"For more than a century, Darwin has dominated the biological
sciences, but his hypothesis for the evolution of life does
not cohere with natural history and leads to a philosophical
morass."
She notes the problems involved not only with inbreeding (the basis of punc/eek), but also with the notion of having life forms arise by adapting to specialized or localized conditions:
"Darwin developed much of his hypothesis by studying the way British horse and dog breeders produced separate breeds. Indeed, genetic variation allows breeders to select for specific traits: the fastest, the largest, the most brightly colored, and so on. From this he extrapolated the idea of "natural" selection as a selection for the individuals best adapted to conditions in the wild. However, horse and dog breeding produce variation on- ly within a single species. "In addition to' this limitation, the show-animal breeding method has its proolems. Inbreeding mother to son, sibling to sibling, does indeed often produce progeny very similar to the proven champion parents, but the price paid for this shortcut to riches is a rapid increase in very serious genetic diseases, poor temperament, and other problems. "Farm animals and other working animals, as well as agricul- tural plants, are outbred to maintain both physical and-for the animals-psychological versatility and vigor. They are gen- erally bred for vigor, endurance, and versatility (plasticity) un- der a wide variety of circumstances. For example, new strains of seed are judged agriculturally by whether they produce well under a wide variety of climate and soil conditions, including how well they can withstand diseases common to that crop. Hybrid vigor, the wellspring of modern agriculture, is pro- duced totally by outbreeding. "What does this question of outbreeding or inbreeding have to do with evolution? "There is a basic flaw in the assumption that one can breed for just a few very specific traits to get a species perfectly adapted to very fixed and limited conditions, and that this is the way evolution generates speciation: This view assumes that the environment-nature remains fixed and stable. However, living conditions are not fixed. External bounding conditions change. Continents and oceans have come and gone. Climatic conditions have fluctuated from extremely hot, steamy tropical conditions or hot arid conditions to glacial ice ages. Numerous species have emerged and died out. Perfect adaptation to fixed environmental conditions is not the way evolution proceeds. Although this strategy may work on the race track or in the show ring, the species that used this strategy are long since ex- tinct. Instead, successful species must have a certain flexibility and vigor that makes them adaptable to changing environmen- tal conditions. "It took life eons to generate species that are progressively more and more adaptable to different and varying condi- tions. Life becomes increasingly homeostatic (able to regu- late its own physiological conditions internally) as higher forms of life evolve. First, life escapes from dependence on an aqueous environment and becomes able to regulate its own salt and water content, protecting itself, by various means, from desiccation and other extremes. With mammals and birds, homeotherms evolve: species able to regulate their own body temperature. "Finally, man appears. From the physiological standpoint, man appears in Darwinian terms to be the least well adjusted to environmental conditions, being both weak and naked. Yet, from the standpoint of adaptation to changing environmental conditions, he is the best adapted, because he has creative rea- son and develops language and society. Man is thus free from the fixed instinctual drives of lower animals. During a pro- longed child-rearing phase, the young develop the mental apti- tude to generate new technologies that can conquer any envi- ronment-and even colonize space. "The Earth and its biosphere are the antithesis of a fixed envi- ronment. Looked at from the perspective of geological tim~ the eons during which life has evolved-life is constantly changing with the biospheric environment; it is constantly modifying and trnnsfom~ing for its own ends. From this stand- point, the number of species that have become extinct as a re- sult of changes wrought by human civilization is paltry in comparison with the number of species extinctions caused by major climatic and similar drastic environmental changes that occurred prior to man's appearance.
Punctuated equalibria, or punc/eek, amounts to a claim that the fossil record shows no intermediate forms because all meaningful change (macroevolutionary change) occurs in small groups of animals living in peripheral areas, and that these animals, having developed some advantage via this process, then go on to take over the larger areas from the main herds of creatures.
I have noted two problems with this: one, that inbreeding is being proposed as the means of obtaining happiness and success (see above), and two is the idea that these smaller groups of animals win out in all cases because of some genetic advantage, which is like needing to have Custer win at the Little big Horn every day for thousands and millions of years.
Superior numbers will win out over some slight genetic advantage in all cases. In the struggle for dominance and possession of territory, the larger lion pride, or the larger hyena pack wins.
And my friend points out one other little concern which hadn't even occurred to me previously but which certainly makes good sense and coincides with what Ms. Hugunin has to say about adaptability vs. adaptation for specialized conditions.
Each one of the little groups which Gould and Eldredge postulate is going to arise in some localized area and be adapted to that area. Gould and Eldredge then require these parochials to go out and in all cases overcome much larger herds of animals which are adapted to varying conditions over large areas.
In real life, on islands and in other isolated areas, the first minute ordinary dogs, cats, rats and what not are introduced into such an isolated environment, the specialized animals all get wiped out in a short period of time.
At some point, evolutions will have to face the facts; there is no version of this business which works.