| Subject: Punctuated Equilibrium talk |
Author:
Damoclese
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Date Posted: 02/18/02 7:09pm
Often it seems the media hypes the differences between Punctuated Equilibrium and the more gradualistic version of evolution as proffered by Darwin. Many people in the creationist camps have seized upon this fact as an obvioius contradiction against gradualistic evolution, but are as usual, arguing against the wrong idea.
If we were to ask Darwin "Hey Darwin! As a general rule how would you say species change?" Darwin would say "Species change very gradually over the space of lots of time."
However, if we were to say to Darwin "Hey Darwin, how would a species change if the world turned six degrees cooler globally tomorrow?" Darwin would say "More quickly than they might otherwise, because if they failed to change more quickly, they would die." If we were to follow up that question with "What do you mean by quickly?" Darwin might say 10,000 years, or 100,000 years as opposed to millions, which still doesn't sound too quickly.
Essentially, this is what punctuated equilibrium says. It says that there are times and circumstances in which rapid change may take place; one such situation being a huge change in environment. The idea wasn't foreign to Darwin, as he said that species generally change very slowly over time, however, he qualified it with generally and made this contigent in part on environment.
On the most basic level, punctuated equilibrium gives a fancy name to something that was already known in Darwin's time; it's just more specific. The pace with which evolution happens is determined by the environment in large part, and as we can see, there really isn't any kind of new idea here.
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