I just read, skimmed, struggled with Stephen Gould’s ” Structures of Evolution theory” Its really one long argument for Punctuated Equilibrium.
Aside from many interesting observations on the substance and style the surprising thing i note is how PE actually disproves all of evolutionary biology if you think about it. No wonder Dawkins and the rest smelled it as trouble and resisted. Wikipedia also resists it on this subject.
Gould makes a exhausted case on how the fossil record SHOWS stasis is the norm and gradualism never happens or did happen.
Gould punches home how Darwin was wrong about his essential point of gradualism and so ONLY the core of Darwin remains. pE has corrected Darwin , like Einstein corrected Newton. Gould doesn’t say its like this but he really expects you to conclude it.
I say Gould PUNCHES home that Darwins great idea of small steps is just plain wrong.
Gould retreats to a trench that evolution comes from bursts that are not recorded, for some reason, in the fossil record EVER.
YET in logical thinking he is actually proving evolution did not happen at all in creatures
For having stripped the fossil evidence of any gradualism, any small step selectionism , then the fossil record has also been stripped of any evidence for evolution.
This because BURSTS are not fossilized. Only a result is seen of different types. Yet not the mechanism.
So Gould makes the fossil record silent on evolutionary change. He makes document no evolutionary change. He only THEN says the different types of creatures evolved one from another. Yet no fossil evidence. Just results and speculation.
In his desperation to prove gradualism never happened he proved the fossil record shows NO evolution has happened. He didn’t think this because he was speculating on a sudden fast burst to explain stasis. yet fossils don’t show this but only not gradualism.
PE is not shown by the fossils but only the absence of gradualism. So the fossils show no evolutionary mechanism.
Everyone should read chapter nine.
Byers then:
Byers now:
Thank you for your retraction.
Not a retraction . its context.
PE is the complete rejection of gradualism even if allowing irrelevant episodes of it in special cases. in fact Gould hints there is probably none but just allows a tiny bit.
You seem to resist all this. you are right if you realize how PE , investigation, discredits the whole claim of evolution. The fossil record ruins any chance of evolution being true.
Now the only answer if for evolutionists to , correctly, say the geological deposition events that laid the sediment/fossils is in no way biological evidence for evolution or evidence of any type.
its just data points and then folks drawing lines of relationship.
Yet the relationship was not fossilized. onlt the data points.
A great blunder. not just darwin, Gould, but the whole industry.
OK, you’re stating that this:
And this:
Are both true.
If not, which one is false?
Would you point to a passage where Gould hints there is probably none? And also to where he allows just a “tiny bit?”
I’m not finding it. I do find, “We have never doubted that examples of both gradualism and punctuation can be found in the history of almost any group.” Which is to say that examples of gradualism can be found in every group – indeed, “beautiful” examples. He states both patterns may be found in the fossil record, and that the empirical question at hand is their relative frequencies (and he certainly argues that instances of stasis predominate).
Yeah, I pointed out earlier that YEC’s have no problem with gradualism, so why would they have a problem if gradualism was reflected in the fossil record?
Not only is the universe not 6000 years old, but YEC “reasoning” is simply too confused and self-contradictory. I just don’t grasp why they cannot see it?
The reason he stresses they see both is to stress the overthrow of gradualism and the replacement of PE. he says there is some gradualism but in most of what i read he hints its a irrelevant thing.
anyways for all intents and purposes the dominant idea is that gradualism is non existent .
Its not what happened. What happened was the opposite of gradualism. it was quickism or pE.
this is the whole thing.
Further it really means the fossuil record shows NO evolution. Since the bursts/PE are not fossilized. on ly results presumed to be from PE.
Gould in his passion to prove PE proves a disater for evolutionism evidence in the fossils.
geology anyways was never biology evidence but thats another point.
YEC does reject gradualism as presented in evolutionism.
In fact gradualism never happened. NEVER!
yEC welcomes the pE correction which really is chump change in these things.
However the line of reasoning ios deadly to evolutionism and its use of geological deposition events to prove biological evolution.
in fact the rejection of PE/Gould is still a desired goal of evolutionists.
The wiki article on pE is case in point.
Robert, you said this:
And this:
Are both statements true?
If not, which one is false?
You also said:
Would you point to a passage where Gould “hints there is probably none?” And also to where he allows just a “tiny bit?”
I’m not finding it. I do find, “We have never doubted that examples of both gradualism and punctuation can be found in the history of almost any group.” Which is to say that examples of gradualism can be found in every group – indeed, “beautiful” examples.
I have a copy, you have a copy…please give me a couple of citations.
I’ve answered this and why persist.
What are doubting?
I;m showing the PE thing is based on a rejection of gradualism.
Thats the glory of it all.
He allows a little but thats all. Thats the whole theme of his book.
its so great a rejection that he must stress he doesn’t think no gradualism is showing the fossil record. however its very little relative to the pE insight.
this is a clear reading and its a clear reading where this goes logically about the whole fossil record as evidence for evolution. he didn’t intend it but it happened.
No, Robert, you haven’t.
You haven’t indicated which of your contradictory characterizations is incorrect. An answer to my question will consist of your indication of which is true and which is false. They can’t both be true.
Nor have you pointed to a passage where Gould “hints there is probably none?”, or in which he allows just a “tiny bit” (of gradualism). An answer to my question will consist of a few page numbers and brief quotations. You haven’t provided that.
Gould strikes me as the sort of person who would not make such an error. Unlike you.
I answered it very well. I like my answer.
Possibly you didn’t read his stuff carefully.
its a clear agenda to raise pE and destroy gradualism as to what happened.
I read him as hinting little to none gradualism happened bUT he says a little did happen. i see it as him giving in a little to avoid too much opposition.
Yet as i said the point is made.
Gradualism is dead as a dodo af far as evidenced in the fossil record and so to his thinking as it was in reality.
YET this thinking actually also destroys evolution being evidenced in the fossil record.
he failed to reason it through.
Easily and often if you read his stuff. But thats not my thread.
in his zeal/passion to show he replaced Darwins gradualism idea with the PE idea he , VERY WELL< showed the fossil record never, or almost, showed gradualkism relative to even the data they already had.
he pounded this in the reader.
His error was that in proving the fossil record didn't show the intermediate constant small steps constantly going on , BUT INSTEAD AS HE SAW IT SUDDEN BURSTS AND THEN STASIS, He also was showing the absence of any evolution going on.
The bursts were not fossilized but only there when finished.
Its like he is saying AHA Darwins wrong about gradualism as fossils show and prove, BUT then doesn't show his bursts either.
His PE idea is a last trench line of reasoning.
HE THINKS the fossil evidence shows his PE and evolution but it only shows NO evidence for evolution . NONE at all.
Its a funny trip but it proves what creationists like me say THERE IS NO BIOLOGICAL SCIENTIFIC evidence for evolution in the fossil record.
Its all data points and filling in the lines(relationships). The fossils are silent about evidence for evolution.
Its speculative ideas replacing former speculative ideas.
A major blunder for these guys.
Gould, unthinking, didn't re-interprete the fossils 9as he thought) but proved they were inrelevant to biological origin evidence.
Of coarse he didn't realize this.
Thats why today pE is hardly brought up.
They smell its foundations damage all of evolutions foundations of using the fossil record.
No, Robert, you haven’t answered my questions at all.
You said this:
And this:
They can’t both be true. Which one is false? That’s my question.
Also, would you point to a passage where Gould “hints there is probably none” and also to where he allows just a “tiny bit?”
You haven’t responded to my request with page numbers and/or quotes. That’s what I am asking for. Open your copy and get the page numbers.
I answered it well.
You must read chapter nine and many other chapters to see why your wrong about a major point IF your trying to deny gradualism was not aimed at and destroyed by using the fossil record.
Still no citations. You’ve discussed a book in your OP – yet can’t seem to muster a single citation.
Here’s how it’s done:
You said, in your OP:
This is false. Gould:
Gould on orthodox views of speciation:
I don’t actually think Mayr’s was the orthodox view of allopatric speciation in 1972 and certainly is not now. For one thing, most speciation seems not to occur through peripheral isolates. For another, Mayr’s “genetic revolutions” do not seem to have any evidence, nor the “coadapted gene complexes” that he thought would result in stasis.
Mung,
It’s worse than that; they don’t think there is a fossil record, as a time series. So I find myself highly confused when they support Meyer’s account of the base of the Cambrian, or take a side in the ‘variable/steady’ argument on evolutionary rate based upon palaeontology. Which is, of course, the study of variable sedimentation rates of corpses whizzed up in a Flood.
Allan,
That’s because you haven’t mastered Creationist Logic™.
In Creationist Logic™, propositions are true or false whenever, and to the extent needed, by the creationist making the argument. They can flip their truth status faster than Linda Blair’s head could spin in The Exorcist.
Removing the consistency requirement makes life much easier for the Creationist Logician. Try it — you’ll see. Just leave a trail of breadcrumbs so you can find your way back out. You don’t want to get stuck in that world. *shudder*
Hi Allan,
I was trying to leave open the possibility that Robert doesn’t think all fossils had their origins in the global flood. 🙂
But yes, that’s another on a long list.
Reciprocating Bill,
I answered it all. i said i did. I like my answer. You misunderstand it or some other motive.
Its perfectly logical.
YEC simply use these ID arguments to demolish some evolutionist arguments.
the cambrian stuff does this.
its like , what I did on this thread, ONE uses their own conclusions to defeat them.
So evolutionism is hurt by the cAmbrian explosion argument.
Even though there was no explosion ans its a trivial fossil assemblage from the flood year.
The logic works. I do it all the time.
Robert, is there any chance at all that you might be mistaken?
No! Its logical though off thread.
As in court one can use someones own words against them to defeat their case.
Thats all one is doing.
Yet not agree with the presumptions behind the case defeating the other case.
Why not? why is it illogical?
Fossils are not a normal creation. It is wrongly taught they bare just creatures who die and simply get covered. No fossils are being made today on land or in sea. i mean relative to the creatures dying. Here and there of coarse.
So the glorious assemblages of fossils must have unique origins. another error in evolutionism in presuming they could ever represent the ages. Impossible or unlikely.
so below the k-pg line is the flood fossils exclusive to that year. none before. for this YEC and others.
Above the line is from post flood deaths. this also from, I think, a single earth event, but in lesser amounts and area. Then lastly the “ice age” ones from unique ice age events. The holocene ones then later being rare .
So three great events and then modern.
That’s also false. You haven’t quoted a single word of Gould in the above, either in your OP or in response to comments and questions.
In fact, I’ve several times asked you to cite and use his words.
I’ll ask again. Point to a passage in ToSET where, with regard to gradualism, Gould “hints there is probably none,” and also to where he allows just a “tiny bit.” Quote the relevant statements.
Thanks everyone for the replies. It was a good thread I thought.
The gould book is excellent material for a creationist for many reasons.
Yet the thread reason was how in proving gradualism was not true and instead PE was Gould actually demonstrates there is no fossil evidence for evolution at all.
its all just looking at data points and inventing the connections.
Right or wromng the connections were not fossilized.
So its not just Darwin that fails to show small steps having been fossilized but Gould also fails to show his PE episodes in the fossils.
Its a important point for creationists to bring up as long as pE is presented as the correction to darwins gradualism.
Gould anticipated creationist abuse of his work:
“Creationists pervert and caricature this debate by conveniently neglecting the common conviction that underlies it, and by falsely suggesting that evolutionists now doubt the very phenomenon we are struggling to understand.”
Presumably, Byers, like most creationists, puts the “kind” at the level of genus or family, not species. But punctuated equilibria is a theory about species, occasioned by stasis within species and the relative lack of transitions in the fossil record between species. The evidence for PE, if it’s evidence against what biologists think happened, is evidence against what he thinks happened too. I’ve never seen a creationist confront this disconnect between their use of Gould and their notions of the history of life. The case for PE is a case against all creationism except strict creation of each species, which very few accept and which most avoid because it makes the Ark too crowded.
Of course Byers is incapable of responding coherently to this or anything else, but is there a creationist willing to deal with it?
(I should repeat that I don’t think PE is a good explanation for what we see in the fossil record, that fossil “species” can be equated with the term as used by neontologists, or even that stasis has been shown to be a general phenomenon. But those are separate questions.)
Robert, near as I can tell, you are the only here who thinks you are right. Perhaps everyone else here is wrong. Please give it some thought.
Patrick,
Well it is important to bring up creationist views but do a better sampling.
Creationists only would pick up on the correction.
It doesn’t matter what he says about creationists.
What does matter is how RIGHTLY creationists point out he agrees the fossil record does not support old time evolution truth.
I furtherv say it proves all evolution as not having happened IF one uses the fossil record for evidence.
Its a disator if more thoughtful people thought about it.
Gould and his PE showed how few people in evolutionism did think about things accurately
Shhh.
What does that mean? Did you consider this? What is your answer?
This tiny sampling of people would never indicate the truth/untruth of any point in origin subjects regardless of who is right.
Anyways you can tell by answers.
Nobody made any good answer against what I said. I paid attention.
In fact nobody ever read Goulds book I think.
It is a strange hard read but thats another point.
I made a good case using a famous evolutionists own points and extending it.
He didn’t realize his hurting of evolution and so probably the others wouldn’t either until very carefully thinking about it.