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Adaptation and the Origin of Species from the Nineteenth Century Through Punctuated Equilibria Eternal Ephemera (Hardback) - Common
One of evolution's fundamental questions is how the skein of life on Earth remains unbroken yet is constantly renewed by new species. What accounts for the scientific paradox that all organisms and species are ephemeral, and yet life endures, yielding more advanced players in nature's eternal play? In this riveting work, renowned scientist Niles Eldredge presents a magisterial account of leading thinkers as they wrestle with this paradox over a span of two hundred years.Eldredge begins in France with Jean Baptiste Lamarck, who in 1802 first framed the overarching question about new species. Giambatista Brocchi followed, bringing in geology and paleontology to expand the question. In 1825, at the University of Edinburgh, Robert Grant and Robert Jameson introduce these astounding ideas to a young medical student named Charles Darwin. Who can doubt that Darwin left for his voyage in 1831 filled with these daring, new ideas about the "transmutation" of species, well cultivated by earlier thinkers tilling this rugged and contentious intellectual ground?Eldredge revisits Darwin's early insights in South America and his later synthesis of knowledge into the origin of species. He then considers more recent evolutionary thinkers, such as George Gaylord Simpson, Ernst Mayr, and Theodosius Dhobzhansky, concluding with the young, brash graduate students Niles Eldredge and Steven J. Gould, who set science afire with their revolutionary concept of punctuated equilibria and upended accepted evolutionary ideas. Filled with shattering insight into evolutionary biology and told with a rich affection for the tumult of the scientific arena, this new book is destined to become a classic in the field.
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First published February 15, 2015
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About the author
Niles Eldredge
50 books26 followersNiles Eldredge (born August 25, 1943) is an American biologist and paleontologist, who, along with Stephen Jay Gould, proposed the theory of punctuated equilibrium in 1972.
Eldredge began his undergraduate studies in Latin at Columbia University. Before completing his degree he switched to the study of anthropology under Norman D. Newell. It was at this time that his work at the American Museum of Natural History began, under the combined Columbia University-American Museum graduate studies program.
Eldredge graduated summa cum laude from Columbia College of Columbia University in 1965, and enrolled in the university's doctoral program while continuing his research at the museum. He completed his PhD in 1969.
In 1969, Eldredge became a curator in the Department of Invertebrates at the American Museum of Natural History, and subsequently a curator in the Invertebrate Paleontology section of Paleontology, a position from which he recently retired. He was also an Adjunct Professor at the City University of New York. His specialty was the evolution of mid-Paleozoic Phacopida trilobites: a group of extinct arthropods that lived between 543 and 245 million years ago.
Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould proposed punctuated equilibria in 1972. Punctuated equilibrium is a refinement to evolutionary theory. It describes patterns of descent taking place in "fits and starts" separated by long periods of stability.
Eldredge went on to develop a hierarchical vision of evolutionary and ecological systems. Around this time, he became focused on the rapid destruction of many of the world's habitats and species.
Throughout his career, he has used repeated patterns in the history of life to refine ideas on how the evolutionary process actually works. Eldredge is proponent of the importance of environment in explaining the patterns in evolution.
Eldredge is a critic of the gene-centric view of evolution. His most recent venture is the development of an alternative account to the gene-based notions of evolutionary psychology to explain human behavior.
He has published more than 160 scientific articles, books, and reviews, including Reinventing Darwin, an examination of current controversies in evolutionary biology, and Dominion, a consideration of the ecological and evolutionary past, present, and future of Homo sapiens.
Eldredge enjoys playing jazz trumpet and is an avid collector of 19th century cornets. He shares his home in Ridgewood, New Jersey with his wife and more than 500 cornets. He also has two sons, two daughters-in-law, and five grandchildren.
Eldredge possesses a chart of the historical development of cornets (the musical instruments), which he uses as a comparison with that of the development of trilobites. The differences between them are meant to highlight the failures of intelligent design by comparing a system that is definitely designed, with a system that is not designed.
Eldredge began his undergraduate studies in Latin at Columbia University. Before completing his degree he switched to the study of anthropology under Norman D. Newell. It was at this time that his work at the American Museum of Natural History began, under the combined Columbia University-American Museum graduate studies program.
Eldredge graduated summa cum laude from Columbia College of Columbia University in 1965, and enrolled in the university's doctoral program while continuing his research at the museum. He completed his PhD in 1969.
In 1969, Eldredge became a curator in the Department of Invertebrates at the American Museum of Natural History, and subsequently a curator in the Invertebrate Paleontology section of Paleontology, a position from which he recently retired. He was also an Adjunct Professor at the City University of New York. His specialty was the evolution of mid-Paleozoic Phacopida trilobites: a group of extinct arthropods that lived between 543 and 245 million years ago.
Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould proposed punctuated equilibria in 1972. Punctuated equilibrium is a refinement to evolutionary theory. It describes patterns of descent taking place in "fits and starts" separated by long periods of stability.
Eldredge went on to develop a hierarchical vision of evolutionary and ecological systems. Around this time, he became focused on the rapid destruction of many of the world's habitats and species.
Throughout his career, he has used repeated patterns in the history of life to refine ideas on how the evolutionary process actually works. Eldredge is proponent of the importance of environment in explaining the patterns in evolution.
Eldredge is a critic of the gene-centric view of evolution. His most recent venture is the development of an alternative account to the gene-based notions of evolutionary psychology to explain human behavior.
He has published more than 160 scientific articles, books, and reviews, including Reinventing Darwin, an examination of current controversies in evolutionary biology, and Dominion, a consideration of the ecological and evolutionary past, present, and future of Homo sapiens.
Eldredge enjoys playing jazz trumpet and is an avid collector of 19th century cornets. He shares his home in Ridgewood, New Jersey with his wife and more than 500 cornets. He also has two sons, two daughters-in-law, and five grandchildren.
Eldredge possesses a chart of the historical development of cornets (the musical instruments), which he uses as a comparison with that of the development of trilobites. The differences between them are meant to highlight the failures of intelligent design by comparing a system that is definitely designed, with a system that is not designed.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
March 10, 2016
Niles Eldredge’s book, Eternal Ephemera (2015), is about the evolution of evolution. His narrative pulls together quite nicely the entire history of biological evolution, a topic I touch on in A World Perspective through 21st Century Eyes, in the context of the first of a series of evolutions affecting humanity – followed by cultural evolution and then technological evolution.
Some philosophers view the “goal” of biological evolution to maximize adaptive, hence reproductive, success. It’s viewed as the process of adaptation through competition and some form of selection, similar to other theories applied to cultural evolution, for example. In terms of the history of evolutionary biology, academics have fought, as Eldredge puts it, “over the nature of species and the relationship between speciation and adaptation.”
His well known theory of punctuated equilibria is rooted in two observations: geographic species replacement in the environment and stasis, an observation that once species appear they become relatively stable for up to millions of years.
To be sure, organisms change throughout their lives, but do not evolve. It is their genes that evolve. And, of course, the species evolve. In Richard Dawkins’ book The Selfish Gene (1976) he argued that our genes competitively contend for representation in the next generation. Information the genes contain is passed down.
Charles Darwin, the father of natural selection, rooted his theory on three principles: heredity, heritable variation, and the Robert Malthus’ cap on population growth. This third principle posits that not all organisms born in each generation will survive and reproduce. This means that Darwin’s “natural selection” is a general theory of adaptation, and species, as Eldredge writes, “are mere ‘way stations’ in the adaptive continuum of life, made discrete only by the extinction of the connecting varieties and species.”
He adds, “[Species] are in no sense ‘real,’ let alone stable, entities. In [Darwin’s] alternative model, species have births, histories, and deaths, as do individuals. Thus species have point origins, histories of stability, and eventual deaths – very much as do individuals.”
This part of the narrative was very intriguing to me. Eldredge, who is one of the few scientists who studied the original works of Darwin, revealed that young Darwin considered “both punctuated equilibria and phyletic gradualism as alternative narratives of the story of adaptive evolutionary change through time.” It turns out, Darwin based his theory on phyletic gradualism and he left allopatric speciation behind, which underpinned punctuated equilibria. Almost a hundred years later Theodosius Dobzhansky, then Ernst Mayr, resurrected this concept of allopatric speciation in their work. Then Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould resurrected stasis, synthesized it with allopatric speciation and voila, punctuated equilibria re-emerged.
Eldredge summarizes the situation as follows: “Natural selection effects the change of adaptations, and the evidence has been mounting that most such change occurs in conjunction with speciation in isolation, as Darwin suspected but ultimately didn’t pursue.” He adds, “But turnover pulses/coordinated stasis show the direct impact of environmental change. And they suggest how adaptive change can be generated in independent phylogenetic lineages in more or less simultaneous bursts of extinction and evolution of species.”
Once a new species arrives, it’s usually here to stay for quite awhile. Humanity may just have that staying power.
Some philosophers view the “goal” of biological evolution to maximize adaptive, hence reproductive, success. It’s viewed as the process of adaptation through competition and some form of selection, similar to other theories applied to cultural evolution, for example. In terms of the history of evolutionary biology, academics have fought, as Eldredge puts it, “over the nature of species and the relationship between speciation and adaptation.”
His well known theory of punctuated equilibria is rooted in two observations: geographic species replacement in the environment and stasis, an observation that once species appear they become relatively stable for up to millions of years.
To be sure, organisms change throughout their lives, but do not evolve. It is their genes that evolve. And, of course, the species evolve. In Richard Dawkins’ book The Selfish Gene (1976) he argued that our genes competitively contend for representation in the next generation. Information the genes contain is passed down.
Charles Darwin, the father of natural selection, rooted his theory on three principles: heredity, heritable variation, and the Robert Malthus’ cap on population growth. This third principle posits that not all organisms born in each generation will survive and reproduce. This means that Darwin’s “natural selection” is a general theory of adaptation, and species, as Eldredge writes, “are mere ‘way stations’ in the adaptive continuum of life, made discrete only by the extinction of the connecting varieties and species.”
He adds, “[Species] are in no sense ‘real,’ let alone stable, entities. In [Darwin’s] alternative model, species have births, histories, and deaths, as do individuals. Thus species have point origins, histories of stability, and eventual deaths – very much as do individuals.”
This part of the narrative was very intriguing to me. Eldredge, who is one of the few scientists who studied the original works of Darwin, revealed that young Darwin considered “both punctuated equilibria and phyletic gradualism as alternative narratives of the story of adaptive evolutionary change through time.” It turns out, Darwin based his theory on phyletic gradualism and he left allopatric speciation behind, which underpinned punctuated equilibria. Almost a hundred years later Theodosius Dobzhansky, then Ernst Mayr, resurrected this concept of allopatric speciation in their work. Then Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould resurrected stasis, synthesized it with allopatric speciation and voila, punctuated equilibria re-emerged.
Eldredge summarizes the situation as follows: “Natural selection effects the change of adaptations, and the evidence has been mounting that most such change occurs in conjunction with speciation in isolation, as Darwin suspected but ultimately didn’t pursue.” He adds, “But turnover pulses/coordinated stasis show the direct impact of environmental change. And they suggest how adaptive change can be generated in independent phylogenetic lineages in more or less simultaneous bursts of extinction and evolution of species.”
Once a new species arrives, it’s usually here to stay for quite awhile. Humanity may just have that staying power.
March 2, 2015
Anti-science sentiments rise to the top periodically whether it be from anti-vaxxers, climate-change deniers, or adherents of intelligent design. I am a strongly pro-science person and a fan of science fiction which at its basis should understand science and then speculate from that strong understanding. At times, it's nice to dig into a nonfiction book for a fresh perspective. Personally, I've been a fan of the writings of Stephen Jay Gould, which brings me to this book--the most recent by Niles Eldredge who co-wrote with Gould a controversial essay early in their careers promoting the idea of punctuated equilibria. Essentially, evolution is happening, but not at the constant deeply gradual pace that has often been conjectured. Rather, it usually happens in concentrated bursts by micro-populations that have become isolated from the core range and population of a given species. This book is largely making the same argument forty years later, while needlessly defending itself from accusations of being anti-Darwinian.
This book succeeds its mission to trace the competing hypotheses of evolution from the early Nineteenth Century with the writings of Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Italian Giambattista Brocchi through Charles Darwin up to the Twenty-First Century. It does not allows any past evolution-theorist to be summed up in a pithy one-sentence overview, which for historical accuracy purposes is a good thing. The various essays, letters and notebooks are analyzed by line through the development of hypotheses--two hundreds years of academia outlined. As a work of synthesis and scholarly archive, the book is thorough. What it isn't is populist. It is not trying to be interesting to those outside the sciences as the writings of Gould are. Most of the case studies that led to various insights have been stripped away. The tiniest of differences between ideas are quibbled repeatedly.
What I enjoyed most in this book was seeing how early some ideas were being discussed. Easily a hundred years before plate tectonics and land-bridges were being conjectured came a quote within the context of an argument on species differentiation: "in those high northern latitudes, where the continents were undoubtedly at one time conjoined" [Jameson 1826]. Gems like this and watching the separate fields of geology, biology and paleontology converge in their world-view managed to keep me trudging through this book. I received a free copy from NetGalley for reviewing purposes.
This book succeeds its mission to trace the competing hypotheses of evolution from the early Nineteenth Century with the writings of Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Italian Giambattista Brocchi through Charles Darwin up to the Twenty-First Century. It does not allows any past evolution-theorist to be summed up in a pithy one-sentence overview, which for historical accuracy purposes is a good thing. The various essays, letters and notebooks are analyzed by line through the development of hypotheses--two hundreds years of academia outlined. As a work of synthesis and scholarly archive, the book is thorough. What it isn't is populist. It is not trying to be interesting to those outside the sciences as the writings of Gould are. Most of the case studies that led to various insights have been stripped away. The tiniest of differences between ideas are quibbled repeatedly.
What I enjoyed most in this book was seeing how early some ideas were being discussed. Easily a hundred years before plate tectonics and land-bridges were being conjectured came a quote within the context of an argument on species differentiation: "in those high northern latitudes, where the continents were undoubtedly at one time conjoined" [Jameson 1826]. Gems like this and watching the separate fields of geology, biology and paleontology converge in their world-view managed to keep me trudging through this book. I received a free copy from NetGalley for reviewing purposes.
July 17, 2015
For most of us outside the scientific community, our understanding of evolution begins and ends with Charles Darwin. But, as paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Niles Eldredge shows us in his well-written, well-documented, and extremely interesting book, Eternal Ephemera, Darwin is only part of the story albeit a very important part. Eldredge takes us through two hundred years of evolutionary theory beginning with French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck who, in 1801, first began to ponder the question of how new species developed and continues right up to the present including Eldredge’s own contributions to the theory on punctuated equilibria which he helped to develop along with Stephen Jay Gould. He provides the reader with a view of not only the ephemeral lives of species but of the evolution of the ideas on evolution. Along with the science and the history, Eldredge makes the story more personal by writing about his own journey following Darwin’s footsteps literally through many of the places Darwin visited on the HMS Beagle. Eternal Ephemera provides a highly readable and highly cogent read for anyone who is interested in both the history and the science of evolution written by one of the most important thinkers in the field and I recommend it highly.
June 26, 2017
This is the best book I have ever read on evolution. It was not popular science and not an easy read but I kept at it and often had to read other books on the side in order to keep up. It was like a graduate course on the history of evolution in science. I had already read Darwin's the Origin of Species and had studied geology and zoology so the material was not completely unfamiliar. Keep the ipad handy to look up unfamiliar terms and organisms, extant and extinct. I enjoy learning and am now ready to tackle more natural history subjects.
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November 23, 2020Darwin muito cedo vislumbrou dois mundos - a perspectiva táxica (como os equilíbrios pontuados) e o gradualismo filético - e optou, a princípio, enquanto ainda estava no Beagle, pelo primeiro. A decisão foi, sobretudo, uma questão de evidência. De certa forma misteriosamente, o Darwin pós-Beagle virou a casaca, e casou-se com o gradualismo filético. Um casamento que durou pelo resto da vida e cujos descendentes herdaram o mundo.
É interessante que tanto a perspectiva táxica quanto o gradualismo filético já estivessem sendo mais ou menos discutidas, com outros nomes, evidentemente, bem antes de Darwin se estabelecer cientista. De um lado, Giambattista Brocchi, com sua analogia entre indivíduos e espécies (nascimento, vida e morte). Do outro, o gradualismo espacial e temporal de Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck. Darwin entrou em contato com ambas as perspectivas especialmente graças aos Princípios de Geologia de Lyell, embora possa ter encontrado tais ideias ainda em Edimburgo, onde seus professores Robert E. Grant e, possivelmente, Robert Jameson, discutiam sobre transmutação. Darwin mais tarde viria afirmar que esses mestres não causaram impacto sobre ele, mas é difícil acreditar que isso seja completamente verdade.
Foi de certa forma chocante perceber que o fenômeno da adaptação não era exatamente o centro das atenções nas discussões sobre a origem de novas espécies. Pelo menos não a princípio. O princípio de tudo foi estabelecer a transmutação como algo decorrente de causas secundárias, para só então discutir os mecanismos capazes de produzir as adaptações.
Evidentemente, quem lê esse livro não pode, nunca mais, cuspir bobagens sobre os equilíbrios pontuados. Longe de ser uma teoria sobre evolução por meio de "saltos", é uma teoria que versa sobre padrões reais observados no registro fóssil e os tenta explicar sem recorrer ao argumento da imperfeição dos registros geológicos. A maioria das espécies aparecem no registro fóssil abruptamente e permanecem sem alterações morfológicas consideráveis pelo restante de suas vidas. O "nascimento abrupto" é a pontuação; a estabilidade morfológica é a estase, ou equilíbrio. Daí o nome "equilíbrios pontuados". E o nascimento é abrupto porque novas espécies geralmente surgem em isolamento geográfico. Embora diga-se que o nascimento é abrupto, ele é, também, gradual. O que acontece é que a maioria das modificações adaptativas ocorrem nos eventos de especiação, o que acontece "mais rápido" (milhares e milhares de anos), se em comparação com a "vida total" de uma espécie (que frequentemente dura milhões de anos).
A parte mais difícil do livro, muito seca, é a final, que versa sobre Teoria Hierárquica. Contudo, pode servir de porta de entrada para discussões mais profundas. As referências a Gould são interessantes, inclusive por mostrar os pontos de desacordo entre amigos e pensadores livres.
Leitura super recomendada.
É interessante que tanto a perspectiva táxica quanto o gradualismo filético já estivessem sendo mais ou menos discutidas, com outros nomes, evidentemente, bem antes de Darwin se estabelecer cientista. De um lado, Giambattista Brocchi, com sua analogia entre indivíduos e espécies (nascimento, vida e morte). Do outro, o gradualismo espacial e temporal de Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck. Darwin entrou em contato com ambas as perspectivas especialmente graças aos Princípios de Geologia de Lyell, embora possa ter encontrado tais ideias ainda em Edimburgo, onde seus professores Robert E. Grant e, possivelmente, Robert Jameson, discutiam sobre transmutação. Darwin mais tarde viria afirmar que esses mestres não causaram impacto sobre ele, mas é difícil acreditar que isso seja completamente verdade.
Foi de certa forma chocante perceber que o fenômeno da adaptação não era exatamente o centro das atenções nas discussões sobre a origem de novas espécies. Pelo menos não a princípio. O princípio de tudo foi estabelecer a transmutação como algo decorrente de causas secundárias, para só então discutir os mecanismos capazes de produzir as adaptações.
Evidentemente, quem lê esse livro não pode, nunca mais, cuspir bobagens sobre os equilíbrios pontuados. Longe de ser uma teoria sobre evolução por meio de "saltos", é uma teoria que versa sobre padrões reais observados no registro fóssil e os tenta explicar sem recorrer ao argumento da imperfeição dos registros geológicos. A maioria das espécies aparecem no registro fóssil abruptamente e permanecem sem alterações morfológicas consideráveis pelo restante de suas vidas. O "nascimento abrupto" é a pontuação; a estabilidade morfológica é a estase, ou equilíbrio. Daí o nome "equilíbrios pontuados". E o nascimento é abrupto porque novas espécies geralmente surgem em isolamento geográfico. Embora diga-se que o nascimento é abrupto, ele é, também, gradual. O que acontece é que a maioria das modificações adaptativas ocorrem nos eventos de especiação, o que acontece "mais rápido" (milhares e milhares de anos), se em comparação com a "vida total" de uma espécie (que frequentemente dura milhões de anos).
A parte mais difícil do livro, muito seca, é a final, que versa sobre Teoria Hierárquica. Contudo, pode servir de porta de entrada para discussões mais profundas. As referências a Gould são interessantes, inclusive por mostrar os pontos de desacordo entre amigos e pensadores livres.
Leitura super recomendada.
January 23, 2024
Great research work on the history of the study of evolution. However, tedious to read most of the time. I enjoyed the parts where the more human side of the 'protagonists' is shown (e.g., the earliest thoughts of Darwin as shown by his letters/early manuscripts; arguments between Eldredge and Gould over manuscript authorship order, etc). Would have like to have a more detailed in-text description of the (very few) figures shown in the book.
March 2, 2017
Another reviewer mentioned that this book was tedious at times and I agree. Maybe my scientific background isn't deep enough to judge fairly but I found it very rough going and a bit too technical for the average reader. I have found Gould and Thomas to be much more accessible.
April 18, 2015
First of all, thank you Net Galley for the free reading copy. I was exceptionally excited to get this book, since I am taking a class from Dr. Eldredge this summer. This is very dense reading, so it is going to take me a while to "chew my way through." What I am seeing already is exactly what the book says it is: a complete history of evolutionary thought from humble beginnings to recent understandings.
Right now I have finished the age of Darwin himself, Cuvier and Lamarck, Lyell and Hutton and Wallace.
Eldredge leads you then to how he developed punctuated equilibrium - again, this is not light reading, but for the eager accolyte.
Right now I have finished the age of Darwin himself, Cuvier and Lamarck, Lyell and Hutton and Wallace.
Eldredge leads you then to how he developed punctuated equilibrium - again, this is not light reading, but for the eager accolyte.
July 7, 2015
It was good to read about the development of Punctuated Equilibria from one of the originators (with Steven Jay Gould) of the theory. It was also interesting to see that the basic ideas contained in this "taxic" theory of evolution had its roots in the earlier notebooks of Darwin that predate his Origin of Species. In spite of these pluses, I found the book tedious at times. I got the sense that Eldredge was repeating the same concepts over and over in slightly different words, and sometimes his points, especially about Darwin's early ideas, were confusing.
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September 11, 2015576.82 E378 2015
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews