So, in summary, my position is that Arphy’s view (that stasis should not happen if things evolve) comes from an oversimplified understanding of evolution, and of the processes and functions of life.
G'day Bluejay.
Personally, I think it's a fine table!
If I have understood your post correctly, you are saying that stasis doesn't mean that evolution has stopped, that forces not reliant on phenotypic change are still at work on the population. Is that correct?
Undoubtedly this is true. I have long argued, for example, that one of the problems faced by evolution per se is that what might be termed the "Olympian" advantages (faster, stronger, higher, fiercer) are always going to count for more than the next-to-worthless budding of some speculative new anatomical feature.
I have to disagree with Arphy that if things are evolving then stasis shouldn't happen. I take your point that if the the organism is being successful, then natural selection should hold it in stasis.
Unfortunately, this creates two more significant problems for evolution.
The first is that, logically, if stasis indicates success, then phenotypic modification must indicate failure. An organism will only evolve when it is under survival stress. This makes every substantial evolutionary step a race against extinction.
The second problem is that vast amounts of time spent in stasis greatly reduce the time available to evolve. For example, Haldane's Dilemma sets a limit on human/common ancestor evolution over 10 million years of 1667 mutations. I believe Gould and Eldredge suggested that most organisms spend 99% of their life span in stasis. That would mean man would have to evolve from the common ancestor in just 17 mutations!
Stasis is obvious from the fossil record. It is observed and documented. Its ramifications for the ToE are that evolution has very little time to bring about phenotypic change, and can only do so while playing "chicken" with extinction.
Edited by Kaichos Man, : typos
"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin