Talk:Saltation (biology)

message: no references? --24.214.236.85 (talk) 05:04, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I noticed and agree wholeheartedly.  I tagged the article for lacking citations... 96.10.251.86 (talk) 07:42, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  References 

message: Saltationism is more modern than Lamarkism, but less modern than Sputnik.  It's all well and good that one person was named as supporting this antique theory, but the article does a disservice to the encyclopedia and anybody who reads it in hopes of learning.  This page desperately needs to reflect the contemporary knowledge humans have managed to acquire.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.138.32.33 (talk) 21:51, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You say "Gould pointed out that ... it became almost a dogma that evolution proceeded along gradualist lines with no real so-called “saltations.”"  He also spent much of his professional life explaining that his punctuated equilibrium theory is not saltationist.  His description of gradual change ( immediately proceeding the snippet I just quoted in your text ) is a straw man.  No biologist believes that evolution takes place at the specific gradual and steady pace Gould attacks.
Stephen Jay Gould appears to be your only source of information.  I submit that you've chosen a highly opinionated, not especially neutral source.  Steve Gould made a crusade out of trying to undermine theories to which he attributed right-wing implications.  He insisted that biology has no role in human nature apart from hunger for food and need for sleep.  The man fell victim to a the fallacy of wanting something to be true, and thinking it is.  His pervasive anti-Darwinian stance is an extension of this, and many of his hypotheses on evolution are taken with extreme skepticism.  The zoologist Richard Dawkins devotes a chapter to some of the details in his book The Blind Watchmarker, Steven Pinker takes Gould to task in The Language Instinct as well as The Blank Slate, and the list of authors with factual, experiment-based objections to Gould's non-taxonomy work can fill a book of its own.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.138.32.33 (talk) 19:26, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  History 

message: Goldschmidt and Lovtrup who have both supported the macromutation theory as opposed to Darwin:
"It is good to keep in mind ... that nobody has ever succeeded in producing even one new species by the accumulation of micromutations. Darwin's theory of natural selection has never had any proof, yet it has been universally accepted." 
(Prof. R Goldschmidt PhD)
Micromutations do occur, but the theory that these alone can account for evolutionary change is either falsified, or else it is an unfalsifiable, hence metaphysical theory. I suppose that nobody will deny that it is a great misfortune if an entire branch of science becomes addicted to a false theory. But this is what has happened in biology: ... I believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science. When this happens many people will pose the question: How did this ever happen?" (S Lovtrup PhD, Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth (London:Croom Helm, p.422)) 
As these scientists have claimed, so why is there hardly anything about their theories on the article? Liveintheforests (talk) 16:44, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: And both are mentioned (Goldschmidt prominently so) in Macromutation -- the article that directly discusses "macromutation theory". It is unclear to what extent this article covers material beyond that article's scope, but either way I don't see why additional material on them here is appropriate -- either this article should be redirected to that one, or it is material beyond macromutation that is needed here. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 17:43, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  From what i have read Saltation is macromutation. It was first put forward by a group of scientists in the early 1900s to clarify that, it can be found in some of Bowlers books. Later Goldschmidt and Lovtrup took the theory further. Goldschmidt and Lovtrup are deemed as heretics but the mainstream scientific community, that is something i have never understood, becuase they were still evolutionists they were trying to improve the evolutionary theory not deny it. What needs to be done, is the saltation information needs to be moved to the macromutation page.  Liveintheforests (talk) 18:49, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The criteria for scientific acceptance of new hypotheses is not 'heresy' versus orthodoxy -- it is whether the hypothesis adequately explains existing facts and anticipates (i.e. predicts) new facts. Given that none of these facts would appear to support the claim that a macromutation has occurred, or even is feasible, it would appear that this hypothesis has failed this test. Scientific research of course involves the investigation of many blind allies -- but their investigation is seldom notable -- nor is being stubbornly wedded to them necessarily commendable. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 19:18, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Darwinism is flawed according to the macromutation theory

message: Notice that there are no references for the claims made in the creationism section, and the only two footnotes somewhat misleadingly imply that they are providing sources for the claims about creationism, when they are merely referencing Gould's own work, etc. It seems the section should be sourced with one or two specific examples, or removed. Thoughts? --Bob Enyart, Denver radio host at KGOV (talk) 16:57, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: What exactly are you challenging? Are you claiming that creationist do not confuse saltation with punctuated equilibrium? Or that they do not see fossil record gaps as "proof" that evolution is flawed? These are standard creationist arguments that no matter how many proofs are shoved their way (e.g. the fact that even with the expected gaps, the sequence of evolution is consistent, i.e. there are no precambrian rabbits or real-life Flintstones) they do not change it, it's almost a case of WP:BLUE. Do have a look at Sunderland's Darwin's Enigma, Menton's The Hopeful Monsters of Evolution, Answers in Genesis, Morris' Scientific Creationism, and the Watchtower's Life--How Did It Get Here?. It's presumably correctly sourced in Gould's work in its original publication (being an actual scientific article in an academic journal), so unless you have sources from reliable sources saying otherwise, no, removal is out of the question. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 18:04, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Creationism section 

message: The recent discovery that DNA is compressed (like a zipped computer file) and requires a control section to reassemble proteins in the proper order, implies that a small mutation in the control section could lead to saltation.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.203.213.6 (talk) 16:08, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Compressed DNA

message: Somebody finally tracked down a really impressive recent change in the genome: ARHGAP11B.  See .  Though I'm sure there's been fine-tuning of expression afterward, it is entirely possible that much of such a change could have been created in a single gene duplication event, causing a notable increase in human intelligence (waiting on word about the mice...)
For Wikipedia I can't make this connection on my own, but it's worth keeping an eye out for someone making this connection in print. Wnt (talk) 02:12, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  We have met the Hopeful Monster, and he is us! 

message: It's mentioned briefly, but no explanation is given. To me it seems only compatible with saltation under that notion of the proto-host-organism "trying to eat" a bacteria, engulfing it, but somehow failing to digest it, and that being good for both immediately. But AFAIK at least more contemporary versions would have it as a more gradual ecological relationship possibly starting as very-mild-parasitism, changing to commensalism, and then mutualism. Or maybe starting already more mutual or commensal, but without so much of the "accidentally trying to eat, failing, and that being a big luck for both" simplistic notion. Original mild/asymptomatic infection evolving gradually as occur in many cases of endosymbiosis vs sudden/episodic predation and failed digestion. Although there's one case that may kind of match somewhat the description, the infection of some insects with Wolbachia being somewhat mutualistic but also an instant "speciation," although with no observable phenotypical "saltation" other than not being able to produce offspring with non-infected potential mates of the "former" species. Something along those lines.
Horizontal gene transfer is also somewhat weird without any example, since it doesn't necessarily produce any significantly large phenotypical effect, although it may sometimes, I'm not sure it's noteworthily more likely to do so than plain "endogenous" mutations. 45.234.133.177 (talk) 04:31, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Endosymbiotic theory as an example of saltation? Horizontal gene transfer? More details would be relevant