Evolution (Evolution)

by George Jelliss , Crewe, Tuesday, January 20, 2009, 10:20 (5574 days ago) @ David Turell

DT&apos;s quote is from &quot;Uncommon Descent&quot; which is &quot;Serving the Intelligent Design Community&quot; (and was originally set up by William Dembski). I think DT should be open about this:&#13;&#10; &#13;&#10;http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/darwins-big-mistake-gradualism/ - This just rehashes the old arguments arising from the Gould/Eldridge paper on punctuated equilbrium. The modern view of most biologists is expressed in this Wikipedia entry: - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyletic_gradualism - Quote: << Phyletic gradualism has been largely deprecated as the exclusive pattern of evolution by modern evolutionary biologists in favor of the acceptation of occurrence of patterns such as those described on punctuated equilibrium, quantum evolution, and punctuated gradualism. >> - << Authors such as Richard Dawkins argue that such constant-rate gradualism is not present in academic literature, serving only as a straw-man for punctuated equilibrium advocates. He refutes the idea that Charles Darwin himself was a constant-rate gradualist, as suggested by Stephen Jay Gould, for Darwin has explicitly stated that &quot;Many species, once formed, never undergo any further change...; and the periods, during which species have undergone modification, though long as measured by years, have probably been short in comparison with the periods during which they retain the same form.&quot; >>

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GPJ