here is the peer review:
A Peer review article also coincides:"The term macroevolution was introduced by Iurii Filipchenko, a Russian geneticist and developmental biologist and mentor of Theodosius Dobzhansky. Filipchenko distinguished between Mendelian inheritance within species and non-Mendelian, cytoplasmic inheritance responsible for the formation of taxa above the species level." Erwin, D. H. (2000), Macroevolution is more than repeated rounds of microevolution. Evolution & Development, 2: 7884. doi: 10.1046/j.1525-142x.2000.00045.x Article found online here: Macroevolution is more than repeated rounds of microevolution - Erwin - 2001 - Evolution & Development - Wiley Online Library
now you would need to back up your claim. I already did the homework for you, but I really don't know where your information comes from. As I read it the peer review states exactly what I said previously. That speciation is an engine in both macro and micro evolution. But not that speciation is equated with macroevolution. So you would have to quote the journal to support your view.
Grady, did you actually read the article or did you just skim as usual and cherry pick something you thought might agree with you or did you simply not understand it?
The reason I say that is that the article did not particularly agree with you.
From the article:
For this reason we are compelled at the present level of knowledge reluctantly to put a sign of equality between the mechanisms of macro- and micro-evolution
( Dobzhansky 1937, p. 12; emphasis added). Dobzhansky was rejecting purveyors of saltationist changes and orthogenesis while leaving open the possibility of a more scientific approach to macroevolution ( Burian 1994).
For general information:
Orthogenesis, orthogenetic evolution, progressive evolution or autogenesis, is the hypothesis that life has an innate tendency to evolve in a unilinear fashion due to some internal or external "driving force
In biology, saltation (from Latin, saltus, "leap") is a sudden change from one generation to the next, that is large, or very large, in comparison with the usual variation of an organism. The term is used for nongradual changes (especially single-step speciation) that are atypical of, or violate gradualism - involved in modern evolutionary theory.
Here Dobzhansky is saying the same thing we are saying, that the mechanisms of microevolution and macroevolution are mostly the same and the author is discussing some of the differences in higher level cladistics beyond just simple speciation.
Now the article did say this
Filipchenko distinguished between Mendelian inheritance within species and non-Mendelian, cytoplasmic inheritance responsible for the formation of taxa above the species level. In contrast to latter views, speciation was not seen as the crux of the distinction between micro- and macroevolution, since Filipchenko saw speciation as continuous with microevolutionary change
Grady, this was from the 20's. Science is not stationary and has moved on in almost a century since Filipochenko's views. What the article is saying is that current ("later") views are exactly that speciation the crux of the distinction between micro and macroevolution.
Also I have to ask You say
That speciation is an engine in both macro and micro evolution.
How can speciation be an engine in micro evolution when microevolution is below speciation by definition? Just curious.
This is from the conclusion of the article
Is macroevolution more than repeated rounds of microevolution? Macroevolution encompasses a variety of patterns and processes involving species and larger clades. Some of these patterns can plausibly be described as the result of microevolutionary processes extended across the great expanses of time and space provided by the fossil record. Sepkoski's competition-driven models of clade replacement are an example of such processes. But discontinuities have been documented at a variety of scales, from the punctuated nature of much speciation, to patterns of community overturn, the sorting of species within clades by differential speciation and extinction, and finally mass extinctions. These discontinuities impart a hierarchical structure to evolution, a structure which impedes, obstructs, and even neutralizes the effects of microevolution. As is so often the case in evolution, the interesting question is not, is macroevolution distinct from microevolution, but the relative frequency and impact of processes at the various levels of this hierarchy.
The question presented is asking if macroevolution is simply a matter of repeated microevolution. His answer seems to be while it is that there is more to it when you involve the issues of species and clades. In otherwords, it isn't quite that simple (in nature, most things are not).
I can see no argument however over the idea that the difference between microevolution and macroevolution is that of speciation.
The big thing here, at least to me, is that it does not support what you are trying to assert that speciation is not the generally accepted dividing line between micro and macro evolution and in fact says just the opposite.
Dizredux
