Peer Reviewed paper claiming evolution is wrong

[Dinwar]

Depends on the paleontologist. I'm square between biology and stratigraphy (well, ecology and stratigraphy), but I've known a number of very good paleontologists that came at it from a biological (usually anatomical) perspective.

In general, I tend to view any cladogram that doesn't include fossil data as an untested hypothesis (or a minimally tested hypothesis), mostly because of the nature of the data. A cladogram says "These two things share a common ancestor, which had these traits". The "common ancestor" part is a testalbe hypothesis in paleontology. And as far as ecology goes, I've heard a lot of good arguments--from chemical to dental to anotomical--that our understanding of ecology is based on systems under a great deal of stress. Simply put, we've never studied an ecosystem that wasn't heavily impacted by humans. Makes me skeptical about any claims about ecological principles derived from a modern dataset. But paleontologists pretty much by definition deal with ecosystems that aren't impacted by humans--only Quaternary paleontologists deal with systems that could potentially be so impacted, and those guys are only barely considered paleontologists.

 

[CapelDodger]

Interesting, to be sure. Though two out of those three need paleontological input in order to say anything significant.

(Yes, I know what can of worms I'm opening there. )

We certainy need that Deep Time dimension, if only because :

Simply put, we've never studied an ecosystem that wasn't heavily impacted by humans.

Not with the tools (and society) we have now. When our tools were handaxes and sharp sticks we carefully studied an ecosystem that could seriously impact us .

 

[Dinwar]

Not with the tools (and society) we have now. When our tools were handaxes and sharp sticks we carefully studied an ecosystem that could seriously impact us .

Actually got into that with a colleague two weeks ago. The issue of the Pleistocene extinction came up, as we were surveying some end-Pleistocene/earliest Holocene materials. What's always confused me about the "humans killed everything" idea is that elephants, lions, multiple species of horse, and many other of what I've come to think of as Pleistocene critters--all living alongside humans! In fact, in Africa these animals would have been living alongside humans longer than anywhere on Earth! Apparently, since humans evolved there, the system was more able to handle us. It wasn't a sudden influx of skilled predators, but rather the latest in a long series of such organisms. Probably why the cow ancestors survived to become cows in Europe, Asian elephants still roam around, and leapords and the like are still around.

All told, I'm not sure when we had the biggest impact. I mean, we were certainly a contributing cause for the Pleistocene mass extinction (personally I'm not adverse to viewing the Holocene as that mass extinction, rather than a unique time period to itself). However, we're also a contributing factor to the new ecological "normal", and for an increase in diversity (breeds and hybreds, we call them, but whatever their names they're new critters).