Re: Fundamental Darwinism


"Larry Moran" <lamoran@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:dsek61$16jt$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Tue, 7 Feb 2006 23:57:00 -0500 (EST),
Perplexed in Peoria <jimmenegay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[snip]

Steven Rose wrote,
However, whilst this is a mechanism of evolution, it is, as Darwin
himself recognised, not the only one. It is good at explaining how
species get better at doing their species thing, but [NS is] bad at
explaining how new species emerge. For this one needs other factors,
like founder effects, and above all sheer contingency - chance.

I think that the core of the Darwinian/NS explanation of speciation
is basically right. Speciation happens because a species occupies
two different environments, and it cannot adapt to both of them without
fissioning.

You are defending Fundamentalist Darwinism. I think you're wrong.
I believe that modern evolutionary theory does a much better job of
explaining speciation than the old-fashioned Darwinian theory that it
has replaced. Speciation mostly occurs by accident and adaptation is
not involved.

True enough if most speciation is allopatric. But even here, adaptation
can be involved. The key moment in an allopatric speciation is when
the ranges of the two species remerge. The argument can be made on
ecological grounds that if there is not a difference between the
two species in what kinds of habitats they are adapted to, then it
is likely that one of the two is going to go rapidly extinct.
And if there is a difference in adaptation, then selection is involved -
species-level selection, which is still 'fundamentalist' though not
'neo-fundamentalist'.

If a species goes extinct in the forest, and there is no one there
to witness it's rise and fall, did it ever really exist? ;-)


.

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