Life as Evolving Software... (Chaitin) (Humans)

by David Turell , Tuesday, December 20, 2011, 22:07 (4521 days ago) @ xeno6696

Paleontologists have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin’s argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life’s history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study.” [[Stephen Jay Gould 'Evolution's erratic pace'. Natural History, vol. LXXXVI95), May 1977, p.14.] [[HT: Answers.com]

What were his thoughts on all this in the latter part of his career? I realize he was trying hard to revitalize a relatively stable field, but none of these quotes explain why fossils are not snapshots.

I don't agree with your interpretation of Gould. From all I've read by him and about him, he consistently pointed to the gaps and the sudden appearance of new forms. Which is why I look at the whale development, and see no intermediaries, just new forms many thousands-plus years apart, each quite different. I'll look for references I can quote, but I've never read his last magnum opus.