The Fossil Record: Evolution or "Scientific Creation"

Clifford A. Cuffey

Evolution

Evolution is descent with modification (Darwin, 1859; Mayr, 1942; Simpson, 1953; Fastovsky & Weishampel, 1990). Evolution produces permanent change in the morphology and function of adult living organisms (Cuffey, 1984, p. 269, 1999 , p. 209). These changes take place over chronologically successive generations between chronologically successive populations within species, between species, and between higher taxa (R. Cuffey, 1999; Condie & Sloan, 1998, p. 152). Thus, ancestor taxa were modified into descendent taxa (Dott & Prothero, 1994, p. 44).

Microevolution refers to morphologic change within species, and the evolution of new species (Eldredge, 1990; Sheldon, 1990; Clarkson, 1986, p. 35, 36). Macroevolution encompasses larger-scale evolutionary trends above the species level . One mechanism is species selection (Stanley, 1979; Eldredge, 1990; Clarkson, 1986, p. 36-41; Carroll, 1988, p. 576-578), whereby species either survive or become extinct through time. Thus large-scale trends are determined by which species survive. Some paleontologists think that macroevolution is decoupled from microevolution, because they think that microevolution does not produce new species (Stanley, 1979). However, that is not universally accepted within the paleontologic community (Cuffey, 1984; H offman, 1989). The majority of paleontologists accept that it has been documented that new species arise by microevolution (Gingerich, 1976a; Cuffey, 1984), and because the unit of macroevolution is the species, macroevolution is dependent on microevoluti on. Thus, macroevolution is microevolution summed over time (Cuffey, 1984). As Hoffman (1989, p. ix) stated, “...all macro- and megaevolution is an outcome of the interaction between microevolutionary processes operating within myriads of individual populations and species, on the one hand, and the global environment evolving on various continents and in various seas and oceans over millions of years, on the other.”

Questions or Comments about GCSSEPM?

Send us e-mail and we will get back to you as soon as we can.