JB suggests a Sim Earth defense of an evolutionary theory:
Sim Earth has inspired an argument that I think that gives evolution a lot more space to dodge falsifiability on natural selection. Let’s say the point of punctuated equilibrium is that a dynamically selective environment is extremely rare. By dynamically selective I mean consistent gentle pressure to develop a trait.
Perhaps there’s an interplay between DNA’s potential development paths and the rarity of dynamically selective environments, so that their overlap is even rarer. And perhaps proto-organisms in early low-competition ecosystems have far more open development trees, while specialized organisms in high competition late ecosystems are locked in. E.g., it’s much easier for proto-weasel to become meerkat and hyena, than for hyena to become meerkat. Let’s say the latter is impossible.
In other words, to restart the race of life you have to clear out a huge chunk of the ecosystem to let vague blobbies float about figuring out what they want to be. Like the big comet did to the dinosaurs, to pave the mammalian way. To me, that makes punctuated equilibrium sound plausible again. The windows are tiny and rarely encountered even on a planetary scale.
So how do you experimentally replicate the type of evolution described above, when all you’ve got to work with are late stage highly competitive organisms and ecosystems? This argument creates a LOT more space for evolution to defer falsifiability than I thought it had.
Well, it’s certainly a creative approch, but it doesn’t serve well to defer falsifiability because it requires an amount of begging the question. First, there is no evidence that EVERY extant ecosystem is capable of creating the pressure required for natural selection, in fact, the idea of living fossils or ancient species suggests that this is not the case. And if, as JB suggests himself, dynamically selective environments are rare anyhow, then there will be no shortage of proto-organisms with open development trees to be found in the majority of environments which are static and unselective. If this cannot be observed to be the case, then the whole structure collapses.
Needless to say, there’s also no science supporting any of this; from the scientific perspective, we might as legitimately be discussing the theoretical limitations pin heads must place on the potential size of angel feet. However, his argument is at least within the right orbit in that it recognizes the significance of environmental differences with regards to potential natural selection pressures necessary to theoretical evolution taking place.