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gluadys -> RE: New Transitional for Human Eye (6/26/2008 12:11:26 PM)
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ORIGINAL: Bettawrekonize
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ORIGINAL: gluadys
No, Darwin was not at all content with a lack of intermediates, since his theory required them. He considered the geological record as it was known in his time one of the serious obstacles to accepting his theory. He predicted that further exploration of the geological record would turn up many of the missing intermediates. Subsequent paleontological studies have amply verified his prediction.
Darwin was content with a lack in intermediaries.
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Geology would lead us to believe that almost every continent has been broken up into islands even during the later tertiary periods; and in such islands distinct species might have been separately formed without the possibility of intermediate varieties existing in the intermediate zones.
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Now, if we may trust these facts and inferences, and therefore conclude that varieties linking two other varieties together have generally existed in lesser numbers than the forms which they connect, then, I think, we can understand why intermediate varieties should not endure for very long periods; why as a general rule they should be exterminated and disappear, sooner than the forms which they originally linked together.
http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species/chapter-06.html
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It is just possible by my theory, that one of two living forms might have descended from the other; for instance, a horse from a tapir; and in this case direct intermediate links will have existed between them. But such a case would imply that one form had remained for a very long period unaltered, whilst its descendants had undergone a vast amount of change; and the principle of competition between organism and organism, between child and parent, will render this a very rare event; for in all cases the new and improved forms of life will tend to supplant the old and unimproved.
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Along the whole west coast, which is inhabited by a peculiar marine fauna, tertiary beds are so scantily developed, that no record of several successive and peculiar marine faunas will probably be preserved to a distant age.
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This could be effected only by the future geologist discovering in a fossil state numerous intermediate gradations; and such success seems to me improbable in the highest degree.
http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species/chapter-09.html
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We should not be able to recognise a species as the parent of any one or more species if we were to examine them ever so closely, unless we likewise possessed many of the intermediate links between their past or parent and present states; and these many links we could hardly ever expect to discover, owing to the imperfection of the geological record.
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Widely ranging species vary most, and varieties are often at first local, -- both causes rendering the discovery of intermediate links less likely.
http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species/chapter-14.html
Gould was/is also content with a lack of intermediates.
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In the peripheral region itself, we might find direct evidence of speciation, but such good fortune would be rare indeed because the event occurs so rapidly in such a small population. Thus, the fossil record is a faithful rendering of what evolutionary theory predicts, not a pitiful vestige of a once bountiful tale.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium
How do hypotheses about why fossil remains of intermediate species are rare translate into being "content" with a lack of intermediates. Both Darwin and Gould welcomed every discovery of an intermediate. Neither would accept the idea that there were no intermediates. Only that they could be difficult to find in the fossil record. This difficulty was, if anything, a source of discontent, not contentment.
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