Has Evolution Ended?

[seer]

Has Evolution, at least macro evolution, ended?

Julian Huxley,

Evolution is thus seen as a series of blind alleys. Some are
extremely short -- those leading to new genera and species
that either remain stable or become extinct. Others are
longer -- the lines of adaptive isolation within a group
such as a class or subclass, which run for tens of millions
of years before coming up against their terminal blank wall.
Others are still longer -- the links that in the past led
to the development of the major phyla and their highest
representatives; their course is to be reckoned not in tens
but in hundreds of millions of years. But all in the long
run have terminated blindly. That of the echinoderms, for
instance, reached its climax before the end of the Mesozoic.
For arthropods, represented by their highest group, the
insects, the full stop seems to have come in the early
Cenozoic. Even the ants and bees have made no advance
since the Oligocene. For the birds, the Miocene marked
the end; for the mammals the Pliocene.


Evolution: The Modern Synthesis

Robert Broom,

There is, however, no doubt that evolution, so far as new
groups are concerned, is at an end. That a small line of
generalized animals should have continued on till in Eocene
times the Primates originated and then ceased, and that
except for specializations of Eocene types there has been
no evolution in the last forty million years, and that the
evolutionary clock has so completely run down that it is
very doubtful if a single new genus has appeared on earth
in the last two million years ...

The Coming of Man


In Eocene times -- say between 50,000,000 and 30,000,000
years ago -- small primitive mammals rather suddenly gave
rise to over a dozen very different Orders -- hoofed animals,
odd-toed and even-toed, elephants, carnivores, whales,
rodents, bats and monkeys. And after this there were no more
Orders of mammals ever evolved. There were great varieties
of evolution in the Orders that had appeared, but strangely
enough Nature seemed incapable of forming any more new Orders.
What is equally remarkable, no new types of birds appear
to have evolved in the last 30,000,000 years. And most
remarkable of all, no new family of plants appears to have
evolved since the Eocene. All major evolution has apparently
come to an end. No new types of fishes, no groups of
molluscs, or worms or starfishes, no new groups even of
insects, appear to have been evolved in these latter
30,000,000 years.

Finding the Missing Link

Pierre Grassé:

Facts are facts; no new broad organizational plan has appeared
for several hundred million years, and for an equally long
time numerous species, animal as well as plant, have ceased
evolving. ... At best, present evolutionary phenomena are
simply slight changes of genotypes within populations, or
substitution of an allele with a new one.

Evolution of Living Organism

[Barry Desborough]

Has Evolution, at least macro evolution, ended?

What do you think?

[Jme]

Seer before we proceed I think that everyone would like to know if you are going to be willing to discuss the evidence in this thread.

In your last one in natural science 301 you didn't show any indication you even considered what anyone posted. You appeared to have just found something that agreed with your own beliefs (that evolution is false and species aren't seen to evolve)and taken them at their word.

Please let this thread be different, please consider the evidence/arguments and respond to them - that doesn't mean that you can't look to others for help, just don't accept something because it confirms your beliefs.

[neocon_voter]

Has Evolution, at least macro evolution, ended?

Not at all. We still haven't gotten to the 'big-head' stage a million years from now.

Neocon_Voter

[Roy]

Has Evolution, at least macro evolution, ended?

No.

Are you going to actually engage this time, or are you just going to claim the above is a lie?

Roy

[NeilUnreal]

I have to say I'm conflicted on this.

On the one hand, we've had a fairly stable environment (in cosomological terms) for several hundred million years now. In such circumstances, one would expect that evolution would slow or stop in terms of major branching. Also, it may be that we have reached some kind of plateau in terms of what our R/DNA-based genomes can create in terms of individuals and ecologies.

One the other hand, I can imagine some preternaturally smart globster looking around at the environment just before the Cambrian explosion and thinking to itself: “I wonder if evolution has come to an end?”

Scientifically, we just don’t know enough to really say. My gut call: we're in a slow period in terms of major branching, but there's still lots of room for expansion if the environment changes or some novel peak in the state space is found. And who knows?, the organism that has found such a novel peak might be out there right now, under a rock, in the deep ocean, or even sitting in a chair reading this message.

-Neil

[seer]

Seer before we proceed I think that everyone would like to know if you are going to be willing to discuss the evidence in this thread.

In your last one in natural science 301 you didn't show any indication you even considered what anyone posted. You appeared to have just found something that agreed with your own beliefs (that evolution is false and species aren't seen to evolve)and taken them at their word.

Please let this thread be different, please consider the evidence/arguments and respond to them - that doesn't mean that you can't look to others for help, just don't accept something because it confirms your beliefs.

Jme, first no one on the site I linked believed that evolution is false. Save one or two. But they do not believe that NS+RM could create anything. As far as I can tell they hold to different degrees of biological determinism, but that evolution is in fact true and that species evolved. Second, who knows how life was created? I certainly don't and neither do you...

[seer]

What do you think?

I have no idea - literally...

[seer]

No.

Are you going to actually engage this time, or are you just going to claim the above is a lie?

Roy

Ok, so where Grassé, Huxley and Broom mistaken?

[Jme]

Ok, so where Grassé, Huxley and Broom mistaken?

I don't think you understand the quotes in the OP Seer, but given that I'm a patient person I'll try and help.

But I want to draw attention to the fact that again you have failed to answer people - are you going to engage in discussion or not?

Well first thing that I note is that your quotes are from old works (not that this is a problem as such but it does mean that they are well out of date) - I mean Julian Huxley’s Evolution: The Modern Synthesis was published in 1942. Robert Broom died in 1952 so I doubt that he’s written much recently. Again this is not a problem as such but it is a bit odd, hw did you find these quotes?

Ok on to the first quote:

Julian Huxley,

Evolution is thus seen as a series of blind alleys. Some are
extremely short -- those leading to new genera and species
that either remain stable or become extinct. Others are
longer -- the lines of adaptive isolation within a group
such as a class or subclass, which run for tens of millions
of years before coming up against their terminal blank wall.
Others are still longer -- the links that in the past led
to the development of the major phyla and their highest
representatives; their course is to be reckoned not in tens
but in hundreds of millions of years. But all in the long
run have terminated blindly. That of the echinoderms, for
instance, reached its climax before the end of the Mesozoic.
For arthropods, represented by their highest group, the
insects, the full stop seems to have come in the early
Cenozoic. Even the ants and bees have made no advance
since the Oligocene. For the birds, the Miocene marked
the end; for the mammals the Pliocene.


Evolution: The Modern Synthesis

I’m guessing that the underlined section is the bit you are interested in.

Well the first thing to draw attention to is that it mixes epochs in with eras, which can be a bit confusing. So what it is saying is that after a certain amount of time the representatives within phyla become stable (less prone to overt change). But this doesn’t really take in to consideration the possible biochemical changes that could be occurring. A look at the eras and epochs shows that they are spread out over tens to hundreds of millions of years. I don’t see anything that would indicate that Mr Huxley is saying that macroevolution has stopped.

On to the next one:

Robert Broom,

There is, however, no doubt that evolution, so far as new
groups are concerned, is at an end. That a small line of
generalized animals should have continued on till in Eocene
times the Primates originated and then ceased, and that
except for specializations of Eocene types there has been
no evolution in the last forty million years, and that the
evolutionary clock has so completely run down that it is
very doubtful if a single new genus has appeared on earth
in the last two million years ...

The Coming of Man

I’m not too sure how he is using the term group here (phyla perhaps), but he’s saying that it is at an end. He then goes on to say that no new genus’s have appear recently. But this is not evidence that evolution (macro) has stopped or ended as it is widely recognised that periods of stasis occur when the environment is stable. That is to say that all the niches are being pretty much exploited – next major extinction event will free up space though and then we’ll see something more.

In Eocene times -- say between 50,000,000 and 30,000,000
years ago -- small primitive mammals rather suddenly gave
rise to over a dozen very different Orders -- hoofed animals,
odd-toed and even-toed, elephants, carnivores, whales,
rodents, bats and monkeys. And after this there were no more
Orders of mammals ever evolved. There were great varieties
of evolution in the Orders that had appeared, but strangely
enough Nature seemed incapable of forming any more new Orders.
What is equally remarkable, no new types of birds appear
to have evolved in the last 30,000,000 years. And most
remarkable of all, no new family of plants appears to have
evolved since the Eocene. All major evolution has apparently
come to an end. No new types of fishes, no groups of
molluscs, or worms or starfishes, no new groups even of
insects, appear to have been evolved in these latter
30,000,000 years.

Finding the Missing Link/

In this one he’s more direct and says that it’s all over – but one question that comes to my mind is do we need or expect them new orders to be produced? Is it necessary for new orders to arise all the time?

Like above it’s not that nature is incapable just that the niches are filled and there no opportunities for it to occur.

On to the last quote:

Pierre Grassé:

Facts are facts; no new broad organizational plan has appeared
for several hundred million years, and for an equally long
time numerous species, animal as well as plant, have ceased
evolving. ... At best, present evolutionary phenomena are
simply slight changes of genotypes within populations, or
substitution of an allele with a new one.

Evolution of Living Organism

Ok this is your most obscure quote of the bunch in that I can’t really find out much about him at all outside of creationist/antievolution websites. So I’ll get to this one after you’ve had a chance to reply to what I’ve already posted.

[decoski]

macroevolution never began, so how can it end?

[Crow]

I have to say I'm conflicted on this.

On the one hand, we've had a fairly stable environment (in cosomological terms) for several hundred million years now. In such circumstances, one would expect that evolution would slow or stop in terms of major branching. Also, it may be that we have reached some kind of plateau in terms of what our R/DNA-based genomes can create in terms of individuals and ecologies.

Neil,

Do you think that the human capacity and penchant for engineering our immediate environment and other external influences to suit ourselves--stuff like building houses and artificially heating or cooling them, using animals and later machines for much of our mobility, wearing clothing to protect us from the cold, not generally relying on hunting/gathering for our food, vaccines to prevent disease instead of selection for resistance, etc., is having an effect on the need to adapt or sending us in a different direction?

I kinda think it is.

[seer]

I’m guessing that the underlined section is the bit you are interested in.

Well the first thing to draw attention to is that it mixes epochs in with eras, which can be a bit confusing. So what it is saying is that after a certain amount of time the representatives within phyla become stable (less prone to overt change). But this doesn’t really take in to consideration the possible biochemical changes that could be occurring. A look at the eras and epochs shows that they are spread out over tens to hundreds of millions of years. I don’t see anything that would indicate that Mr Huxley is saying that macroevolution has stopped.

Well I think that is exactly what he is saying. And according to Broom Huxley did agree:

And a few zoologists are beginning to recognize that evolution
is slowing down, if not quite stopped. In a letter I had
from Professor Julian Huxley only a few months ago he says,
"I have often thought about your idea of the fading out of
evolutionary potency, and though I cannot pretend to agree
with some of the philosophical corollaries which you draw from
it, I more and more believe that it is of great importance as
a fact."

"Evolution -- Is there intelligence
Behind It?" (1933), page 14

I’m not too sure how he is using the term group here (phyla perhaps), but he’s saying that it is at an end. He then goes on to say that no new genus’s have appear recently. But this is not evidence that evolution (macro) has stopped or ended as it is widely recognised that periods of stasis occur when the environment is stable. That is to say that all the niches are being pretty much exploited – next major extinction event will free up space though and then we’ll see something more.

You think you will se something more. Of course that is speculation. As far as we can see now macroevolution is not happening. The claim was also made that no new mamals have appeared in the past 200 million years.

In this one he’s more direct and says that it’s all over – but one question that comes to my mind is do we need or expect them new orders to be produced? Is it necessary for new orders to arise all the time?

Like above it’s not that nature is incapable just that the niches are filled and there no opportunities for it to occur.

I don't know what constituted an opportunity in the past or why such opportunities are not still present. The point is, these guys are right - there is no evidence of macroevolution continuing...

[wattsr1]

[snip]


The claim was also made that no new mamals have appeared in the past 200 million years.

Can you point me to that claim Seer? "No new mammals ... in the past 200 million years"?

What did he/she mean by "new mammal"? (I can think of many new mammals in the past 200 million years - horses, dogs, humans, chimps ...).

[snip]

The point is, these guys are right - there is no evidence of macroevolution continuing...

What evidence are you looking for Seer? I mean, to say "no evidence", then you must have something in mind that could convince you otherwise (short of actually seeing it with your own two eyes). So what do you mean?


Regards, Roland

[Jme]

Well I think that is exactly what he is saying.

Well then show it using the quote you provided. I’ve already given you how I interpret what he was saying (given that we don’t have the whole text, the context is not known). But to state it again:

What he is saying is that over time organisms within a given phyla will tend toward extinction or eventual stability. For each of the examples this happened at different times in the past, which were separated by tens or hundreds of millions of years (depend on the ones we look at). So when do you think he meant macroevolution ended/stopped?

Now barring certain events that I will bring up later this is what we would expect to happen – do you dispute this?

And according to Broom Huxley did agree:

Seer slow down, let’s discuss what’s in the OP before you start quoting anything else, as I could not have known about that quote before now, and given the age of your quotes and the fact that you have not linked to anything containing them it makes for a difficult discussion – it would also help if you showed some willingness to discuss anything and answer a few questions. You are heading down the same road as the other threads where you come across as rude, ignorant (wilfully so) and disrespectful.

You think you will se something more. Of course that is speculation.

It’s not speculation Seer it’s what we have observed happening after past middle/large extinction events. Many niches become available and new branches appear, as species develop/evolve to take advantage of them

I don't know what constituted an opportunity in the past or why such opportunities are not still present.

Do you understand the concept of a niche? Or what a stable environment is (with regard to evolution)?

The point is, these guys are right - there is no evidence of macroevolution continuing...

Lol you really do make me laugh Seer and I’m not trying to be insulting there – why do you think that they are right? You haven’t shown the slightest evidence that you understood anything so on what basis do you this they are correct?