

Date: Wed Apr 18 2001 - 06:35:41 EDT


    In a message dated 4/17/01 1:12:08 PM, writes:

    << Senescence in species, especially, and to some extent in genera and
    That organisms become better and better adapted to specific environments
    movements that bring separate land masses together and introduce new
    a highly specialized group cannot cope with. This would look like
    senescence in the fossil record, while fitting exactly into an
    evolutionary pattern.

    a tighter evolutionary explanation. Then there are such matters as
    "senescence" and evolutionary theory.



    You have described the process of extinction, not phyletic aging. These are
    two distinctly different processes. Aging is caused primarily be internal
    factors, not environmental ones, and is characterized by increasing disorder
    and decline in individual organisms, and in groups of them. Increasing
    disorder and decline can be observed at the phyletic level, that is, in
    taxonomic groups, as well as in individuals.

    Your response, Dave, illustrates what happens so often when the Darwinian
    paradigm is challenged. Immediately someone springs to its defense.
    Without, I assume, having given any serious study to the process of aging,
    which is extremely complex, especially when applied to phyletic groups, you
    have stretched the theory of evolution to encompass it, to your satisfaction,
    and perhaps that of others, and have thus disposed of the challenge.

    I am in the process of organizing my studies of phyletic aging, but ask your
    forbearance for the delay in completing it as I have a serious family matter
    that will require my attention for the time being. I promise, DV, to get
    back to this topic later.


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