[MD] Distinguishing Levels (Individual level)

[Platt Holden]

Hey SA, 

>      Platt said:  "Inability of a second generation to
> breed with a previous one takes evolution nowhere."
> 
>      In this statement of yours Platt, you are going
> against a main, general, and wide-spread definition
> that biologists teach in Biology 100 to accurately
> portray according to the current science what it means
> for a species to no longer be identified as one
> species and must be given a new species label.  A
> species changes into another species or is a different
> species when the new species can no longer breed with
> its' parent population or another population no matter
> what they look like - this is defined as evolution. 
> Morphology still helps in identification, especially
> in the fossil record, but current studies with
> animals, even plants, that have similar form are not
> always the same species because of this inability to
> breed with each other.  That's why there are
> evolutionary lineages based on morphology, and other
> lineages based on genetics.  These two ways of
> defining a lineage rarely ever veer from each other,
> they usually come to the same conclusions.
> 
>      Platt said:  "Problem is, the fossil record
> doesn't show millions of tiny intermediate steps
> culminating in a new form. Rather it shows big jumps."
> 
>      Yes, that's why Niles Eldridge and the late
> Stephen Jay Gould came up with punctuated equilibrium
> (PE).  It says evolution occurs with more frequency on
> a equilibrium state (static pattern), and then when
> change or evolution occurs it will be seen as a
> punctuation (dynamic quality at work here) in the
> fossil record.  Keep in mind this punctuation still
> occurs over a span of a million (if not millions) or
> hundreds of thousands of years.  I said PE occurs with
> more frequency according to these two scientists,
> because where PE occurs in the fossil record,
> sometimes though with much less frequency, a slow,
> little by little change (I forgot what the term is
> called [books of mine still unpacked]) that Darwin
> came up with can be noticed in the fossil record.   
> 
>      Platt said:  "My theory is that the life force
> (DQ) works to change forms for the better. When it
> runs up against a catastrophe, like the extinction of
> the dinosaurs, it works hard to avoid such
> catastrophes in the future.  Thus, it switched from
> making bigger and bigger reptiles to creating bigger
> and bigger brains, big enough not only to deflect a
> meteor like the one that extinguished the dinosaurs,
> but to eventually leave this planet and continue life
> elsewhere in the universe before the sun expands and
> burns out all life here a few billion years from now."
> 
>      Your theory is similar to how scientists think
> currently.  Even Pirsig's levels have a scientific
> mirror in Gould's Hierarchical Theory, which states
> pretty much the same thing as Pirsig, but Gould goes
> into a lot more detail with scientific data to back up
> his theory.  Gould in his book 'The Structure of
> Evolutionary Theory' goes into at least a hundred
> pages, I believe, on this Hierarchy (which he also
> explains does not mean to increasing domination) of
> independent levels with for example a biological level
> and a social level, etc...  I keep wondering how he or
> Pirsig came up with their similar ideas, but again, I
> don't have that book with me right now to see any
> references Gould might make to Pirsig.  They are so
> similar I want to find out.

Well, I'm glad I agree with how some if not all of how scientists think 
currently. I"ve been known to have been wrong, but then again, so have 
scientists. 

Anyway, thanks for the explanation of evolution as proposed in current 
scientific thinking. As you know, such thinking is currently challenged 
by proponents of intelligent design. So Darwinian evolutionary theory 
can hardly be considered the last word.  

Platt
 



> 
> Thanks,
> SA
> 
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
> http://mail.yahoo.com 
> moq_discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/