drujd Posted September 4, 2014 Share Posted September 4, 2014 Just stumbled across this article, so I thought I'd share. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/04/two-unclassifiable-species-found-off-australian-coast And the paper: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0102976 Daniel (A couple of months ago while on holiday, I finally got to see some of the Ediacaran fossils in the Queensland Museum. Very very cool.) You know you're doing something right when your child asks, "When did Santa evolve?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyanNREMTP Posted September 4, 2014 Share Posted September 4, 2014 Now that is interesting to hear about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raggedy Man Posted September 4, 2014 Share Posted September 4, 2014 Wow that's amazing. Thanks for sharing this. ...I'm back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmaier Posted September 4, 2014 Share Posted September 4, 2014 This is another example of the pruning of disparity that Gould writes about in "Wonderful Life". Imagine if catastrophic events had not pruned these early branches of the tree, there would be many more diverse body plans today, and what would they look like? The pruning seems to be mostly by random luck, and not according to superiority of design. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auspex Posted September 4, 2014 Share Posted September 4, 2014 I think a lot of the 'pruning' had to do with a sorting-out of the viable niches as the ecosphere continued to define itself. Certainly, random events played a role in the outcome (and still do!), but the term "competition" in this context can refer as much to successful "cooperation" (better called "lack of conflict", IMO) as to the classic image of direct interspecies struggles for resources. You cannot tug on one strand of the web without effecting all the rest. "There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley >Paleontology is an evolving science. >May your wonders never cease! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmaier Posted September 4, 2014 Share Posted September 4, 2014 The niches never get sorted out, they keep shifting and exploding. You are obviously a "tangled bank" Darwinian. http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/charles_darwins/quotes/tangled_bank.html I'm a catastrophic Gouldian. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auspex Posted September 4, 2014 Share Posted September 4, 2014 Actually, I am an Ecologist, with a paleo bent, and think that there are hidden uses to adversity (but only in hindsight). "Anything that can persist, might; anything that cannot, will not" "There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley >Paleontology is an evolving science. >May your wonders never cease! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmaier Posted September 4, 2014 Share Posted September 4, 2014 (edited) "Anything that can persist, might; anything that cannot, will not" That's Darwinian. Also a mix of Dawkins "climbing Mount Improbable". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climbing_Mount_Improbable There is not one single view that is absolutely correct, it's actually a complex mix of chaos and drive to perfection. The Gouldian view is that "Stuff Happens" (Gould never said that, I'm paraphrasing... ). Life isn't climbing a mountain to seek the peak of perfection, but rather it is wandering around an exploding landscape in the desperate attempt to stay alive, and the lucky one survive. Like staggering through a minefield, survival and proliferation has little do to with true capability because you don't know where the mines are. Life is "Wonderful" because it takes a beating, but keeps on going. Edited September 4, 2014 by tmaier Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auspex Posted September 4, 2014 Share Posted September 4, 2014 The problem with perfection is that it is a constantly shifting and unattainable point; a mirage in the distance. It exists only as a human concept. "There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley >Paleontology is an evolving science. >May your wonders never cease! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmaier Posted September 4, 2014 Share Posted September 4, 2014 The problem with perfection is that it is a constantly shifting and unattainable point; a mirage in the distance. It exists only as a human concept. That's the problem I have with Dawkins. He sees a static landscape, but everything is in motion, sometimes very jerky motion. You can't "climb the mountain of perfection" when it is actually choppy sea waves. but getting back to this critter... he might be a sole survivor of his phylum sheerly by bad luck. He might be the superior being we have been waiting for. He has returned from obscurity to dominate the earth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auspex Posted September 4, 2014 Share Posted September 4, 2014 Darwin held that evolution plodded along, an unstoppable force for perfection. This might be true in a very small and limited way, but it is a far too 'mano-a-mano' view of direct competition which implies that micro evolution adds up to macro evolution, and is the result of a purpose rather that an unguided result. Punctuated Equalibria is a much more honest look at what the fossil record tells us, but it doesn't really tell us much about why unless we consider the effects of fortuitous alliance within the web, and give it equal weight to competition. "There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley >Paleontology is an evolving science. >May your wonders never cease! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmaier Posted September 5, 2014 Share Posted September 5, 2014 If anybody wants an easy presentation of punctuated equilibrium, read Niles Eldredge's book "Fossils". http://www.amazon.com/Fossils-Niles-Eldredge/dp/0691026955 The fossils and the photo quality are excellent. Gould writes the short forward and describes it as "a large format book filled with attractive photographs", and it is sparely interspersed with a presentation of the theory and just about evolution in general. The photos don't really support the argument, but they make the book really something that you want to read on the back porch on a quiet evening. Beautiful, many photos are full page (11" x 11"). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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