[Taxacom] London - Systematics Association Lecture and AGM, 9thDec

[John Grehan]

But the point about biogeography was that the patterns were evident in
his own time and some of his colleagues such as Hooker did apply those
patterns in a geologically predictive way. The irony is that
biogeography was key to Darwin's evolutionary insight, the key evidence,
but that was then dropped with his subsequent preoccupation with finding
and presenting a biological mechanism.

John Grehan



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Jensen [mailto:rjensen at saintmarys.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, December 03, 2009 8:46 AM
> To: John Grehan
> Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] London - Systematics Association Lecture and
AGM,
> 9thDec
> 
> Perhaps Darwin's biggest mistake was not being prescient. He failed to
> recognize the evolutioonary importance and role of such phenomena as
> genetic drift, bottlenecks, polyploidy, aneuploidy, translocations and
> epigenetic effects, etc. How could he have been so arrogant to propose
a
> theory that was consistent only with what he observed in the world?
> 
> Dick J
> 
> Richard Jensen, Professor
> Department of Biology
> Saint Mary's College
> Notre Dame, IN 46556
> Tel: 574-284-4674
> 
> 
> 
> John Grehan wrote:
> > Darwin's biggest mistake was in his failure to recognize
biogeographic
> > patterns as historically informative. Against that, his gradualism
> > (which lies at the core of molecular clock systematics) is just a
> > sideshow.
> >
> > John Grehan
> >
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:taxacom-
> >> bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of James Cotton
> >> Sent: Thursday, December 03, 2009 7:52 AM
> >> To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> >> Subject: [Taxacom] London - Systematics Association Lecture and
AGM,
> >> 9thDec
> >>
> >> The Systematics Association
> >> Annual General Meeting and President's lecture
> >>
> >> Gradualism: Darwin's biggest mistake?
> >>
> >> Prof. Richard Bateman - Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and University
of
> >> Birmingham
> >>
> >> The Linnean Society, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London
> >> Wednesday 9th December 2009, 6 pm (following AGM at 5pm)
> >>
> >> The meeting is open to visitors. Wine will be served after the
lecture
> >> to members and guests. Please advertise this lecture as widely as
you
> >> can.
> >> The associations' AGM will be held before the lecture at 5pm.
> >>
> >> Abstract: Although Darwin's many achievements have been justly
lauded
> >> worldwide during 2009, his repeated assertions that all
evolutionary
> >> change
> >> is imperceptibly gradual have escaped serious criticism from modern
> >> commentators. The evidence that gradual change results in
speciation
> >>
> > is
> >
> >> circumstantial in even the best documented cases, and usually
relies
> >>
> > on
> >
> >> inadequate assessments of fitness. In contrast, saltational
mechanisms
> >> requiring that radical and instantaneous phenotypic change leads
> >> directly to
> >> de facto speciation are still widely ridiculed in most biological
> >> constituencies, despite accumulating evidence of their viability.
This
> >> lecture aims to redress the balance between gradual and non-gradual
> >> evolutionary change.
> >> _____________________________________________
> >> James Cotton
> >> School of Biological and Chemical Sciences
> >> Queen Mary, University of London
> >> +44 (0)207 882 3645
> >> j.a.cotton at qmul.ac.uk
> >> http://webspace.qmul.ac.uk/jacotton/index.html
> >> http://www.sbcs.qmul.ac.uk/staff/jamescotton.html
> >> _____________________________________________
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >>
> >> Taxacom Mailing List
> >> Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> >> http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
> >>
> >> The Taxacom archive going back to 1992 may be searched with either
of
> >> these methods:
> >>
> >> (1) http://taxacom.markmail.org
> >>
> >> Or (2) a Google search specified as:
> >> site:mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom  your search terms here
> >>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> >
> > Taxacom Mailing List
> > Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> > http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
> >
> > The Taxacom archive going back to 1992 may be searched with either
of
> these methods:
> >
> > (1) http://taxacom.markmail.org
> >
> > Or (2) a Google search specified as:
> site:mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom  your search terms here
> >