Science & Technology - Posted by James Devitt-NYU on Tuesday, November 9, 2010 16:52 - 9 Comments 
(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading ...
(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...Does Darwin’s theory hold up?
The fact that geological history is now understood to be marked by long periods of stability punctuated by major ecological change, casts doubt on Darwin’s theory of gradual evolution. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
NYU (US) — Charles Darwin’s theory of gradual evolution is not supported by geological history, according to a new paper.
Share this article
Email
Republish this article
The text of this article by Futurity is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License.
That theory, put forth by Scottish horticulturalist Patrick Matthew prior to Darwin’s published work, claims long periods of evolutionary stability disrupted by catastrophic mass extinctions of life, is a far more likely a scenario, says Michael Rampino, a geologist at New York University.
“Matthew discovered and clearly stated the idea of natural selection, applied it to the origin of species, and placed it in the context of a geologic record marked by catastrophic mass extinctions followed by relatively rapid adaptations,” says Rampino, whose research on catastrophic events includes studies on volcano eruptions and asteroid impacts.
Rampino’s theory is published in the journal Historical Biology.
“In light of the recent acceptance of the importance of catastrophic mass extinctions in the history of life, it may be time to reconsider the evolutionary views of Patrick Matthew as much more in line with present ideas regarding biological evolution than the Darwin view.”
Matthew (1790-1874) published a statement of the law of natural selection in a little-read Appendix to his 1831 book Naval Timber and Arboriculture.
Even though both Darwin and his colleague Alfred Russel Wallace acknowledged that Matthew was the first to put forth the theory of natural selection, historians have attributed the unveiling of the theory to Darwin and Wallace, Rampino says.
Darwin’s notebooks show that he arrived at the idea in 1838, and he composed an essay on natural selection as early as 1842—years after Matthew’s work appeared.
Darwin and Wallace’s theory was formally presented in 1858 at a science society meeting in London. Darwin’s Origin of Species appeared a year later.
In the Appendix of Naval Timber and Arboriculture, Matthew described the theory of natural selection in a way that Darwin later echoed: “There is a natural law universal in nature, tending to render every reproductive being the best possibly suited to its condition…As the field of existence is limited and pre-occupied, it is only the hardier, more robust, better suited to circumstance individuals, who are able to struggle forward to maturity…”
However, in explaining the forces that influenced this process, Matthew saw catastrophic events as a prime factor, maintaining that mass extinctions were crucial to the process of evolution: “…all living things must have reduced existence so much, that an unoccupied field would be formed for new diverging ramifications of life… these remnants, in the course of time moulding and accommodating … to the change in circumstances.”
When Darwin published his Origin of Species nearly three decades later, he explicitly rejected the role of catastrophic change in natural selection: “The old notion of all the inhabitants of the Earth having been swept away by catastrophes at successive periods is very generally given up,” he wrote.
Instead, Darwin outlined a theory of evolution based on the ongoing struggle for survival among individuals within populations of existing species. This process of natural selection, he argued, should lead to gradual changes in the characteristics of surviving organisms.
However, geological history is now commonly understood to be marked by long periods of stability punctuated by major ecological changes that occur both episodically and rapidly, Rampino says, casting doubt on Darwin’s theory that “most evolutionary change was accomplished very gradually by competition between organisms and by becoming better adapted to a relatively stable environment.
“Matthew’s contribution was largely ignored at the time, and, with few exceptions, generally merits only a footnote in modern discussions of the discovery of natural selection,” Rampino concludes.
“Others have said that Matthew’s thesis was published in too obscure a place to be noticed by the scientific community, or that the idea was so far ahead of its time that it could not be connected to generally accepted knowledge. As a result, his discovery was consigned to the dustbin of premature and unappreciated scientific ideas.”
More news from New York University: www.nyu.edu/public.affairs/
Please wait
9 Comments
Bill
The prime idea in evolution is isolation of a breeding population with some form of stress results in adaptation to the stress. What the isolation might be is not relevent since it can be a catastrophic extinction of most of the population or a seperation by a river or any other event that removes one group from the larger group. The stress, on the other hand, must be sufficient to produce change without exterminating the breeding population. Therefore, it is probable that both gradual and catistrophic operate. The time scales are different but the result of change is the same.
pat a thomas
What about the moths that rapidly changed color to adapt to soot- covered trees? There was no catastrophe…
As always happens the truth may be in the middle, that´s a combination of catastrophes and period of evolutionary stability, But there no doubt that great catastropehhes, like the dinosuars one, have had a grest importance in the results.
pat a thomas
I did not express my point very well, which is that the process is a complicated one that is not covered by one blanket theory – pardon the pun. Neither evolutionary stability nor catastrophic occurances explain the moths.
Concerning our friends the moths. When the trees were covered with soot, the majority of the moths were light colored which made them easy targets for birds. Only the minority of dark colored moths survived to produce more moths. The majority of these were dark colored and therefore survived. When the soot producers were stopped the trees returned to their usual lighter color and the dark colored moths suffered. The ratio of dark to light is now back to what it was before the soot. In any group there is a large majority that are close to “normal” and a few that are “different’. They are there in case there is a sudden change. Since there is no way to tell what the change is going to be ahead of time, the different ones tend to be different from the norm and different from each other. The differences can be very subtle or very noticable.
pat a thomas
Explainin evolution by “this or that” – evolution stability or catastrophic events – is still too simplistic whether you want to see the moths as “compressed” evolution or not. Sometimes “elegant” explanations are too “elegant.”
R Neff
If I read this article right, Rampino isn’t proposing to change how we currently view evolution, but just wants to say that Matthew was closer to getting the eventual details right than Darwin was.
In that case, it doesn’t really matter, rewriting perception is a tough process. The Vikings discovered North America first, but Columbus got all the credit (even though he never landed on the mainland apparently). The difference is other people quickly knew about his discovery, whereas only the Vikings knew about their discovery. If you don’t publish your results in a way that other people know about it, whatever you know doesn’t matter. We all know about Paul Revere but there were at least 3 riders that night, but Longfellow only put Revere’s name to the poem. Truth doesn’t matter nearly as much as public perception.
R Neff
The fact that Darwin was able to make a big spash with his treatise 27 years after Matthews published his version, shows that Matthews had no effect on the study of evolution, regardless of whether he was right or not.
Why not both???