I think I've got the basic idea Cliff, I'm now up to the end of 'Verification' and one statement which (rightly or wrongly) struck a chord is:

 "Since the proposed model is unusual, it is possible that evidence which would support it does exist but has been disregarded as insignificantly anomalous." 

I have a great deal of sympathy with Marcel Proust's:

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/marcel_proust.html

One area I want to address in a future article is how cultural conditioning also leads to evidence being disregarded (or not being seen in its correct context).

I've placed a link to your page at:

http://members.aol.com/jorolat/plink.html

and

http://members.aol.com/jorolat/evolinks.html

If you want the entries changing in any way then please let me know.

You can also place a link on this group's website if you want to:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/evomech/links

I wasn't sure what you meant by;

"I'll have to think about the ring, because I plan to do something different to promote the article."

I've recently linked the group to 5 web rings (3 of which have now given their approval) but that only means that there'll (hopefully) be a steady trickle of people visiting the group's website.

John

Cliff Lundberg wrote:

From: "John Latter" <jorolat@...>

"Segmentation and Vertebrate Origins" - very interesting stuff Cliff and
from a number of perspectives!
I've only read as far as the end of The Appendicular Skeleton so far - I
wanted to read it all to gain an overview before making any comments...

It's all about one simple thing: simple multiplication of bodies to form
trains of identical organisms living as one; and a subsequent slow process
of loss and distortion within those trains. This gross morphology theory is
an extrapolation from morphological data. If it's true it will mutually
support theories about other aspects of organisms.

...the evolution of snakes is a 'sideways step' in a similar manner to
that of flatfish.

I have snakes evolving much earlier than presently thought, maybe
even in the Cambrian. This ancestor might have limbs (losing limbs is
easy) but most importantly it would have a long axial skeleton, so
that snakes can evolve without the addition of new axial segments.
Snake can escape the mud which mires and entombs both fishes and
tetrapods, so I have no problem postulating unknown very early
snakes. An arboreal habitat is another point against fossilization.

from the
perspective of an internal evolutionary mechanism, the cytochrome c info
found in Dayhoff's Atlas of Protein Structure and Function is
particularly relevant. Another way of putting it, is that snakes may be
'an exception that proves the rule' and consequently do not /initially/
have to be 'accounted for' to any great degree.

I suspect that this info fits with a variety of theories. For me the
internal constraint on the evolution of gross morphology is simply that
skeletal evolution doesn't create new parts or segments; it can only
modify a complex primitive structure through loss and distortion.
The formation of this progenitor was a one-time pre-Cambrian event.

On a more immediate and practical level I would like to put your site on
my "Reciprocal Links" and "Evolinks" pages. It doesn't matter (from my
point of view) that you haven't got a links page - if you want me to go
ahead just send a couple of lines describing your site and I'll add it
as soon as I can.

Thanks, any link is appreciated. I'll have to think about the ring,
because I plan to do something different to promote the article.
Thanks for reading the thing.
Cliff 

-- 

Model of an Internal Evolutionary Mechanism (based on an extension to homeostasis) linking Adaptive Mutations to the Baldwin Effect.

http://members.aol.com/jorolat/TEM.html