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  1. The punctuated equilibrium of scientific change: a Bayesian network model.Patrick Grim, Frank Seidl, Calum McNamara, Isabell N. Astor & Caroline Diaso - 2022 - Synthese 200 (4):1-25.
    Our scientific theories, like our cognitive structures in general, consist of propositions linked by evidential, explanatory, probabilistic, and logical connections. Those theoretical webs ‘impinge on the world at their edges,’ subject to a continuing barrage of incoming evidence. Our credences in the various elements of those structures change in response to that continuing barrage of evidence, as do the perceived connections between them. Here we model scientific theories as Bayesian nets, with credences at nodes and conditional links between them modelled (...)
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  2. From Aristotle’s Teleology to Darwin’s Genealogy: The Stamp of Inutility, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015 (pdf: Contents, Introduction).Marco Solinas - 2015 - Palgrave-Macmillan.
    Starting with Aristotle and moving on to Darwin, Marco Solinas outlines the basic steps from the birth, establishment and later rebirth of the traditional view of living beings, and its overturning by evolutionary revolution. The classic framework devised by Aristotle was still dominant in the 17th Century world of Galileo, Harvey and Ray, and remained hegemonic until the time of Lamarck and Cuvier in the 19th Century. Darwin's breakthrough thus takes on the dimensions of an abandonment of the traditional finalistic (...)
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  3. Philosophical Issues in Recent Paleontology.Derek D. Turner - 2014 - Philosophy Compass 9 (7):494-505.
    The distinction between idiographic science, which aims to reconstruct sequences of particular events, and nomothetic science, which aims to discover laws and regularities, is crucial for understanding the paleobiological revolution of the 1970s and 1980s. Stephen Jay Gould at times seemed conflicted about whether to say (a) that idiographic science is fine as it is or (b) that paleontology would have more credibility if it were more nomothetic. Ironically, one of the lasting results of the paleobiological revolution was a new (...)
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  4. Cast in plastic: Semiotic plasticity and the pragmatic reading of Darwin.Gerald Ostdiek - 2011 - Biosemiotics 4 (1):69-82.
  5. Paleontology: A Philosophical Introduction.Derek Turner - 2011 - Cambridge University Press.
    In the wake of the paleobiological revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, paleontologists continue to investigate far-reaching questions about how evolution works. Many of those questions have a philosophical dimension. How is macroevolution related to evolutionary changes within populations? Is evolutionary history contingent? How much can we know about the causes of evolutionary trends? How do paleontologists read the patterns in the fossil record to learn about the underlying evolutionary processes? Derek Turner explores these and other questions, introducing the reader (...)
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  6. Transposable elements and an epigenetic basis for punctuated equilibria.David W. Zeh, Jeanne A. Zeh & Yoichi Ishida - 2009 - Bioessays 31 (7):715-726.
    Evolution is frequently concentrated in bursts of rapid morphological change and speciation followed by long‐term stasis. We propose that this pattern of punctuated equilibria results from an evolutionary tug‐of‐war between host genomes and transposable elements (TEs) mediated through the epigenome. According to this hypothesis, epigenetic regulatory mechanisms (RNA interference, DNA methylation and histone modifications) maintain stasis by suppressing TE mobilization. However, physiological stress, induced by climate change or invasion of new habitats, disrupts epigenetic regulation and unleashes TEs. With their capacity (...)
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  7. Trémaux on species: A theory of allopatric speciation (and punctuated equilibrium) before Wagner.John S. Wilkins & Gareth J. Nelson - 2008 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 30 (1):179-206.
    Pierre Trémaux’s 1865 ideas on speciation have been unjustly derided following his acceptance by Marx and rejection by Engels, and almost nobody has read his ideas in a charitable light. Here we offer an interpretation based on translating the term sol as “habitat”, in order to show that Trémaux proposed a theory of allopatric speciation before Wagner and a punctuated equilibrium theory before Gould and Eldredge, and translate the relevant discussion from the French. We believe he may have influenced Darwin’s (...)
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  8. Punctuated equilibrium, moral panics and the ethics review process.Maureen H. Fitzgerald - 2005 - Journal of Academic Ethics 2 (4):315-338.
    A review of the literature and ethnographic data from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United States, and the United Kingdom on the research ethics review process suggest that moral panics can become triggers for punctuated equilibrium in the review process at both the macro and microlevel, albeit with significantly different levels of magnitude and impact. These data suggest that neither the development of the ethics review process nor the process itself proceeds gradually, but both are characterized by periodic major shifts (...)
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  9. Ewolucja ewolucjonizmu z popperowskiego punktu widzenia.Karzimierz Jodkowski - 2003 - Filozofia Nauki 2.
    In this paper, I analyse the transition from gradualism to punctualism. I try to respond to the following question: Is the transition in question connected with an increase or decrease of falsifiability? My answer to that question is that from the classical Popperian point of view theory of Punctuated Equilibria is a failure because it does not satisfy the Popperian criteria of progress in the development of science. Classical Darwinism and Neodarwinism have failed in that they predict a number of (...)
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  10. The demotion of alpha-homo sapiens: Consciousness, punctuated equilibrium, and the laws of the game.William Dockens - 1997 - World Futures 50 (1):647-665.
    (1997). The demotion of alpha‐homo sapiens: Consciousness, punctuated equilibrium, and the laws of the game. World Futures: Vol. 50, No. 1-4, pp. 647-665.
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  11. Phyletic gradualism versus punctuated equilibria: Why case histories do not suffice.J. C. Vaupel Kleivonn - 1995 - Acta Biotheoretica 43 (3).
    Many attempts have been made at supporting either one of the allegedly complementary divergence models Phyletic Gradualism and Punctuated Equilibria by patterns found in specific fossil sequences. However, assessing each model's connection with reality via such “individual case histories” appears not to constitute a relevant approach. Instead, in order to correctly establish the possible merits of both concepts, the claims of each have to be verified against general evolutionary theory. This is being pointed out herein by analyzing cladogenesis at the (...)
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  12. Is species selection dependent upon emergent characters?Benton M. Stidd & David L. Wade - 1995 - Biology and Philosophy 10 (1):55-76.
    The architects of punctuated equilibrium and species selection as well as more recent workers (Vrba) have narrowed the original formulation of species selection and made it dependent upon so-called emergent characters. One criticism of this narrow version is the dearth of emergent characters with a consequent diminution in the robustness of species selection as an important evolutionary process. We argue that monomorphic species characters may at times be the focus of selection and that under these circumstances selection at the organism (...)
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  13. Punctuated equilibria and phyletic gradualism: Even partners can be good friends.J. C. Vaupel Klein - 1994 - Acta Biotheoretica 42 (1).
    The allegedly alternative theories of Phyletic Gradualism and Punctuated Equilibria are examined as regards the nature of their differences. The explanatory value of both models is determined by establishing their actual connection with reality. It is concluded that they are to be considered complementary rather than mutually exclusive at all levels of infraspecific, specific, and supraspecific evolution. So, in order to be described comprehensively, the pathways of evolution require at least two distinct models, each based on a discrete range of (...)
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  14. “And then a miracle occurs” — weak links in the chain of argument from punctuation to hierarchy.Davida E. Kellogg - 1988 - Biology and Philosophy 3 (1):3-28.
    Weak links, in the form of inadequacies in both reasoning and supporting evidence, exist at several critical steps in the derivation of an hierarchical concept of evolution from punctuated equilibria. Punctuation itself is predicated on a distorted reading of phyletic change as phyletic gradualism, and of allopatric speciation as the instantaneous formation of unchanging typological taxa. The concept of punctuation is further confounded by the indescriminate employment of the same term to denote both a causal explanation for evolutionary change and (...)
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  15. Tempo and Mode in Evolution: Punctuated Equilibria and the Modern Synthetic Theory.Paul Thompson - 1983 - Philosophy of Science 50 (3):432 - 452.
    Several paleontologists have recently challenged the explanatory adequacy of the modern synthetic theory of evolution. Their position is that, contrary to the prevailing view that evolutionary change is gradual, the fossil record manifests long periods of species stasis (equilibrium) punctuated by periods of rapid species formation. And, they argue, this punctuated equilibria pattern challenges the gradualist, adaptationist and extrapolationist assumptions of the modern synthetic theory of evolution and supports a hierarchical, non-extrapolationist (non-reductionist) view of evolution. In this paper I argue (...)
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  16. Beyond Darwinism? The Challenge of Macroevolution to the Synthetic Theory of Evolution.Francisco J. Ayala - 1982 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1982:275 - 291.
    The theory of punctuated equilibrium has been proposed as a challenge to the modern synthesis of evolutionary theory. Two important issues are raised. The first is scientific: whether morphological change as observed in the paleontological record is essentially always associated with speciation events. This paper argues that there is at present no empirical support for this claim: the alleged evidence is based on a definitional fallacy. The second issue is epistemological: whether macroevolution is an autonomous field of study, independent from (...)
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  17. Punctuated Equilibria: An Alternative to Phyletic Gradualism.Niles Eldredge & Stephen Jay Gould - 1972 - In Thomas J. M. Schopf (ed.), Models in Paleobiology. Freeman Cooper. pp. 82-115.
    They are correct that punctuated equilibria apply to sexually reproducing organisms and that morphological evolutionary change is regarded as largely (if not exclusively) correlated with speciation events. However, they err in suggesting that we attribute stasis strictly to "developmental constraints," which represent only one of a set of possible mechanisms that we have suggested for the causes of stasis. Others include habitat tracking and the internal structure of species themselves [for example, (2)].
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  18. Punctuated Equilibrium's Threefold History.Stephen Jay Gould - unknown
    h e "Urban Legend" of Punctuated Equilibrium's Threefold History: The opponents of punctuated equilibrium have constructed a fictional history of the theory, primarily (I suppose) as a largely unconscious expression of their hope for its minor importance […] This supposed threefold history of punctuated equilibrium also ranks about as close to pure fiction as any recent commentary by scientists has ever generated. In stage one, the story goes, we were properly modest, obedient to the theoretical hegemony of the Modern Synthesis, (...)
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  19. Punctuated equilibrium comes of age.Stephen Jay Gould & Niles Eldredge - unknown
    PUNCTUATED cquilibrium has finally obtained an unambiguous and incontrovertiblc majoxity—that is, our theory is now 21 ' years old. We also, with parental pride (and, therefore, potential..
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  20. Punctuated equilibrium in statistical models of generalized coevolutionary resilience: How sudden ecosystem transitions can entrain both phenotype expression and Darwinian selection.Rodrick Wallace & Deborah Wallace - unknown
    We argue that mesoscale ecosystem resilience shifts akin to sudden phase transitions in physical systems can entrain similarly punctuated events of gene expression on more rapid time scales, and, in part through such means, slower changes induced by selection pressure, triggering punctuated Darwinian evolutionary transitions on geologic time scales. The approach reduces ecosystem, gene expression, and Darwinian genetic dynamics to a least common denominator of information sources interacting by crosstalk at markedly different rates. Pettini's 'topological hypothesis', via a homology between (...)
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