Interbane,

So we're now understanding Gould's PE theory to be a better depiction of how evolution took place over time?

Interbane totally misquoted me

I did misquote you ant, sorry. I changed it back.

I don't like the PE just because it puts brackets around understanding. It makes more sense, where stability is had locally and even regionally, then a single environmental shift cascades across the biosphere. The niches sort of interlock, shifting and expanding like a pile of bubbles in a sink. They shift to accomodate a single bubble popping or the movement of the air. But drop a little bit of oil on the top, and the change cascades, becoming systemic. Or drop a grain of sand through the middle, and it changes things drastically.

The stability of the species appears to work in a similar way. Other explosions of life that are remarkable happen after extinction events. The greater the upset to stability, the greater the following shift. For this reason, an initial explosion makes sense. Similar to the explosions after extinction events, but much much larger since complex life more or less didn't exist at all. The entire 20 million years was an unstable period, with each change causing ripples.

I wonder what paleontologists would make of this living fossil? Ted Williams has had his ears surgically removed in order to look like his pet parrot. I made a mess of this. See the next post for correction.

I wonder what paleontologists would make of this living fossil? Ted Richards has had his ears surgically removed in order to look like his pet parrots.
His next project is to have his nose turned into a 'beak'.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... arrot.html

You should be banned for life from here for posting that link.

That's totally gross

He does it for attention probably. I hope he doesn't get the nose to beak operation but he seems determined to be as parrot like as possible.
The parrot on his head is very laid back about the whole thing.

I was curious to know what fossils John Curche based his models on. In the video we have virtually seamless morphing from ape to human implying a direct proven and continuous line of descent.
In paleo-anthropology things are messier and they constantly disagree about these fossils and their interpretation between themselves.
New fossils are discovered, apparently sidelining and even wiping previously thought hominids out of the lineage.
Unsurprisingly, it's the critics of neo-Darwinism and the blind unguided version of evolution who are it's biggest critics.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/la ... 62891.html

There has been a tendency among some avid proponents of the theory to blur the distinction between humans,apes and animals generally. Richard Dawkins thinks it would be "salutary" if some human/ape hybrid existed in order to disabuse ourselves of notions of significant difference.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog ... zee-hybrid

T.V. science producer Jeremy Taylor (though an evolutionist) in his book, Not a Chimp,takes issue with this view of the differences between humans and chimps being minor.
http://www.thedivineconspiracy.org/Z5239H.pdf
Here's a brief interview with Taylor discussing his book. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApHJQ-o54gM

For Dawkins, any rejection of the theory is just obtuseness by religious fanatics. It never occurs to him that he's actually badly misrepresenting the evidence himself.
http://www.darwins-god.blogspot.ie/2014 ... nyone.html

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You are right, it is messier than what the video presents.