Life Is Simply The Reification Of The

It Seems To Me That For Darwin The Pulsing Of Evolutionary Rates Was A Strictly Vertical Phenomenon.

Indeed, I Was Unable To Find Any Evidence Whatsoever Of The Occurrence Of A Drastic Evolutionary Acceleration And Genetic Reconstruction In Widespread, Populous Species.

New Gene Pools Are Generated In Every Generation, And Evolution Takes Place Because The Successful Individuals Produced By These Gene Pools Give Rise To The Next Generation.

Paleontologists Had Long Been Aware Of A Seeming Contradiction Between Darwin's Postulate Of Gradualism, Confirmed By The Work Of Population Genetics, And The Actual Findings Of Paleontology. Following Phyletic Lines Through Time Seemed To Reveal Only Minimal Gradual Changes But No Clear Evidence For Any Change Of A Species Into A Different Genus Or For The Gradual Origin Of An Evolutionary Novelty. Anything Truly Novel Always Seemed To Appear Quite Abruptly In The Fossil Record.

The Most Consequential Change In Man's View Of The World, Of Living Nature And Of Himself Came With The Introduction, Over A Period Of Some 100 Years Beginning Only In The 18th Century, Of The Idea Of Change Itself, Of Change Over Periods Of Time: In A Word, Of Evolution.