Re: Quote Mine Project - Part II

On Wed, 10 Sep 2003 03:19:04 +0000 (UTC), John Harshman
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> 
> 
> gen2rev wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, 8 Sep 2003 02:05:43 +0000 (UTC), catshark <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > wrote:
> [snip[
> 
> 
> >>>"Although Archaeopteryx is often proposed as a transitional form, "its
> >>>fossils do not count." Punctuated Equilibria, 1977.
> >>>
> >>Don't know if this is separate or somehow linked to the above quotes.  If
> >>nothing else this idiot won't make it easy.
> >>
> > 
> > Gould (and Eldredge, 1977) didn't write the passage quoted above. What
> > they *did* write is:
> > 
> >      At the higher level of evolutionary transition between basic
> >      morphological designs, gradualism has always been in trouble,
> >      though it remains the "official" position of most Western
> >      evolutionists. Smooth intermediates between _Bauplane_ are
> >      almost impossible to construct, even in thought experiments;
> >      there is certainly no evidence for them in the fossil record
> >      (curious mosaics like _Archaeopteryx_ do not count).

Note: the term "Bauplane" is actually spelled "Bäuplane", but I wasn't
sure how "ä" (that's an "a" with two dots on top) would appear on OSs
other than Windoze, or even on my own computer after it's been through
Usenet. I guess I'm going to find out...


> > It's now obvious that Gould and Eldredge weren't arguing against
> > _Archaeopteryx_ being a transitional form, but arguing that it wasn't an
> > example of a gradual change between body plans. They state that it's a
> > mosaic, a mixture of both primitive and advanced features. But did Gould
> > believe that _Archaeopteryx_ was a transitional form? He did indeed, as
> > can be seen in his article "The Tell-tale Wishbone" (Gould 1980).
> 
> 
> I think they're making even less of an argument than you say. I think 
> they're saying it's not a smooth intermediate, meaning a creature 
> exactly intermediate in all respects. The creationist caricature 
> requires that each and every character evolve at exactly the same rate, 
> instead of different characters changing at different times and at 
> different rates. Because Archaeopteryx (together with its various more 
> primitive and derived relatives) *is* evidence for a gradual change 
> between body plans, and one that was caught more or less in the middle.

While Archaeopteryx is certainly an intermediate, I'm not sure that it's
evidence for a change in body plans. Of course, it depends on which body
plans we're talking about. As you know, at least one specimen of
Archaeopteryx was initially mistaken as an example of Compsognathus,
since they have pretty much identical body plans, which are unlike those
of modern birds.

But the body plans of "non-avian theropods" are in turn unlike those of
lizards, if only because theropods are bipedal, so Archaeopteryx could
be considered to be in the middle, between "lizard" and bird.

It did occur to me that Gould and Eldredge were making the argument that
you say they are, but why single out Archaeopteryx? When they used the
term "mosaic" I translated that as "a theropod with feathers and a
reversed big toe". But if they're making the argument that you say they
are, wouldn't every transitional creature be a mosaic?


> > REFERENCES
> > 
> > Gould, S. J. 1980. The Tell-tale Wishbone. In "The Panda's Thumb: More
> > Reflections in Natural History", pp 267-277. New York: W. W. Norton &
> > Company, Inc. (Originally published in the November, 1977 edition of
> > Natural History)
> > 
> > Gould, S. J., & Eldredge, N. 1977. Punctuated equilibria: the tempo and
> > mode of evolution reconsidered. Paleobiology 3:115-151.
> > 
> > 
> > [snip the rest]
> > 
> >