I am going to try to draw a line here. And I mean that quite literally and you can follow my continuing discussion below on Zeno the Turtle and his predecessor.
We will need to be able to respond to Gould's footnote on page 725 of his "Structure of Evolutionary Theory"
quote:
At the risk of unwarrented metaphorical excursion into anthropomorphic imagery, one might contrast limited change at organismal birth with necessary change at species birth in the following manner: New metazoan organisms arise by a process of complex development, which must discourge change for reasons recognized ever since von Baer formulated his laws of embyrology (1828). At the organismal level, the new individual seperates intrinsically from the parent; how then, may this be kept sufficiently like the parent to preserve the collectivity of the population? An opposite problem attends the birth of a species. At the species level, new individuals are born by speciation, which enhances change. But species do not seperate intrinsically from their parents. They are born in fuzzy continuity. Their seperation may be difficult. They must be cast out, or they will reintegrate. Necessary change at speciation enhances this defining process of casting out from the parent. The newly born species faces a structural problem opposite from the neonatal organism's dilemma: how may the new species-individual become sufficiently unlike the parent to be cast out, thus enhancing the collectivity of the clade by adding another part? In short, the new metazoan organism forms outside the parent: how can it be kept close? The new speices seperates with difficulty from the parent: how can it be cast out?
This line was drawn for me by the making of the map on the left. It did not exist when I was collecting salamanders. I actually found one of the lightblue-colored-region-ones when it was thought this species distribution was all one(maps and pics from Peterson Field Guide).
Creationists may respond simply as two have done in the paper
ICR Makes Major Contributions to ICC | The Institute for Creation Research
quote:
“While microevolutionary “speciation” of various types of snakes is not really seen as a problem by creationists; indeed, it is simply the expression of additional genetic material which was always present in snake baramins.”
Snake Hybridzation: A Case for Intrabaraminc Divesity
You can ask yourself after reading the snake paper if you think the line I cut was not coincidentally available to me. Could there be some non-microevolutioanry relationship between
calligaster(prairie/mole) and
alterna(gray)? The baramin paper suggested to me that these two species may be cladistically similar (by color traits phenetically).
Look for yourself.
Whether this is "added genetics" as creationists have said (inverse wise) or altered allometry as Gould contends to decouple is the query.
Let the battle of the the 1/2 shell find its scholasticism. How do deride mesoevolution?
The turtles need to tell us what was the "necessary change", whether it was a gap or a continuum and whether we can know this through geometry or arithemtic or algebra or somehowelse. There are geographic constraints on how far "outside" this may happen. Gould does not answer this angle to not get all "moses" on an arse.
Best,
Brad