Reinventing Darwin : The Great Debate at the High Table of Evolutionary Theory

Rating:
Summary: A View from the Trenches
Review: In 'Reinventing Darwin', Niles Eldredge presents the view of a different side of the issues presented by what he calls 'Ultra-Darwinists', the likes of Richard Dawkins and Maynard Smith. As such, it raises an important contribution to our understanding of natural history, and is essential for anyone interested in current debates inside of Neodarwinism.

Perhaps the most striking thing about 'Reinventing Darwin', is how little attention Eldredge pays to the design of actual animal bodies and behaviors. Richard Dawkins's books, for example, are filled with explanation of various complex and semi-designed things - such as altruism in 'The Selfish Gene'. 'The Blind Watchmaker' is entirely devoted to the question of how things like wings, eyes and legs are formed by natural selection.

Eldredge, on the other hand, is hardly ever interested in these issues. He does make a halfhearted attack on the 'Panglossian' kind, which is associated with Gould, but Eldredge had little to do with the paper about the Arches of San Marino. Eldredge readily concedes that the great majority of animal features are formed by natural selection (p.48).

So what is the focus of Eldredge book, and the main line of critique of the Ultra-Darwinists? The answer is the larger patterns of natural history. Eldredge believes that the history of life is not just the principles of natural selection extrapolated. Rather, Eldredge believes that in the large scale, there are different principles that govern life, additions to simple natural selection.

Eldredge is most convincing when he discusses the importance of species as players in evolution. Eldredge points out that within species, different groups ('demes') can evolve differences from the main group, but that species are normally one reproductive entity, and that thus small differences get merged back into the species average. Thus only when a distinct reproductive body is formed (usually by geographical separation from the main group), evolution can create a new species.

This form of higher level evolution seems logical and natural. However, Eldredge arguments about higher level selection (species selection) is not very clear, convincing, or forcefully argued. The best of what Eldredge does promote is Elizabeth Vrba's theory, that species often exist in a more general archetype and in unique, specialized species. Vrba found out that there is a higher level of specification from those specialized species than the more general group. Eldredge argues that this is because the more specialized species, when moving to a different environment, face stronger evolutionary pressure. This he called 'Species Sorting', and this (as opposed to the argument that there is competition between various animal species and Taxas), I find easy to accept. I do wish that Eldredge would elaborate on empirical ways to verify his conclusion. Indeed, the book as a whole could benefit from more attention to how the differences between Ultra-Darwinists and Naturalists can be tested empirically.

Finally, Eldredge turns his attention to ecosystem and to Richard Dawkins concept of selfish genes. Eldredge argues that Ultra-Darwinists have turned natural selection from a passive to an active player. In Dawkins's scheme, natural selection shapes gene so that they will influence the environment. So that there are genes 'for' beaver dams and for reading. Eldredge puts against this a model in which the environment effects the genes via natural selection, and the genes effect the environment via the organism.

To me, this a distinction without a difference, although Eldredge thinks that it betrays a great conceptual failure of Ultra-Darwinism. He tries to illustrate this with the example of human sociobiology. Eldredge does prove that the selfish gene perspective is not enough to explain human behavior, but this is beside the point. Eldredge readily concedes that few Ultra-Darwinists are hard core genetic determinists (p.212). How is that possible? Because, as Dawkins discusses in 'The Selfish Gene' and elsewhere, humans, alone from all animals, have culture. Thus, if Eldredge wishes to attack the 'Selfish Gene' theory, he should pick a different target.

I have not, perhaps, been as kind to this book in this review as I meant to be. Whether or not I agree with specific conclusions by Eldredge, this remains a well written, well argued, and fascinating book.

Rating:
Summary: A View from the Trenches
Review: In 'Reinventing Darwin', Niles Eldredge presents the view of a different side of the issues presented by what he calls 'Ultra-Darwinists', the likes of Richard Dawkins and Maynard Smith. As such, it raises an important contribution to our understanding of natural history, and is essential for anyone interested in current debates inside of Neodarwinism.

Perhaps the most striking thing about 'Reinventing Darwin', is how little attention Eldredge pays to the design of actual animal bodies and behaviors. Richard Dawkins's books, for example, are filled with explanation of various complex and semi-designed things - such as altruism in 'The Selfish Gene'. 'The Blind Watchmaker' is entirely devoted to the question of how things like wings, eyes and legs are formed by natural selection.

Eldredge, on the other hand, is hardly ever interested in these issues. He does make a halfhearted attack on the 'Panglossian' kind, which is associated with Gould, but Eldredge had little to do with the paper about the Arches of San Marino. Eldredge readily concedes that the great majority of animal features are formed by natural selection (p.48).

So what is the focus of Eldredge book, and the main line of critique of the Ultra-Darwinists? The answer is the larger patterns of natural history. Eldredge believes that the history of life is not just the principles of natural selection extrapolated. Rather, Eldredge believes that in the large scale, there are different principles that govern life, additions to simple natural selection.

Eldredge is most convincing when he discusses the importance of species as players in evolution. Eldredge points out that within species, different groups ('demes') can evolve differences from the main group, but that species are normally one reproductive entity, and that thus small differences get merged back into the species average. Thus only when a distinct reproductive body is formed (usually by geographical separation from the main group), evolution can create a new species.

This form of higher level evolution seems logical and natural. However, Eldredge arguments about higher level selection (species selection) is not very clear, convincing, or forcefully argued. The best of what Eldredge does promote is Elizabeth Vrba's theory, that species often exist in a more general archetype and in unique, specialized species. Vrba found out that there is a higher level of specification from those specialized species than the more general group. Eldredge argues that this is because the more specialized species, when moving to a different environment, face stronger evolutionary pressure. This he called 'Species Sorting', and this (as opposed to the argument that there is competition between various animal species and Taxas), I find easy to accept. I do wish that Eldredge would elaborate on empirical ways to verify his conclusion. Indeed, the book as a whole could benefit from more attention to how the differences between Ultra-Darwinists and Naturalists can be tested empirically.

Finally, Eldredge turns his attention to ecosystem and to Richard Dawkins concept of selfish genes. Eldredge argues that Ultra-Darwinists have turned natural selection from a passive to an active player. In Dawkins's scheme, natural selection shapes gene so that they will influence the environment. So that there are genes 'for' beaver dams and for reading. Eldredge puts against this a model in which the environment effects the genes via natural selection, and the genes effect the environment via the organism.

To me, this a distinction without a difference, although Eldredge thinks that it betrays a great conceptual failure of Ultra-Darwinism. He tries to illustrate this with the example of human sociobiology. Eldredge does prove that the selfish gene perspective is not enough to explain human behavior, but this is beside the point. Eldredge readily concedes that few Ultra-Darwinists are hard core genetic determinists (p.212). How is that possible? Because, as Dawkins discusses in 'The Selfish Gene' and elsewhere, humans, alone from all animals, have culture. Thus, if Eldredge wishes to attack the 'Selfish Gene' theory, he should pick a different target.

I have not, perhaps, been as kind to this book in this review as I meant to be. Whether or not I agree with specific conclusions by Eldredge, this remains a well written, well argued, and fascinating book.

Rating:
Summary: Eldredge confesses!!
Review: In DARWIN'S DANGEROUS IDEA [a must read], Daniel C. Dennett delicately sidesteps the question of why Niles Eldredge and Stephen Gould have held so tenaciously to their thesis of evolution's progress by 'punctuated equilibrium'. Niles Eldredge has saved him the trouble. In this book, Eldredge simply states he 'saw no prospect of making further contribution to understanding evolution' without some novel interpretation. It would take a 'novel way' which he claims to have found in 'evolutionary patterns in the grand scale of geologic time.'

Eldredge presents his arguments in the tones of a petulant schoolboy. John Maynard Smith's welcoming paleontologists to the 'High Table' of evolutionary discussion sets his theme. Eldredge eagerly accepts the invitation. This posture seems bizarre for an American in view of the fact that the concept is entirely a tradition among English university dons. Eldredge's acceptance reads like someone striving for recognition, immediately treating the elevation as a signal to commence a fierce debate. From the outset of the book a theme of 'us versus them' prevails. For Eldredge, the 'us' are referred to as 'naturalists' giving the reader the impression of an elderly, tweed clad field tramper, peering through thick eye glasses in a virtuous quest for truth. Given that 'Naturalist' is the title of Edward Wilson's memoir, it gives one pause. Wilson devised sociobiology, which Eldredge passionately detests. The other side of the 'High Table' are quickly labelled with the pejorative 'Ultra-Darwinist', although how anyone can be 'beyond Darwin' remains elusive.

As with his colleague Gould, the primary target remains Richard Dawkins. Grouping Dawkins and his associates as 'reductionist' for using the gene as the basis of evolutionary processes [which it is], Eldredge tries to turn the 'selfish gene' concept into something sordid - gene replication requires sexual selection. As he puts it, 'the way is now paved for interpreting all manner of organismic activity as devices to forward this competitive race'. And so it is. Eldredge counters by claiming that an organism eats first, then reproduces. That is certainly true, but a broader view displays the hitch, which Eldredge conveniently overlooks, that full stomach or not, if the reproduction doesn't happen, neither does evolution. Eldredge and Gould have both skipped over the fact that the gene must not just replicate, its 'vehicle' must survive in the environment in which it exists. Replication and reproduction must continue over time for a species to become something the paleontologist can find and identify. If the host either doesn't survive or reproduce, the gene goes extinct. Enough failure leads to extinction of a large group of individuals - a species.

The punctuated equilibriasts have difficulty with the concept of 'species'. They're not alone in that, but Eldredge has a particular problem. Spending a long chapter defending punctuated equilibrium which some loose descriptions of speciation, he finally arrives at the definition given by Ernst Mayr and Theodosius Dobzhansky over 50 years ago. They argued that members of a species which can't interbreed are separate species. Individual members of a 'species' change genetic identity with each generation. At some later point in time individuals can no longer mate with previous ones - a new species has evolved. That point in time remains undefined because each species adapts to environments with varying rates. Identifying a 'species' becomes inherently difficult, leading George Williams to declare 'species' has little or value in identifying fossils. Species can only be identified in a snapshot of time.

What has always impaired 'punctuated equilibrium' is the failure to provide a proper time scale for assessing speciation. Eldredge is able to extend that fault to the point of taking someone else's findings and simply saying, in effect, 'Oh, you interpreted that evidence the wrong way!' His worst example is citing Peter Sheldon's monumental study of trilobites, and simply contending Sheldon misread the data, claiming his analysis is 'minor tinkering' with Eldredge's idea of 'stasis' in the record.

Eldredge, like his colleague, relies heavily on Elizabeth Vrba's 'turnover pulse' device to describe rapid speciation and extinction. Both Gould and Eldredge are masters of slinging about similar Madison Avenue quips in place of evidence. It's enough to make you think they missed their true calling. Slogans are catchy memes, but poor science. Using fossil snapshots doesn't refute either Dawkins or Dennett that a fuller analysis would destroy these supposed quick speciation events. Like Darwin, the P.E. team is faced with an incomplete fossil record. Unlike Darwin, they think this represents a valid picture of evolution. As in previous works, however, Eldredge produces no real evidence in support of the contention.

The value of this book lies in Eldredge's summary of the players in the 'High Table' discussions. It's also a memoir of how punctuated equilibrium's team presents their case. Eldredge, to his credit, doesn't wander as far afield as his team mate. His writing is clear, even if his logic is flawed. The book is worth a read, but if you haven't bought Dennett, go to that page NOW and spend your money. Dennett's analysis has yet to be bettered.

Rating:
Summary: Eldredge's Impassioned Defense of Punctuated Equilibria
Review: Niles Eldredge's "Rethinking Darwin" is a slender tome which advocates a major restructuring of the Modern Synthetic Theory of Evolution, pleading for a major shift away from its population genetics roots towards more emphasis on the significance of speciation and its historical legacy - according to Eldredge - in prevailing patterns of stasis seen within the fossil record. Although Eldredge does not deny the importance of Natural Selection as the primary means of evolutionary change, he notes - and I think correctly - that its relevance to speciation is still not well known, especially from a real-world "naturalist" perspective.

Building from his ideas on punctuated equilibria, Eldredge makes a very persuasive case for stasis in the fossil record and its implications for microevolution as well as macroevolution. He does an excellent job linking Ernst Mayr's theory of allopatric speciation to punctuated equilibria, noting that something akin to it - if not allopatric speciation directly - is the mechanism responsible for abrupt appearances in the fossil record. Eldredge also notes the significance of long-term stasis in ecosystems, which he has observed in ongoing research on Middle Devonian (approximately 370-360 million years) marine ecosystems in what is now New York with paleontologist Carlton Brett and his colleagues.

Admittedly Eldredge does come across as a petulant schoolboy in his tone, which is perhaps quite intentional, especially after referring to the "High Table" of British university academics of the likes of biologist John Maynard Smith. But one would be greatly amiss to pay sole attention to Eldredge's complaints, without considering some important implications for evolutionary theory which he addresses in this well-reasoned, well-written work of scientific prose.

Rating:
Summary: Eldredge's Impassioned Defense of Punctuated Equilibria
Review: Niles Eldredge's "Rethinking Darwin" is a slender tome which advocates a major restructuring of the Modern Synthetic Theory of Evolution, pleading for a major shift away from its population genetics roots towards more emphasis on the significance of speciation and its historical legacy - according to Eldredge - in prevailing patterns of stasis seen within the fossil record. Although Eldredge does not deny the importance of Natural Selection as the primary means of evolutionary change, he notes - and I think correctly - that its relevance to speciation is still not well known, especially from a real-world "naturalist" perspective.

Building from his ideas on punctuated equilibria, Eldredge makes a very persuasive case for stasis in the fossil record and its implications for microevolution as well as macroevolution. He does an excellent job linking Ernst Mayr's theory of allopatric speciation to punctuated equilibria, noting that something akin to it - if not allopatric speciation directly - is the mechanism responsible for abrupt appearances in the fossil record. Eldredge also notes the significance of long-term stasis in ecosystems, which he has observed in ongoing research on Middle Devonian (approximately 370-360 million years) marine ecosystems in what is now New York with paleontologist Carlton Brett and his colleagues.

Admittedly Eldredge does come across as a petulant schoolboy in his tone, which is perhaps quite intentional, especially after referring to the "High Table" of British university academics of the likes of biologist John Maynard Smith. But one would be greatly amiss to pay sole attention to Eldredge's complaints, without considering some important implications for evolutionary theory which he addresses in this well-reasoned, well-written work of scientific prose.

Rating:
Summary: At the High Table of Theory
Review: Regardless of one's perspective on evolution this is an important and essential clarifying history of the debate over punctuated equilibrium from one of the original theorists of this phenomenon.The book opens with the metaphor of the High Table of evolutionary theory, and its exclusionary imagery, as between the Ultra-Darwinians and the paleontologists, the former emphasizing continuity,the latter discovering the element of discontinuity next to the perception of stasis visible in the fossil record. Eldredge attempts to distinguish those who espouse the 'grand heresy' of rejecting the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis from those who, remaining within its confines, nonetheless do not wish to attribute population level phenomena to such disparate entities as species, higher taxa, social systems, and ecosystems. This is an important distinction in a subject that is liable to inexact extrapolations or failure to stay within the complexity of the picture actually dealt with by paleontologists, which includes such hypotheses as those of 'species sorting', which is quite different from the Ultra-Darwinian views on group selection. At the end Eldredge moves on to considerations of complex systems in relation to the original idea of punctuated equilibrium. Much confused extrapolation has made off with the term 'punctuated equilibrium' which has a host of associations naturalists dislike and Eldredge clearly sets the record straight. The book should speak for itself. And yet in the process of attempted clarification, one gets a sense that the High Table has become exclusionary in another sense, that the debate is divided between two poles of the Neo-Darwinian synthesis, to the exclusion of many others who should be seated at this august theoretical table. For the accounts of these issues leave one suspicious that the woolly minded critics and extrapolators are onto something the strict Darwinists will not consider. Indeed, Eldredge himself in his earlier Myths of Evolution examines the 'punctuated equilbrium'-like phenomenon visible in world history itself, one that Darwinists seem afraid to acknowledge for it makes mincemeat of the whole question. As we examine the record of evolution and the contradictions of continuity and the unlikelihood of random evolution, we should think the record will show some compression factor as evidence of an unknown system process. And that is just what the discovery of the punctuated equilibrium process has demonstrated. But the account seems confused or ambiguous to the degree of sitting between two stools, and the theories of both parties at the High Table seem inadequate. As to world history, the 'punctuated equilibrium' phenomenon there, if we choose to call it that, is so far from what strict Darwinists would expect yet so obvious to plain view, once seen in the proper light, that we should remain neutral in this debate, for the suspicion is overwhelming, especially for the descent of man, that Darwinism is very far off the mark, that 'puncutated equilibrium' is involved at a level of social evolution that isn't even genetic, but pure processing of information. We see abstract evolution operating in directed fashion on whole cultures at the level of art, philosophy, religion,to the point that reductionist sociobiology, currently ambitious to claim the field, should deserve a severe caution. The danger of Darwinism is the way it trains us to not see what is obvious in history as we make hard assumptions about what we actually never see in earlier evolution.Time for a whole slew of new theorists at the High Table, including some quite comfortable with the arch heresies. Cf.also Sudden Origins, J. Schwarz; At the Water's Edge, Carl Zimmer; The Fossil Trail, Ian Tattersall. For the 'punctuated equilibrium' clearly visible in world history, cf. World History and the Eonic Effect, John Landon

Rating:
Summary: Interesting reading, but few real answers.
Review: Whenever one reads a book of neo-Darwinism (Eldredge calls it ultra-Darwinism) the mechanisms are mostly well explained, if not always convincing to everybody. In this sense "Punctuated Equilibrium" has been a frustrating theory, in that we are never told exactly how it works. Few of us have seen the original papers of Gould and Eldredge, and Gould's copious range of books since rarely detail his most famous idea.

I hoped then, that 'Reinventing Darwin' would give the story first hand. However, while this book gives an inside story of the politics of the 'high table', and some conflicts within modern science, there are no real mechanisms. Eldredge mentions that habitat tracking can account for stasis, by organisms migrating with latitude creep in a benign environment, rather than staying in the same latitude and adapting. (If this alone explains stasis, you read it here first!). Eldredge also provides arguments for observed evolution not following the theoretical mechanisms of neo-Darwinism for large changes, or how he explains it. But one is left wondering if punctuated equilibrium is still an observational hypothesis about the pattern of life, that nobody, including its originators, can explain how it works.

Eldredge ends on a hopeful note; that 'naturalist' and 'reductionist' scientist should try to understand each other. But the problem might be deeper than that. In my own book (The Theory of Options: A New Theory of the Evolution of Human Behavior) I suggest that 'reductionist' math might simply be incomplete, in that upwards from about 100k reproductions a second effect of gene copy kicks in, not covered in the existing equations. I might be wrong on this, but this another lesson from the punctuated equilibrium experience. At the end of the rainbow of a new theory of evolution lies not a pot of gold, but a challenge to demonstrate the mechanisms. Until someone can answer that challenge, there will still be divisions at the high table.

I would encourage people to read this book, just do not expect too many answers from it.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting reading, but few real answers.
Review: Whenever one reads a book of neo-Darwinism (Eldredge calls it ultra-Darwinism) the mechanisms are mostly well explained, if not always convincing to everybody. In this sense "Punctuated Equilibrium" has been a frustrating theory, in that we are never told exactly how it works. Few of us have seen the original papers of Gould and Eldredge, and Gould's copious range of books since rarely detail his most famous idea.

I hoped then, that 'Reinventing Darwin' would give the story first hand. However, while this book gives an inside story of the politics of the 'high table', and some conflicts within modern science, there are no real mechanisms. Eldredge mentions that habitat tracking can account for stasis, by organisms migrating with latitude creep in a benign environment, rather than staying in the same latitude and adapting. (If this alone explains stasis, you read it here first!). Eldredge also provides arguments for observed evolution not following the theoretical mechanisms of neo-Darwinism for large changes, or how he explains it. But one is left wondering if punctuated equilibrium is still an observational hypothesis about the pattern of life, that nobody, including its originators, can explain how it works.

Eldredge ends on a hopeful note; that 'naturalist' and 'reductionist' scientist should try to understand each other. But the problem might be deeper than that. In my own book (The Theory of Options: A New Theory of the Evolution of Human Behavior) I suggest that 'reductionist' math might simply be incomplete, in that upwards from about 100k reproductions a second effect of gene copy kicks in, not covered in the existing equations. I might be wrong on this, but this another lesson from the punctuated equilibrium experience. At the end of the rainbow of a new theory of evolution lies not a pot of gold, but a challenge to demonstrate the mechanisms. Until someone can answer that challenge, there will still be divisions at the high table.

I would encourage people to read this book, just do not expect too many answers from it.