Theory of Evolution and model of evolution

One thing to bear in the mind is that some linear aspects of evolutionary trees might be misinterpreted. An interesting article about this appears in the latest issue of American Scientist”"The origin of Larvae," by Donald Williamson & Sonya Vickers (Sorry that I can't access the full article for you, but I'll try to give you a fair reduction of it.) These authors posit a "larval-transfer hypothesis," asserting that:

quote:

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...larvae were later additiions to life histories, the earliest animals cannot have had larvae. When a successful hybridization occurred, the resulting chimera had the benefits that each animal had acquired through years of natural selection, along with the new benefits of an early feeding stage coupled with a later reproductive stage.

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These two diagrams show their hypothesis faily well: "Figure 2...(b) Wiiliamson's larval-transfer theory introduces another wrinkle: the notion that one animal can become the larvae of another...(c)..."As a result, those laterally transferring larvae may have jumped the boundaries of even phyla to remotely "fuse genomes." "Figure 3. ...(2) Further hybridization with rotifers gave trochophore larvae to the ancestors of today's clam-like and snail-like mollusks. Their close relatives, the octopuses and squid, lack larvae. In conventional thinking, larval forms arose over time as young and adult forms within a species became more and more different. The similarities among larvae in distantly related species are thus conventionally explained by convergent evolution."And thus their hypothesis offers a plausible alternative to "convergent evolution," which always seemed a little hooky to me anyway. I think that Williamson & Vickers' hypothesis is more interesting than bunnies before the Cambrian Explosion.”HM

You mean to say that an importrant scientist like you can't access an American Scientist article. Ask your library to get it for you and then read it. I'm not going to sit here and argue Williamson's case for him.And, WK, if you want to believe in "convergent evolution" then I've got an "Ontogeny-Recapitulates-Phylogeny" lapel pin to sell you.”HM

I was almost sure somebody like you would have to come along and put me down for all the trouble it took to introduce the larval-transfer hypothesis, which was right on the OP topic. Check it out! And save your condescension for those on your puddleduck forum who actually deserve it.”HM

From the OP, EighteenDelta asks : Please take a look at Message 30 and tell me why my post is irrevelant or off topic.”HM