Lenin predicted Gould's punctuated equilibrium critique of Darwin's gradualism

CB : This is an important natural historical fact yes evolution is in punctuated equilibriums , not a gradual process as Darwin thought . There are long periods of small change punctuated by short periods of big change as with the mass extinction of the dinosaurs followed by a relatively rapid ( tens of thousands of years being relatively rapid in history of millions of years ) radiation by the mammals filling the empty ecological niches left by the extinct dinosaurs .( you posted on this mammalian radiation Steven G. Randall https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/06/science/dinosaurs-mammals-daytime.html) Natural history is punctuated by mass extinctions followed by explosions of new species adapting . This is Dialectical in the Hegelian sense ; the dialectic of quantitative and qualitative change . The equilibrium is quantitative change ; the punctuations are qualitative change . Lenin predicted that Darwin’s theory would be modified in this way. Steven Randall :”Yes, the course of Darwinian evolution can be altered by natural events called punctuations. See the work of Stephen J. Gould: https://monthlyreview.org/product/science_and_humanism_of_stephen_jay_gould/“ “Lenin : Dialectics As the most comprehensive and profound doctrine of development, and the richest in content, Hegelian dialectics was considered by Marx and Engels the greatest achievement of classical German philosophy. They thought that any other formulation of the principle of development, of evolution, was one-sided and poor in content, and could only distort and mutilate the actual course of development (which often proceeds by leaps, and via catastrophes and revolutions) in Nature and in...: “In our times, the idea of development, of evolution, has almost completely penetrated social consciousness, only in other ways, and not through Hegelian philosophy. Still, this idea, as formulated by Marx and Engels on the basis of Hegels’ philosophy, is far more comprehensive and far richer in content than the current idea of evolution is. A development that repeats, as it were, stages that have already been passed, but repeats them in a different way, on a higher basis (“the negation of the negation”), a development, so to speak, that proceeds in spirals, not in a straight line; a development by leaps, catastrophes, and revolutions; “breaks in continuity”; the transformation of quantity into quality; inner impulses towards development, imparted by the contradiction and conflict of the various forces and tendencies acting on a given body, or within a given phenomenon, or within a given society; the interdependence and the closest and indissoluble connection between all aspects of any phenomenon (history constantly revealing ever new aspects), a connection that provides a uniform, and universal process of motion, one that follows definite laws—these are some of the features of dialectics as a doctrine of development that is richer than the conventional one. (Cf. Marx’s letter to Engels of January 8, 1868, in which he ridicules Stein’s “wooden trichotomies,” which it would be absurd to confuse with materialist dialectics.)” https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/granat/ch02.htm CB: catastrophes such as mass extinctions Steven G. Randall Eldridge and Gould presented natural historical evidence that evolution proceeds in a Hegelian Dialectical way , with leaps (punctuations ) of long periods of gradual change ( equilibrium ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium Sent from my iPhone