Macroevolution- Part 1

Started by bstratton, 02/18/2003 05:06PM
Posted 02/18/2003 05:06PM Opening Post
From the book -What Evolution is-by Ernest Mayr, Professor Emiritus in The Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, on page 188:

Macroevolutuion..."refers to processes that occur above the species level, particularly the origin of new higher taxa, the invasion of new adaptive zones, and correlated with it, often the acquisition of evolutionary novelties such as the wings of birds or the terrestial adaptations of the tetrapods (any vertebrate that has four limbs) or warm-bloodedness in birds and mammals."

"From Darwin's day to the present, there has been a heated contoversy over whether macroevolution is nothing but an unbroken continuation of microevolution, as Darwin and his followers had claimed, or rather is disconnected from microevolution, as asserted by his opponents, and that it must be explained by a different set of theories. According to this view, there is a definite discontinuity between the species level and that of the higher taxa."

Brien