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Subject: 
Re: Why do we know all of this? (was Re: evolution)
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Wed, 8 Mar 2000 16:28:27 GMT
Viewed: 
1077 times
  
Mr L F Braun wrote:
   Ack!  My eyeballs just had a seizure!  Galapagos.  :)  Those are all still
microevolutionary--macroevolution, it's generally believed, requires a strong shift
in environments, which may be underway now (though we won't see the results for a
long time).  There's also the question of what constitutes "macro," since that's a
notoriously subjective term--what is "big" or "little?"  Darwin's contribution was
the principle of Survival of the Fittest; full-blown evolutionary theory is way too
big to be the creation (pun unintended, please don't send me to .pun) of any one
person.

I disagree with the term "Survival of the Fittest," shouldn't it be
something more like "Reproduction of the Fittest(1)?"  Darwin and some of
his contemporaries did create the theory of evolution through natural
selection,
one of the first evolutionary ideas that could be proven scientifically.

Macroevolution is thought of by some scientists as the effects of
cumulative
microevolution.  Others think it works by a different process altogether.
Either way large evolutionary leaps(2) do happen, most of the cause can be
attributed to strong environmental change.  Macroevolution(usually) results
in a speciation event.

-chris

1- fitness, refers to the individuals that have the highest reproductive
   output.
2- remember evolution doesn't always produce a increase in complexity or
   "something that is better"



Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: Why do we know all of this? (was Re: evolution)
 
(...) Well, the fittest *individuals* don't survive forever, obviously. What really survives, past one lifetime, are the fittest *genotypes*. -- John J. Ladasky Jr., Ph.D. Department of Structural Biology Stanford University Medical Center Stanford, (...) (25 years ago, 9-Mar-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
  Re: Why do we know all of this? (was Re: evolution)
 
(...) And, I must jump in, cause, well, I do, but if I remember my History of Anthropology course (if only I could find my notes!) it was actually Herbert Spencer (a wild and wacky social darwinist) coined that term. (25 years ago, 10-Mar-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Why do we know all of this? (was Re: evolution)
 
(...) We did, but it didn't necessarily help--the Lysenko variant of Lamarckian genetics was eagerly taken up by Stalin and his totalitarian regime--"New Socialist Man" ring any bells? It was something that appealed to him because it implied that (...) (25 years ago, 7-Mar-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

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