PUNCEQ AND THE PROBLEM OF TIME

The pattern of punctuated equilibria found in the fossil record is indicative of a larger theory on not only the tempo and mode of evolution, it also requires a reconceptualization of time itself. How we define time has been a cultural evolutionary learning process. Over the course of intellectual history, time has amongst others been depicted and conceptualized as a wheel or endlessly returning cycle that tracks planetary motion and overall generation and decay; as a scale that represents the series of nonuniform geological strata; as a uniform and mathematical timeline that counts the progressing number of years or generations; as a multilinear bifurcating tree that delineates speciation; or as a multidirectional network that illustrates the numerous ways there are to interact in spacetime. Punctuated equilibria entered science at a time when the uniformization of the geological time scale with a number line was complete and scholars finally knew the age of the earth. In association, they thought they would soon be able to also clock speciation and extinction and overall change according to a similar steady-state model. I will argue that by demonstrating variation within the timeline and within the tree of life, the 1972 paper is one of the first scholarly papers to have introduced the notion of spacetime into evolutionary biology, thereby pushing the field into a new era of fascinating research.

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