[FRIAM] Question from an evolutionary ignoramus

[Phil Henshaw]

Has anyone even looked at my paper to see what the statistical issues of
'punctuation' actually are??  The statistical problem is to find a
continuity that bridges a discontinuity.   The secret I found is that to
do that you need to analyze the data for *flow*, and that that is erased
when you search the data for *trend*.   Searching for trend seems to be
the mistake everyone's been making in trying to understand evolutionary
rates.  Read the paper if you want to know about it.


Phil Henshaw                       ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
680 Ft. Washington Ave 
NY NY 10040                       
tel: 212-795-4844                 
e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com          
explorations: www.synapse9.com    


> -----Original Message-----
> From: friam-bounces at redfish.com 
> [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Russell Standish
> Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2007 11:02 PM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Question from an evolutionary ignoramus
> 
> 
> Off the bat, I would suspect that low sample rates would make 
> a punctualist process seem graduated, as it would mask the 
> high frequency signal. But possibly you are right if the 
> sampling was uneven, and this unevenness was not taken into 
> acount. Not having worked with paleontological data first 
> hand, I can't really comment.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> On Sat, Jun 09, 2007 at 08:20:18AM -0600, Robert Holmes wrote:
> > So that's a rather long preamble to my actual question: is Gould's 
> > punctuated equilibrium real or (like Dawkins) do we really have an 
> > incremental "creeping" evolution that we only get to see very very 
> > occasional snapshots of in the fossil record? According to some 
> > erudite boffin on NPR yesterday (so it must be true) the 
> fossil record 
> > contains considerably less than 1% of the estimated 
> dinosaur species 
> > (not individuals!). If you observe creeping evolution at such a low 
> > sample rate, wouldn't that look like punctuated equilibrium?
> > 
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> --------------
> A/Prof Russell Standish                  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
> Mathematics                         	 
> UNSW SYDNEY 2052         	         hpcoder at hpcoders.com.au
> Australia                                http://www.hpcoders.com.au
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> --------------
> 
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
> 
>