Ted's original article was posted on 22 Oct 1995 10:57:07 -0400, article <46dm43$fl3@access5.digex.net>, which was posted again on 11 Nov 1995 23:34:28 -0500, article <medved.816150529@access5> with no apparent changes. The initial posting was to the newsgroups alt.fan.splifford,alt.fan.publius,alt.atheism,alt.catastrophism,sci. skeptic, and talk.origins.
Note:There is an important caveat in this analysis which is worth emphasizing. The representation of Walter ReMine's work in this article is only as good as the representation offered by Ted. Given the numerous typographical errors in his presentation and failure to provide the original citations (such that some of them had to be guessed at from only the author, date, and content), there is significant potential for errors or misinterpretation. I do not know how far to trust Ted's presentation, and I do not know that the quotes are correctly identified. A legitimate "review" of Walter's book, or even a section of his book, this is *not*. It is a summary of *Ted's*representation* of it. Whether this is accurate or not, I can not confirm.
The article has been supplemented with citations corrected for spelling and complete quotes from the relevant sources. Full citations were not provided by Ted in either of his postings, and have been added to the end. Chris Nedin (cnedin@geology.adelaide.edu.au) provided the full quotes and deserves most of the credit for this effort (take a bow, Chris), although several contributors in talk.origins also contributed to the discovery of the citations. There are still a couple of quotes which could not be found, so if you know their origin, please let me know. I would also appreciate a WWW reference to Ted's article, which I suspect is on his WWW site (http://access1.digex.net/~medved/medved.html), but I have been unable to find it (although he has plenty of other Remine stuff for which he perceives a "victory", e.g., stuff about "Haldane's dilemma").
The intention of this document is not to add personal commentary on the meaning of these quotes. It is only to allow the reader to properly evaluate the quotations by providing all the information necessary to do so without having to search for citations or travel to the library. However, I still recommend that readers check out the the original references (both ReMine's book and the citations). At the very least, I hope this document saves people some time trying to hunt down the citations Ted refers to.
Andrew MacRae (macrae@geo.ucalgary.ca)
In article <medved.816150529@access5> Ted Holden (medved@access5.digex.net) wrote:
....
One of my standard posts includes a quote from S.J. Gould wrt (the lack of) intermediate forms; the standard tribal reaction of the t.o. crew is to claim that this quote is badly out of context and (what's new) to call me a liar.
"Archaeopteryx, the first bird, is as pretty an intermediate as paleontology could ever hope to find."(Gould 1991, p. 144-145)
ReMine notes:
Darwinian theory expected that the fossil record should contain: (1) gradual intergradations of life forms; and (2) a comprehensive phylogeny of recognizable ancestors and descendants.ReMine provides, for openers in that section, a sort of a pot-pourris of quotations from famous evolutionists wrt (the lack of) intermediate forms, noting:Message theory says exactly the opposite. Life is a biotic message, designed to look unlike evolution. Life was designed so that gradual intergradations and phylogeny are systematically absent. There is no middle ground between message theory and evolution. They cannot both be true. Fossils are the strongest evidence bearing on the origins debate, and the only direct evidence we have of past events. This chapter examines the fossil record, documenting facts that will surprise most people. The predictions of message theory are fulfilled in detail.
For documentation, I quote only evolutionists. Each of them firmly believes that large-scale phylogeny exists, and their statements to that effect are ubiquitous, if not unavoidable. Yet there can be (and is) a difference between what they believe and what they observe. For the sake of clarity, I try to separate the two and cite the observations...I.E. an educated man could <<>believe<>> in the Easter rabbit; such a person might be expected to make statements such as: "Well, I've never
Closely compare these two quotations. For over a hundred years paleontologists have recognized the large number of gaps in the fossil record. Creationists make it seem like gaps are a deep, dark secret of paleontology ... (Cracraft, 1984, p 204)
In summary, creationists have characterized the evolutionary process as being slow, gradual, and uniform, whereas virtually all modern evolutionary biologists recognize the fact that rates of evolution can be highly variable. Some evolutionasry events are apparently extremely rapid so that frequent gaps in the fossil record are to be expected. Nevertheless, numerous examples of morphologically intermediate taxa -- transitional forms -- have been described from the fossil record, and the record indisputably falsifies the creationist view of the history of life." (Cracraft 1984, p. 204).
For more than a century biologists have portrayed the evolution of life as a gradual unfolding ... Today the fossil record ... is forcing us to revise this conventional view (Stanley, 1981, p 3)
"The fossil record, whilst poor in many ways, is rich in others. It is much better understood now than in Darwin's day, and what it says to me and others is what I have already stated - that evolution proceeds not with the slow tempo that Darwin envisioned, but by fits and starts." (Stanley 1981, p. 8).
The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution. (Gould, 1982a, p 140)
I do not doubt the supreme importance of preadaption [note: Gould later replaces this term with 'exadaption' -cn], but the other alternative, treated with caution, reluctance, distain or even fear by the modern synthesis, now deserves a rehearing in the light of renewed interest in development: perhaps, in many cases, the intermediates never existed. i do not refer to the saltational origin of entire new designs, complete in all their complex and intergrated features - a fantasy that would be truely anti-Darwinian in denying any creativity to selection and relegating it to the role of eliminating old models. Instead, I envisage a potential saltational origin for the essential features of key adaptions. Why may we not imagine that gill arch bones of an ancestral agnathan moved forward in one step to surround the mouth and form prot-jaws? Such a change would scarcely establish the _Bauplan_ of the gnathostomes. So much more must be altered in the reconstruction of agnathan design - the building of a true shoulder girdle with boney, paired appendages, to say the least. But the discontinuous origin of a proto-jaw might set up new regimes of development and selection that would quickly lead to other, coordinated modifications. Yet Darwin, conflating gradualism with natural selection as he did so often, wrongly proclaimed that any such discontinuity, even for organs (much less taxa) would destroy his theory: . . .
During the past 30 years, such proposals have generally been treated as a fantasy signifying surrender - an invocation of hopeful monsters rather than a square facing of a difficult issue. But our renewed interest in development, the only discipline of biology that might unify molecular and evolutionary approaches into a coherent science, suggests that such ideas are neither fantastic, utterly contrary to genetic principles, nor untestable.
Goldschmidt conflated two proposals as causes for hopeful monsters - 'systematic mutations' involving the entire genome 9a spinoff from his fallacious belief that the entire genome acted as a single unit), and small mutations with large impact upon adult phenotypes because they work upon the early stages of ontogeny and lead to cascading effects throughout embryology. We reject his first proposal, but the second, eminently plausible, theme might unite a Darwinian insistence upon continuity of genetic change with a macroevolutionary suspicion of phenetic discontinuity. It is, after all, a major focus in the study of heterochrony (effects, often profound, of small changes in developmental rate upon adult phenotypes); it is also implied in the emphasis now being placed upon regulatory genes in the genesis of macroevolutionary change- for regulation is fundamentally about timing in the complex orchestration of development." (Gould 1982, p. 140-141).
The known fossil record is not, and never has been, in accord with gradualism. What is remarkable is that, through a variety of historical circumstances, even the history of opposition has been obscured. ... 'The majority of paleontologists felt their evidence simply contradicted Darwin~s stress on minute, slow, and cumulative changes leading to species trans- formation.' ... their story has been suppressed. (Stanley, 1981, p 71, my italics)
One must acknowledge that there are many, many gaps in the fossil record. ... there is no reason to think that all or most of these gaps will be bridged. (Ruse, 1984, p 101)
"Again, certain specific items of evolution seem now to have been established, as firmly as any reasonably minded person could demand or wish. The evolution of birds and mammals springs to mind. The fossil record showing the transitions is rock solid." (Ruse 1984, p. 101)
"Coming closer to home, the fossil evidence of our own simian ancestery is overwhelming." (Ruse 1984, p. 101)
We are faced more with a great leap of faith that gradual, progressive adaptive change underlies the general pattern of evolutionary change we see in the rocks - than any hard evidence. (Eldredge and Tattersall, 1982, p 57)
"What the record is really telling us is that evolution, as suspected, has occurred. But we have greatly erred in predicting what the pattern of change should look like in the fossil record." (Eldredge & Tatterstall 1982, p 58).
The record jumps, and all the evidence shows that the record is real: the gaps we see reflect real events in life's history not the artifact of a poor fossil record. (Eldredge and Tattersall, 1982, p 59)
This opportunism, this penchant for seizing new opportunities by spinning off new species rapidly (rather than by the gradual transformation of an entire ancestral species into one or more descendants) is perhaps the most basic, fundamental pattern of life." (Eldredge & Tattersall 1982, p. 59-60).
The fossil record flatly fails to substantiate this expectation of finely graded change. (Eldredge and Tattersall, 1982, p 163)[full quote needed]
The fossil record itself provided no documentation of continuity of gradual transitions from one kind of animal or plant to another of quite different form. (Stanley, 1981, p 40)
That Darwin was misguided in his denigration of the fossil record is the point of departure for newer arguments about evolution that I will take up in detain in chapter 5>" (Stanley 1981, p. 40).
Gaps in the fossil record particularly those parts of it that are most needed for interpreting the course of evolution - are not surprising. (Stebbins, 1982, p 107)
Given these severe limitations, gaps in the fossil record - particularly those parts of it that are most needed for interpreting the course of evolution - are not surprising. What is surprising and encouraging, however, is the presence of some series of fossils forming almost complete transitions between major catagories. The transition from reptiles to mammals lasted for more than 100 million years and included scores of known species and their near reletives. Some of these transitional forms, particularly the mammallike reptiles of Africa, are represented by hundreds of individuals, and thousands more lie buried in the strata waiting to be discovered." (Stebbins 1982, p. 107-108).
We have so many gaps in the evolutionary history of life, gaps in such key areas as the origin of the multicellular organisms, the origin of the vertebrates, not to mention the origins of most invertebrate groups. (McGowan, 1984, p 95)
Undeniably, the fossil record has provided disappointingly few gradual series. The origins of many groups are still not documented at all. (Futuyma, 1983, p 190-191)
Undeniably, the fossil record has provided disappointingly few gradual series. the origins of many groups are still not documented at all. But in view of the rapid pace that evolution canm take, and the extreme incompleteness of fossil deposits, we are fortunate to have as many as we do. the creationist argument that if evolution were true we should have an abundance intermediate fossils is built by exaggerating the richness of paleontological collections, by denying the transitional series that do exist, and by distorting, or misunderstanding, the genetic theory of evolution." (Futuyama 1983, p. 190-191).
The lack of ancestral or intermediate forms between fossil species is not a bizarre peculiarity of early metazoan history. Gaps are general and prevalent throughout the fossil record. (Raff and Kaufman, 1991, p 34)[This one still needs the full quote. The citation is unknown.]
Paleontologists had long been aware of a seeming contradiction between Darwin's postulate of gradualism and the actual findings of paleontology. Following phyletic lines through time seemed to reveal only minimal gradual changes but no clear evidence for any change of a species into a different genus or for the gradual origin of an evolutionary novelty. Anything truly novel always seemed to appear quite abruptly in the fossil record. (Mayr, 1991, p 138)
Curiously, the gaps become larger, the higher the taxonomic level. The major transitions of body plan are consistently the least supported by the record.[This one still needs the full quote. The citation is unknown, although presumably it is the same Raff and Kaufman 1991 as is cited above.]Gaps between higher taxonomic levels are general and large. (Raff and Kaufmaw 1991, p 35)
Most families, orders, classes, and phyla appear rather suddenly in the fossil record, often without anatomically intermediate forms smoothly interlinking evolutionarily denved descendant taxa with their presumed ancestors. (Fldredge, 1989, p 22)
Full quote: "It seemed obvious to Simpson that some special combination of evolutionary factors is implicated in the origin of taxa of higher catagorical rank. And that special set of factors combine to produce evolutionary change at very high rates indeed. theory led Simpson to conclude that the gaps between higher taxa must represent unusually high rates of evolutionary change." (Eldredge 1989, p. 23).
There are all sorts of gaps: absence of gradationally intermediate transitional forms between species, but also between larger groups - between, say, families of carnivores, or the orders of mammals. In fact, the higher up the Linnacan hierarchy you ~look, the fewer transitional forms there seem to be. For example, Peri!rntns, a lobe-legged, wormlike creature that haunts rotting logs in the Southern Hemisphere, appears intermediate in many respects between two of the major phyla on earth today the segmented worms and il~e arthropods. But few other phyla have such intermediates with other phyla, and when we scan the fossil record for them we find some, but basically little, help. Extinction has surely weeded out many of the intermediate species, but on the other hand, the fossil record is not exactly teeming with their remains. (Fldredge, 1982, p 65-66)
Full quote: "Simpson thought the fossil record had a great deal to say about how evolution occurred - its pace and style, its "tempo and mode." After all, it is in the enormous expanse of geologic time that the evolutionary game has actually been played. But to make such a claim is also to assert that the fossil record is at least complete enough to be taken seriously. Thus the gaps had to be confrunted. And since gaps there certainly are, they must at least in part be a _product_ of the evolutionary process if they were not merely the artifacts of a poor geologic record.
It is the gaps in the fossil record which, perhaps more than any other facet of the natural world, are dearly beloved by creationists. As we shall see when we take up the creationist position, there are all sorts of gaps: absence of gradationally intermediate "transitional" forms between species, but also between larger groups - between, say, families of carnivores, or the orders of mammals. In fact, the higher up the Linnaean hierarchy you look, the fewer transitional forms there seem to be. For example, _Peripatus_, a lobe-legged, wormlike creature that haunts rotting logs in the Southern Hemisphere, appears intermediate in many respects between two of the major phyla on earth today the segmented worms and the arthropods. But few other phyla have such intermediates with other phyla, and when we scan the fossil record for them we find some, but basically little, help. Extinction has surely weeded out many of the intermediate species, but on the other hand, the fossil record is not exactly teeming with their remains. (Eldredge, 1982, p 65-66).
Further on we find:
"If evolution was always a slow, steady change from species to species, Simpson pointed out, the transitions between major groups would typically take millions of years, and we should expect to find some fossil evidence of the transitional forms. Not finding them very often, he deduced, implied that evolution sometimes went on rather quickly - in brief, intense spurts. The presence of _some_ intermediates (such as _Archaeopteryx_, the proto-bird) falsified Schindewolf's saltational notions. But the relative scarcity of such intermediates bespoke a major mode of evolution producing truly rapid change - a mode of speciation Simpson called "quantum evolution". (Eldredge 1982, p. 67)
"Paleontologists have, from time to time, blamed gaps solely or partly on the vagaries of the fossil record or have claimed that gaps, to the extent they are there at all, actually tell us something interesting about the nature of the evolutionary process. Few paleontologists (and none now active, as far as I am aware) have ever claimed that anotomically true intermediate forms actually never existed in the course of life's evolutionary history. Paleontologists, whatever their preferred explanation for why obviously intermediate forms are not found more frequently in the fossil record, always point to the intermediates that _have_ been found as evidence that intermediates in fact existed. Creationists respond by refusing to accept the examples as intermediates. (Eldredge 1982, p. 121)
"The reason why _archaeopteryx_ delights paleontologists so is that evolutionary theory expects that new characteristics- the "evolutionary novelties" that define a group - will not appear all at the same time in the evolutionary history of the lineage. Some new characters will appear before others. Indeed, the entire concept of an intermediate hinges on this expectation. Creationists imply that any intermediate worthy of the name must exhibit an even gradation between primitive and advanced conditions of each and every anatomical feature. But there is no logical reason to demand of evolution that it smoothly modify all parts simultaneously. It is far more reasonable to expect that at each stage some features will be relatively more advancedthan others; intermediates worthy of the name would have a mixture of primitive retentions of the ancestral condition, some in-between characters, and the fully evolved, advanced condition in yet other anatomical features." (Eldredge 1982, p. 122)
"But _Archaropteryx_ is simply the common showpiece example that intermediates between major groups of organisms do show up in the fossil record. All working systematists and paleontologists know of other, less celebrated, examples from their own work." (Eldredge 1982, 123).
Transitional sequences between higher taxa are not as frequent as we would like (Coffey, 1984, p 266)
Full Quote: "Higher taxa-from genera on up through phyla-are useful concepts in handling data concerning organisms (in fact, they constitute what the layman terms "major kinds" of organisms ); however, they are artificial mental constructs rather than "basic facts of nature" (2 refs). Moreover, although there are reasons why transitional sequences between higher taxa are not as frequent as we would like (4 refs), nevertheless we can cite some particularly impressive transitional fossils between higher taxa of various ranks. In addition to those mentioned previously as inter-phylum and inter-class transitions, others involve higher taxa of class-group rank (2 refs), orders (4 refs) , families (5 refs), and genera (6 refs). (Cuffey 1984, p. 266). Note: this was originally published in - Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation, 1972, 24(4) - the ASA is an affiliation of Christian men and women of science.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Ted has stated that he was the one who capitalized the "T" in "Transitional sequences". In ReMine's original, it is recorded as "[T]ransitional sequences".
Transitions between major groups of organisms ... are difficult to establish in the fossil record. (Fadian, 1991, p 18)[Need full quote. This could be Padian, or even Pabian. Fadian does not appear to be a real name. According to personal communication with Dr. Keith Padian by Chris Nedin, Padian does not have a publication which corresponds to this citation.]
What one actually found was nothing but disconilnuities: All species are separated from each other by bridgeless gaps; intermediates between species are not observed The problem was even more serious at the level of the higher categories. (Mayr, 1982, p 524)
Neither Darwin nor his supporterd were at first able to supply this evidence. As a result the traditional objections were raised again and again, up until recent times, most forcefully by Schindewolf (1936), Goldschmidt (1940), and some French zoologists (Boesiger, 1980). It was not until the period of the new systematics that Rensch, Mayr, and others demonstrated the populational origin of the discontinuities (Mayr, 1942: 1963) and that the geneticists supplied the evidence on the variation needed to permit natural selection to be effective." (Mayr 1982, p. 524-525)
Gould acknowledges that the small gradual changes observed in the fossil record are so minuscule that they cannot reasonably be extrapolated into large- scale evolution. Well-represented species are usually stable throughout their temporal range, or alter so little and in such superficial ways (usually in size alone), that an extrapolation of observed change into longer periods of geological time could not possibly yield the extensive modifications that mark general pathways of evolution in larger groups. Most of the time, when the evidence is best, nothing much happens to most species. (Gould, 1988b, p 14)
Niles Eldredge and I have tried to resolve this paradox with our theory of punctuated equilibrium. We hold that most evolution is concentrated in events of speciation, the separating and splitting off of isolated populations from a persisting ancestral stock. These events of splitting are glacially slow when measured on the scale of human life - usually thousands of years. But slow in our terms can be instantaneous in geological perspective. A thousand years is less than 0.1 per cent of a million years, and a million years is a good deal less than average for the duration of most fossil species. Thus, if species tend to arise in a few thousand years and then persist unchanged for more than a million years, we will rarely find evidence for their momentary origin, and our fossil record will only pick up the long periods of prosperity and stability. (Gould, 1988b, p 14)
END OF TED'S POST
Cracraft, J. (1984) The significance of the data of systematics and paleotology for the evolution-creation controversy. In: Awbrey, F. & Thwaites, W.M. (eds.), Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting, Pacific Division, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1(3): 189-205.
Cuffey, R.J. (1984) Paleontological evidence and organic evolution. In: Montagu, A. (ed.), Science and Creationism. Oxford University Press, Oxford. 415 pp.
Eldredge, N. (1982) The Monkey Business. A Scientist Looks at Creationism. Washington Square Press, New York. 157 pp.
Eldredge, N. (1989) Macroevolutionary Dynamics. McGraw-Hill, New York. 226pp.
Eldredge N, & Tattersall, I. (1982) The Myth of Human Evolution. Columbian university Press, New York. 197 pp.
Futuyama, D.J. (1983) The Case for Evolution. Pantheon Books, New York. 251 pp.
Gould, S.J. (1982) Is a new and general theroy of evolution emerging? In:Maynard Smith, J. (ed.), Evolution now A century after Darwin. 129-145. Macmillan Press, London. 239 pp. [Note: First published (1980) Paleobiology, 6: 119-130]
Gould, S.J. (1983) Hens teeth and Horses toes. Norton & Co., New York.
Gould, S.J. (1988) Ten thousand acts of Kindness. Natural History, 97(12): 12, 14, 16-17.
Gould, S.J. (1991) Bully for Brontosaurus. Penguin, London. 540 pp.
Mayr, E., 1982. The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance. Belknap Press, Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Mass., 974pp. ISBN 0-647-36445-7
Mayr, E. (1991) One Long Argument. Harvard University Press, Harvard. 195 pp.
McGowan, C. (1984) In the Beginning . . . a Scientist shows why the creationists are wrong. Prometheus Books, Buffalo. 208 pp.
Ruse, M. (1984) Is there a limit to our knowledge of evolution? Biosciences, 34(2): 100-104.
Stanley, S.M. (1981) The New Evolutionary Timetable. Fossils, Genes and the Origin of Species. Basic Books Inc., New York. 222 pp.
Stebbins, G.L. (1982) Darwin to DNA, Molecules to Humanity. Freeman & Co., San Francisco. 491 pp.