Gradualism Versus Punctuationism Essay

Over the past few centuries, humans have been questioning and debating over what makes evolution true. In Jerry Coyne’s work, Why Evolution is True, he noted two kinds of evidence from Darwin’s theory of evolution. The first evidence includes the six testable predictions of evolution: evolution, gradualism, speciation, common-ancestry, natural selection, and nonselective mechanisms of evolutionary change. The second evidence that Coyne noted in his work is the retrodiction. In Coyne’s work, Why Evolution is True, a retrodiction is the facts and data that are not necessarily predicted by the theory of evolution but it makes sense only in the light of the theory of evolution. Retrodiction uses present theories to explain events that happens in the past. Since evolution is a slow process, theories could not be tested. Therefore, we explain the existence of vestigial structures and how humans share a common ancestor with fish through the theory of evolution. Throughout the text, examples of retrodiction are the imperfect adaptation of a panda’s thumb and gill slits in the beginning stages of a human embryo. Common ancestry is proven by the existence of fossils and these evidences proves that evolution is true.

Mendel's Laws explain most of the physical variations observed in living things. Genes, the genetic units of heredity, are merely reshuffled from one generation to another, but new genes are never formed. Different combinations create variations, but these variations are limited. Each cow, person, dog, etc. has variations, but the genetic units do not permit dog-people, or cow-dogs. Breeding experiments by competent biologists confirm that these boundaries exist.(Fix,1984). Since mutations are the only mechanism (according to Darwin) by which new genetic material becomes available, then mutations must have occurred regularly to have spawned all our present life forms, and further, mutation must consistently go from simple to complex to have gotten us out of the primordial ooze. However, many noted biologists, including C.P. Martin and Theodosius Dobzhansky (who mutated the fruit fly), consistently report that mutation does produce hereditary changes, but "invariably affect it (the organism) adversely."(Salisbury, 1969). All animals are born with complex organs (the human brain has over a hundred thousand billion electrical connections), and further, all animals are born with fully developed organs. If evolution were occurring, at some point people

Throughout his essays, Gould applies dual or more complex definitions to certain words or phrases by implanting dashes which separate the words and meanings. For example, in Evolution as Fact and Theory, Gould breaks down the step by step process scientists had been following to explain the mystery of the mammalian jaw bone, where he references the term “mammal-like reptiles”. In this case, he does not mean that upright walking, scale covered, cold blooded creatures are what we are descendants of necessarily. Rather, the hyphen between “mammal” and “like” creates entirely new meaning, that meaning being more similar to mammals than to reptiles. Furthermore, the healthy use of dashes and hyphens amongst the piece remains one of the major tell-tale clues to Gould’s masterful

The literature on Intelligent Design and Macroevolution suggests that Intelligent Design is a viable alternative to Macroevolution. Charles Darwin in his book On The Origin of Species wrote the greatest flaw in his theory was the lack of intermediate forms in the fossil record, but he thought more would be discovered as time went on. Contrary to Darwin’s belief Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould found that most species exhibit no change in the fossil record and appear in the

In the first chapter, Coyne discusses the basic concept outline of evolution, and brings clarity to the common misconceptions thought and said about how the science works, and the large misuse of the word theory. The first chapter of this book also defines very carefully each of the main hypothesis of evolutionary theory. Which stands in dissimilarity to many other treatments of evolution, which all have a propensity to confuse some readers by integrating different meanings of the word. Coyne also divides Darwinism into six components. They are: evolution which means change over time, gradualism which is a policy of slower change rather than sudden change or a revolution, speciation which is the evolutionary process where a new biological species

Although Darwin’s (1809-1882) work in evolutionary observation might appear radically different from those focused on other areas, the theories he developed from these observation lead to such groundbreaking publishing’s as The Origin of Species. These intern caused an upset within the then accepted norms of philosophy and religion, had a profound impact on the academia, and further

The late Stephen Jay Gould, a noted paleontologist who once described himself as an “agnostic leaning towards atheism,” wrote the classic treatise Evolution as Fact and Theory for Discover magazine back in 1981. His distinguished career and scientific achievements did earn him respect amongst his peers, but to the general public he is best known for his popular science writings and, to smaller circles, as a champion of evolution. As his treatise was written for a non-academic, science themed magazine, a basic understanding of science, and specifically evolutionary mechanics, was assumed of his audience. The treatise itself is on the often overlapping distinction between “theory” and “fact”; two words, he asserts, that creationists

"New standards pointed out about that discrepancies in a molecular evidence has challenged the evolutionary theory of common ancestry of all living things and that whether microevolution can be extrapolated to explain macro evolutionary changes is controversial".(LeBeau, 2007)

Evolutionary changes can be both big and small. Some evolutionary changes do not create new species, but result in changes at the

However, there is also gradualism and punctuated equilibrium to support the creationist side. Gradualism and punctuated equilibrium explain how species go through evolutionary change. Gradualism is belief that changes occur, or ought to occur, slowly in the form of gradual steps, another topic related to gradualism is incrementalism. Gradualism supports how species go through evolutionary changes over short and longer periods of time. Gradualism is also very popular in politics, it is one of the defining features in conservatism and reformism,

Creationists, mistaking the uncertain in science for the unscientific, see the debate among evolutionists regarding how best to explain evolution as a sign of weakness. Scientists, on the other hand, see uncertainty as simply an inevitable element of scientific knowledge. They regard debates on fundamental theoretical issues as healthy and stimulating. Science, says evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, is "most fun when it plays with interesting ideas, examines their implications, and recognizes that old information may be explained in surprisingly new ways." Thus, through all the debate over evolutionary mechanisms biologists have not been led to doubt that evolution has occurred. "We are debating how it happened," says Gould (1983, p.256).

The article, “A Matter of Scale,” urges the audience to observe the small and extraordinary components of the biosphere and acknowledge its genetic variations as explained by Darwin’s theory of evolution. However, Kelly’s essay, “Evolution: An Article of Faith,” considers Darwin’s theory as a “false religion” suppressing God’s ability to create the “work of intelligence.” (Evolution) The heated debate over the credibility of Darwin’s theory of evolution has led to the division of scientific and religious groups. Devoted, religious people discover two major flaws with Darwin’s theory of evolution regarding the inaccuracies of the fossil record and the contradicting phrase “survival of the fittest” that has passed on harmful mutations to next

When that happens over many generations a species’ gene pool changes to only include the traits that are a best fit for ensuring survival of that species, and a new species may evolve. In the case of the Galapagos finches Darwin studied, biologists have since found that one of the differences was their beak size, which were adapted to the specific seeds available to the finches as food on the different islands. This would support this principle as only the birds able to eat the local seeds would be able to survive to reproduce, thus over many generations, new finches with a variety of different beak sizes would “evolve”. The

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1755-1829) is one of the best-known early evolutionists, holding a belief that evolution was a continuous development and strived toward greater complexity and perfection. Through which, his theory of evolution was that living organisms evolved in a unceasingly up ward direction, from dead matter, through simple to more complex forms and towards human “perfection” (Nesci.edu, 2015). From his theories of Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics; where organisms adapt to their environments and those changes were passed onto their off springs (Corbis, 2001), to his theories of Use and Disuse, where organisms that are not used progressively disappear (Evolution.berkeley.edu, 2015). Lamarck was the first biologist to publish

An opposing theory, punctuated equilibrium shows society’s changes as happening very unexpectedly and having great effect. Although originated by Ernest Mayr, this theory was first introduced by Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould in 1972(Science.jrank.org). These two paleontologists wrote a paper which established the foundation of this theory(Academic Room). “Mayr later complimented Eldredge and Gould's paper, stating that evolutionary stasis had been "unexpected by most evolutionary biologists" and that punctuated equilibrium "had a major impact on paleontology and evolutionary biology”(Academic Room).