Author:
Wade A. Tisthammer
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Date Posted: 02/27/02 1:49pm
In reply to:
Damoclese
's message, "Darwin" on 02/21/02 3:18pm
>>Maybe, but to what extent? IIRC Darwin did not expect
>>evolution was so rapid that it would leave such huge
>>gaps in the fossil record.
[snipped part of the reply]
>So though Darwin doesn't say explicitly that the gaps
>in the fossil record could be explained by rapid
>evolution, when we take his other statements in his
>theory, and combine them, we get a more specified PE
>explanation that was generally evident throughout the
>pages of Darwin's book.
As far as I can tell, the idea of rapid evolution to explain the gaps in the fossil record did not exist in the Origin of Species. Quoting Darwin:Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against my theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record.
-Origin of Species (Chapter 10) Contrary to what you almost seemed to suggest Damoclese, the idea of rapid evolution to explain the gaps in the fossil record did not exist in the Origin of Species. Apparently, the “imperfection” was the only credible explanation. Quoting Darwin again:He who rejects this view of the imperfection of the geological record, will rightly reject the whole theory.
-Origin of Species (Chapter 11) No mention here of “except for rapid evolution” or anything of the sort. Evolution can happen more rapidly in some cases than others, but Darwin patently did not think it could be rapid enough to explain the gaps. I think the imperfection argument was very valid at the time, but after the massive quantities of fossils that have now been unearthed this is no longer legitimate, and it would seem that Darwin did not believe evolution happening rapidly would be sufficient to explain the gaps that we have now, because of the above quote and this one from David Raup in “Conflicts between Darwin and Paleontology,” Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin Jan. 1979, Vol. 50 No. 1 p. 25: Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much. The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transitions than we had in Darwin's time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information—what appeared to be a nice simple progression when relatively few data were available now appear to be much more complex and much less gradualistic. So Darwin's problem has not been alleviated in the last 120 years and we still have a record which does show change but one that can hardly be looked upon as the most reasonable consequence of natural selection. So the gaps are very real, and rapid evolution probably is the best way to go for macroevolution, but Darwin apparently did not anticipate it.
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