Replies

1) Neo-anything is "pseudo-taxonomy", it is undefinable since theories change on a constant basis.

2) "Doctrines" are external mechanisms applied to the body of science, they are not science.

3) Punctuated Equilibrium would seem to have been around a long time if you are 70. Within the context of evolutionary processes Punctuated Equilibrium was indeed discussed by Dr. Niles Eldredge in 1971 and Dr. Stephen Gould in 1972. However, even in this field there are a number of historical antecedents. Eldredge and Gould relied heavily on the works of Dr. Thomas Dobzhansky (Genetics and the Origin of Species 1937), Dr. Ernest Mayr (Systematics and the Origin of Species 1942), Dr. George G. Simpson (Tempo and Mode in Evolution 1944).

4) I'm more convince now than before that I was right in my earlier posting.

1) Neo-anything is "pseudo-taxonomy", it is undefinable since theories change on a constant basis.

You're appealing to an ad hoc definition to define something you want to exclude as undefinable. It isn't working.

2) "Doctrines" are external mechanisms applied to the body of science, they are not science.

Again, you're making up definitions in an ad hoc fashion.

3) Punctuated Equilibrium would seem to have been around a long time if you are 70. Within the context of evolutionary processes Punctuated Equilibrium was indeed discussed by Dr. Niles Eldredge in 1971 and Dr. Stephen Gould in 1972. However, even in this field there are a number of historical antecedents. Eldredge and Gould relied heavily on the works of Dr. Thomas Dobzhansky (Genetics and the Origin of Species 1937), Dr. Ernest Mayr (Systematics and the Origin of Species 1942), Dr. George G. Simpson (Tempo and Mode in Evolution 1944).

Geez, there are historical antecedents to everything in every field. Even Newton said he saw what he did because he stood on the shoulders of giants. Eldredge and Gould without doubt read the works of Dobzhansky, Mayr, and Simpson, but what they proposed was not a repackaging or reworking (heavy reliance) of any of these scientists. Mayr, from whom Eldredge got some ideas about geographic speciation, said as much when he congratulated Gould and Eldredge on their way of dealing with the problem of evolutionary stasis. Gould and Eldredge proposed relatively rapid evolutionary change that was still the result of gradual changes but over a period of geological time too short to be "documented" by fossilized representatives across the period of the change. You could say this idea of rapid change was anticipated by Simpson in Tempo and Mode when he discussed differing rates of evolution, but it wasn't the clear exposition of punctuated equilibrium that Gould and Eldredge's work is recognized for. Nor was G&E's idea of PE a repackaging of Simpson's ideas of "quantum evolution" that he derived earlier from Wright's work on random genetic drift.

If anything, they held to the by then-standard view of evolutionary change as being the result of changes acquired through random genetic mutations and selected for by physical environment and competition from other living things. One of the messages I got from Gould's Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, was that in the environment crap happens and that when it does certain mutations are more heavily favored than others and are able to take advantage of the change and predominate in their niche and do it all in a geologically relative short span of time. If the crap hit the fan in a different manner then something else would have developed in a different way. As the characteristics of biological life are contingent on random genetic mutations, so species, their appearance in the geological record, longevity, degree of dominance, and disappearance are contingent on random changes in environmental conditions.

4) I'm more convince [sic] now than before that I was right in my earlier posting.

You're too easily convinced.