 20th century entirely explained the diversity of life on Earth that we see.That is one reason why the Discovery Institute's list of dissenting scientists is a bit dodgy. The actual statement ... Is one that very few evolutionary biologists, even those who might consider themselves hardcore Darwinists, should object to. Darwin certainly wouldn't have had a problem with it given that he himself suggested other mechanism than natural selection would contribute to evolution. But the implications the DI chooses to hang on it are dubious in the extreme, it certainly doesn't suggest the need to throw out the modern evolutionary biology we have.TTFN,WK

Posts: 2945
Joined: 01-12-2008
Member Rating: 3.9Send Private MessageCoyote Posts OnlyRate this message:
1
2
3
4
5Message 562 of 578 (620433)
06-16-2011 8:04 PM Reply to: Message 558 by zi ko
06-16-2011 7:37 PM--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Re: Better theories?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------What he is only saying (no what he is having in the back of his head) is only that evolution is information driven. If you think this is uncientific, you have to say why.I see too many creationists trying to sneak their religious beliefs into science in various ways under the guise of "information." This is after previous Trojan horses were shot down by the courts.There has yet to be convincing evidence that this is correct. I suppose you could stretch things a lot and claim that natural selection was based on "information" but I see that as a mere feedback mechanism. Certainly mutations are random in most respects.But there is no evidence that "information" causes directed evolution as the creationists are trying to get us to believe.I would not regard "information" simply as a part of a feedback mechanism.The new scientific findings in epigenetics and these by Shapiro (natural genetic engineering systems) all stress the importance of environment's (internal and external) effect on organisms (this effect can take place only by "information"). More than that we must see the theme in a logical way.Is it possible this infinite flow of information all over around the world not to be used by nature? Wouldnt it be against nature's economy low? Is logical the not subtanciated fear of this idea's exploitation by IDers to prevent us from seeing propable truth?Edited by zi ko, : No reason given.

What Pigliucci is saying is that microevolution does not lead to macroevolutionary changes. They are two different entities.
Macro changes are novel adapations that require changes at multiple locations and can arise within a single generation (per Shapiro) while micro is basically stability.So the MS did not recognize this and held that macro was a result of gradual micro changes.
Pigluicci is saying that is not so, and so the ES must recognize Macro as a different entity from micro.

I suppose one could read that passage from Pigliucci and conclude that he's just beating around the bush with all the qualifiers and that he really *is* saying that microevolution does not lead to macroevolution.But he never comes out and actually says that. He says that microevolutionary changes will not always account for macroevolutionary change on long timescales, which obviously means that some microevolutionary changes do account for macroevolutionary change. This would seem to rule out your interpretation of unequivocally disconnecting the two.He also says that projecting microevolutionary changes forward is a poor predictor of macroevolutionary changes, which does not say one does not lead to the other. And he references Gould and Eldredge. Molbiogirl provided relevant excerpts from Gould and Eldredge, and these would seem to indicate that your interpretation is clearly wrong.You're going to have to do more than just provide this Pigliucci quote, which you've now done several times. We can read it and sort of see how you're interpreting it to reach your conclusions, but we've provided a great deal of additional context and explanation that indicates you're wrong and that you're ignoring by simply repeating this quote.--Percy

Huh. So, on the one hand, Pigliucci believes that E&G linked micro to macro. On the other hand, he denies that micro leads to macro? That's fascinating.Funny, tho.I don't see micro mentioned in that quote. Can you point that out for me?Hey, shadow. You wanna know where he talks about micro & macroevolution? In his books. You know where else Pigliucci talks about micro and macro evolution? In his debate with Hovind. Have a listen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj0m6GrFR3AYou know where else Pigliucci talks about micro and macro evolution? On his blog. As a final note, in perusing his blog I found this. LOL!
Have you two met?

I think you might mean Dr. A? Pigliucci used his physics metaphor to illustrate just this point.

As has been pointed out, this isn't what he says. Once again you fail on comprehension. What he actually says is what I already told you, that microevolution is insufficient to explain all macroevolutionary changes, that is why he says ... I hope you understand the difference between not always and never, though given the creationist/IDist propensity to mistake rare for impossible I understand that you might not.TTFN,WK

Are you saying that Christians do not beleive in God as the creator?Do you label Theistic evolutionists such as Collins as "Creationists"?