Question from an evolutionary ignoramus

[Robert Holmes]

I've been reading a compilation of Stephen Jay Gould's writings "The
Richness of Life". One of his recurrent themes is how we have a hard time
interpreting probability - he illustrates this with a discussion of hitting
streaks in baseball and "hot-hands" in basketball. He claims that although
psychological explanations are appealing ("when you're hot you're hot, when
you're not you're not") they aren't backed up by statistics. In baseball for
example, all hitting streaks have lain within a couple of standard
deviations of the length you'd expect purely from a consideration of their
lifetime batting average (BTW - Gould says there's one exception to this.
Prizes will be awarded if you can identify it!)

So that's a rather long preamble to my actual question: is Gould's
punctuated equilibrium real or (like Dawkins) do we really have an
incremental "creeping" evolution that we only get to see very very
occasional snapshots of in the fossil record? According to some erudite
boffin on NPR yesterday (so it must be true) the fossil record contains
considerably less than 1% of the estimated dinosaur species (not
individuals!). If you observe creeping evolution at such a low sample rate,
wouldn't that look like punctuated equilibrium?

Robert
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[Phil Henshaw-2]

I've studied it at some length, and corresponded with Gould, though
hardly at length.   All in all it seems the broad consensus has been to
fudge the question, rather than challenge the explanatory assumptions.
The evidence of large coordinated evolutionary changes, speciation, in
poorly explained short periods of time is unequivocal though.    The
only significant effort I know of to devise a novel mode of evolution to
fit the fossil evidence is my own
[http://www.synapse9.com/GTRevisSCI-2007.pdf], (though the new evo
mechanism postulated in "The Plausibility of Life" would satisfy the
process feedback requirements too).     Quite largely the effort
(summarizing 35 years of professional debate in paleontology) has been
to say that the accepted modes of evolution must somehow have this
effect too, even if there seems to be no particularly good explanation
for how.    There are some ref's in the paper.
 
 

Phil Henshaw                       ????.?? ? `?.????
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
680 Ft. Washington Ave
NY NY 10040                      
tel: [phone]                
e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com          
explorations: www.synapse9.com <http://www.synapse9.com/>    

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On
Behalf Of Robert Holmes
Sent: Saturday, June 09, 2007 10:20 AM
To: FRIAM
Subject: [FRIAM] Question from an evolutionary ignoramus


I've been reading a compilation of Stephen Jay Gould's writings "The
Richness of Life". One of his recurrent themes is how we have a hard
time interpreting probability - he illustrates this with a discussion of
hitting streaks in baseball and "hot-hands" in basketball. He claims
that although psychological explanations are appealing ("when you're hot
you're hot, when you're not you're not") they aren't backed up by
statistics. In baseball for example, all hitting streaks have lain
within a couple of standard deviations of the length you'd expect purely
from a consideration of their lifetime batting average (BTW - Gould says
there's one exception to this. Prizes will be awarded if you can
identify it!)

So that's a rather long preamble to my actual question: is Gould's
punctuated equilibrium real or (like Dawkins) do we really have an
incremental "creeping" evolution that we only get to see very very
occasional snapshots of in the fossil record? According to some erudite
boffin on NPR yesterday (so it must be true) the fossil record contains
considerably less than 1% of the estimated dinosaur species (not
individuals!) . If you observe creeping evolution at such a low sample
rate, wouldn't that look like punctuated equilibrium?

Robert


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[Russell Standish]

Off the bat, I would suspect that low sample rates would make a
punctualist process seem graduated, as it would mask the high
frequency signal. But possibly you are right if the sampling was
uneven, and this unevenness was not taken into acount. Not having
worked with paleontological data first hand, I can't really comment.

Cheers

On Sat, Jun 09, 2007 at 08:20:18AM -0600, Robert Holmes wrote:
> So that's a rather long preamble to my actual question: is Gould's
> punctuated equilibrium real or (like Dawkins) do we really have an
> incremental "creeping" evolution that we only get to see very very
> occasional snapshots of in the fossil record? According to some erudite
> boffin on NPR yesterday (so it must be true) the fossil record contains
> considerably less than 1% of the estimated dinosaur species (not
> individuals!). If you observe creeping evolution at such a low sample rate,
> wouldn't that look like punctuated equilibrium?
>

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/Prof Russell Standish                  Phone [phone] (mobile)
Mathematics                        
UNSW SYDNEY 2052                 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au
Australia                                http://www.hpcoders.com.au
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Phil Henshaw-2]

Has anyone even looked at my paper to see what the statistical issues of
'punctuation' actually are??  The statistical problem is to find a
continuity that bridges a discontinuity.   The secret I found is that to
do that you need to analyze the data for *flow*, and that that is erased
when you search the data for *trend*.   Searching for trend seems to be
the mistake everyone's been making in trying to understand evolutionary
rates.  Read the paper if you want to know about it.


Phil Henshaw                       ????.?? ? `?.????
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
680 Ft. Washington Ave
NY NY 10040                      
tel: [phone]                
e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com          
explorations: www.synapse9.com    

> -----Original Message-----
> From: friam-bounces at redfish.com
> [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Russell Standish
> Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2007 11:02 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Question from an evolutionary ignoramus
>
>
> Off the bat, I would suspect that low sample rates would make
> a punctualist process seem graduated, as it would mask the
> high frequency signal. But possibly you are right if the
> sampling was uneven, and this unevenness was not taken into
> acount. Not having worked with paleontological data first
> hand, I can't really comment.
>
> Cheers
>
> On Sat, Jun 09, 2007 at 08:20:18AM -0600, Robert Holmes wrote:
> > So that's a rather long preamble to my actual question: is Gould's
> > punctuated equilibrium real or (like Dawkins) do we really have an
> > incremental "creeping" evolution that we only get to see very very
> > occasional snapshots of in the fossil record? According to some
> > erudite boffin on NPR yesterday (so it must be true) the
> fossil record
> > contains considerably less than 1% of the estimated
> dinosaur species
> > (not individuals!). If you observe creeping evolution at such a low
> > sample rate, wouldn't that look like punctuated equilibrium?
> >
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> --------------
> A/Prof Russell Standish                  Phone [phone] (mobile)
> Mathematics                        
> UNSW SYDNEY 2052                 hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au
> Australia                                http://www.hpcoders.com.au
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> --------------
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