Has anyone even looked at my paper to see what the statistical issues of 'punctuation' actually are?? The statistical problem is to find a continuity that bridges a discontinuity. The secret I found is that to do that you need to analyze the data for *flow*, and that that is erased when you search the data for *trend*. Searching for trend seems to be the mistake everyone's been making in trying to understand evolutionary rates. Read the paper if you want to know about it.
Phil Henshaw ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] explorations: www.synapse9.com > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Russell Standish > Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2007 11:02 PM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Question from an evolutionary ignoramus > > > Off the bat, I would suspect that low sample rates would make > a punctualist process seem graduated, as it would mask the > high frequency signal. But possibly you are right if the > sampling was uneven, and this unevenness was not taken into > acount. Not having worked with paleontological data first > hand, I can't really comment. > > Cheers > > On Sat, Jun 09, 2007 at 08:20:18AM -0600, Robert Holmes wrote: > > So that's a rather long preamble to my actual question: is Gould's > > punctuated equilibrium real or (like Dawkins) do we really have an > > incremental "creeping" evolution that we only get to see very very > > occasional snapshots of in the fossil record? According to some > > erudite boffin on NPR yesterday (so it must be true) the > fossil record > > contains considerably less than 1% of the estimated > dinosaur species > > (not individuals!). If you observe creeping evolution at such a low > > sample rate, wouldn't that look like punctuated equilibrium? > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------- > -------------- > A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) > Mathematics > UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au > -------------------------------------------------------------- > -------------- > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
