Re: Fossil Records Show Biodiversity Comes and Goes

From: John Harshman (jharshman.diespamdie_at_pacbell.net)
Date: 03/18/05 

Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 17:54:48 GMT

George wrote:

> "John Harshman" <jharshman.diespamdie@pacbell.net> wrote in message
> news:vYB_d.11638$C47.5213@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com...
>
>>George wrote:
>>
>>
>>>"John Harshman" <jharshman.diespamdie@pacbell.net> wrote in message
>>>news:oPo_d.24046$OU1.17168@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com...
>>>
>>>
>>>>George wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>"John Harshman" <jharshman.diespamdie@pacbell.net> wrote in message
>>>>>news:f_l_d.11486$C47.9372@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com...
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>George wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>"John Harshman" <jharshman.diespamdie@pacbell.net> wrote in message
>>>>>>>news:mvh_d.19664$Pz7.10093@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>George wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>"darthpup" <amchitka@mailexcite.com> wrote in message
>>>>>>>>>news:1111068702.868751.160260@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>SJ Gould published a paper in Science in the early seventies after an
>>>>>>>>>>exhaustive inventory of all collected fossils and showed that diversity
>>>>>>>>>>is in fact random and not controlled by any correlative factor.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>I seem to recall something about this. Do you have a link to this
>>>>>>>>>paper?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>I swear he's referring to Gould's entirely data-free simulations of
>>>>>>>>clade shape evolution. But we'll see.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Oh God. Not that one.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Actually, that paper is relevant to your claim to find some particular
>>>>>>pattern, which implies some kind of mechanism. Gould showed in that
>>>>>>paper that such patterns would appear with reasonable frequency even if
>>>>>>speciation and extinction were entirely stochastic.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>The idea I espoused about specialists being more vulnerable to extinction is
>>>>>not
>>>>>a new one. Moore talked about it in his 1952 treatise on invertebrate
>>>>>paleontology.
>>>>
>>>>And that's an argument in favor of what? Are ideas good because they
>>>>aren't new, or are they bad because they aren't new, or is their age
>>>>irrelevant?
>>>
>>>
>>>I was simply pointing out that this is an idea that has been thought about so
>>>quite some time. That's all.
>>>
>>
>>Ah, but what was your purpose in pointing that out? Just making
>>conversation?
>>
>
> My purpose in pointing it out was that it has been accepted for quite some time,
> so I don't understand your objection to it.
>
Well, "thought about" and "accepted" are two quite different things.
Accepted on what basis? We just know it's true? It sounds nice? Or was
this established on the basis of rigorous tests? If so, do you have
citations? The Paleobiology paper you cited was one such test, which
seems to show an effect in crinoids -- though again, greater speciation
rates among the specialists compensated for the greater extinction
rates. What else you got?

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