Dawkins and Gould Are Always Right, But ...

• Welcome to the BOL Forum on Evolutionary Psychology by John Grohol, 3/19/97
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    • But Dawkins said, perhaps ... ? by Dr Brian Robinson, 6/2/97
      
      

It's good to have you aboard! You force me to obsess in different directions that would otherwise bore me and I would burn out like the moth posted in another section.

My opinions about evolution continuing ... the Net (and Behavior OnLine) is wonderful for letting me chatter. Hard copy lasts centuries and academic careers founder on error. Consequences are more casual on the Net. Thus, I can doodle in the margins of other's contributions. Dawkins, in contrast, is an icon and one that attracted me into this wonderful area. (I envy your catching him on an interview!) My own position versus Richard is similar to that of an aging chimp coming across an alpha male in his prime. My adaptive strategy is to show respect.

However, now that respect has been offered ....

If evolution is defined by the creation of species, we are likely in a period of stasis, not only for humans but for other creatures. Lots of new species are discovered, and a lot of beetles are yet to be named, but no one is advertising that they actually saw a new species pop out. Gould (again with his handy thesaurus) describes evolution as a succession of "punctuated equilibria," long intervals in which not much is happening.

Second, varieties develop within a species and probably along the lines suggested by the animal breeders and by natural selection. But, no one has solved the species problem. Darwin didn't do it despite the hoopla. I suspect he may have been a little nervous about the idea and was swept up in Wallace's draft. Perhaps he jumped for a weak idea rather than loose credit on a life time project. Lynn Margulis has advocated symbiosis as a device for species formation. She makes sense to a marginal doodler like me. Her mechanisms, however, are at the viral or bacterial level and if an accurate model, then actual speciation may occur in rare circumstances associated with major climatic change and only with comparatively simple life forms that elaborate later into more complex ones.

I understand there is some waffling on the traditional definition of a species as a group of animals that can mate with each other but not with other groups. If we soften the criterion then varieties of creatures (like dogs?) might be considered by some to be species. For example, there was a recent article in Discover that described Amazon River rats as comprising hundreds of species. It wasn't clear, however, that they could not mate with each other. If we stick to the traditional definition, then we need a speciation event that will affect males and females simultaneously and in the same way. A single mutant creature will have no mate. Environmental changes might affect microbiological events in such a way that many gametes are changed at once even in a larger creature. (If so, then we will have to amend Weissmann but not a large problem. It will have to be done eventually for logical reasons given that he made a universal generalization and science eventually rejects them. Indeed, there are already some data that paramecia modify their DNA in response to environmental conditions.)

Third, Darwin is said to have been surprised by the richness of life once he left England's hedgerows and defined ecosystems. Dawkins might have a similar issue. While our medical systems keep most people alive until reproductive age, not everyone on the globe has access to them. Thus, in Africa, South America, and Asia selective pressures still occur relentlessly to affect differential reproductive success. While speciation has not happened, there are certainly different varieties of humans, adapted for differing environments (cultural and physical). I would not survive long in Tibetan climate, likewise in the Andes.

American culture supports a wide array of physically and behaviorally different types of people. Once our material resources erode, we may experience the same reproductive pressures as much of the rest of the world. If so, then differential survival will again be expressed. Of course, there's no evidence that even under extreme deprivation, a new species of human will erupt.

I guess my position from the margins is that if evolution consists of the formation of varieties of adaptations in existing species, then it continues. If future species are somehow dependent on variety in preexisting species, then evolution continues. And, I guess it's hard for me to conceive of evolution "stopping" if I believe that it's been cooking for 3.5 billion years. That kind of cessation is much like another edition of Special Creation.

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