Page 176 - The Evolution Impasse 2

174 Punctuated Model of Evolution Myth, The

dec ades, a dif fer ent mod el was born: ture. 197 (See The Macro-Mutation
punc tu at ed ev o lu tion. Deception.) According to the the o ry,
This mod el be gan with great fan - cer tain ter res tri al an i mals might
fare by two American pa le on tol o - have turned in to gi ant whales as a
gists, Niles Eldredge and Stephen re sult of sud den and com pre hen sive
Jay Gould, in the 1970s. These two chan ges, with in a sin gle gen er a tion.
ev o lu tion ist sci en tists were aware These claims con flict with all known
that the claims of neo-Darwinian ge net ic, bi o phys i cal and bi o chem i cal
the o ry were to tal ly re fut ed by the laws, and were about as sci en tif ic as
fos sil record. Fossils proved that liv - tales of prin ces turn ing in to frogs.
ing things had not ap peared on But some ev o lu tion ist pa le on tol o -
Earth through grad u al ev o lu tion, gists, troub led by the cri sis fac ing
but had ap peared sud den ly and per - the claims of neo-Darwinism, clung
fect ly formed. Neo-Darwinists were to this the o ry even though it was
liv ing with the hope that the fos sils even more non sen si cal than neo-
they sought would one day be Darwinism it self.
found—which in deed is still the case This the o ry's sole aim of was to
to day. But Eldredge and Gould re al - ac count for the fos sil gaps that the
ized that this hope was un found ed. neo-Darwinist mod el was un a ble to
Since they were un will ing to aban - ex plain. However, it is com plete ly ir -
don the dog ma of ev o lu tion, they ra tion al to ex plain away the fos sil
there fore pro posed a new mod el; gaps by claims along the lines that
punc tu at ed ev o lu tion, the claim that "Birds sud den ly emerged from rep -
ev o lu tion oc curred not with small, tile eggs." For any spe cies to evolve
grad u al chan ges, but in very large in to an oth er, there must be a very
sud den ones. large and ben e fi cial change in its ge -
This was ac tu al ly a fan ta sy mod - net ic da ta. Yet no mu ta tion can de vel -
el. For ex am ple, Otto Schindewolf op ge net ic in for ma tion or add any
who had pre ced ed Eldredge and new da ta to it. Mutations lead sole ly
Gould, had giv en a con jec tur al ex - to a loss of, or dam age to, ex ist ing
am ple of punc tu at ed ev o lu tion, da ta. The whole sale mu ta tions im ag -
claim ing that the first bird in his to ry ined by the ad her ents of punc tu at ed
emerged from a rep tile egg through ev o lu tion would ac tu al ly rep re sent
a gross mu ta tion—some gi ant, ran - re duc tions and de fects in ge net ic in -
dom mu ta tion in its ge net ic struc - for ma tion.

The Evolution Impasse II