Review: [Untitled]

Reviewed Work(s):
Plate Tectonics and Biogeography in the Southwest Pacific: The Last 100 Million Years. by P.
F. Ballance
Robin C. Craw
Systematic Zoology, Vol. 31, No. 1. (Mar., 1982), pp. 106-108.
Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0039-7989%28198203%2931%3A1%3C106%3APTABIT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-E
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SYSTEMATI[C ZOOLOGY

These are three very readable books on Charles

Darwin and his times. Stone's is a fictionalized biography constructed by assembling what facts there
are and filling in the blanks through controlled
imagination. T h e book teems with details of
Charles' family life, financial accounts, therapies,
and polite conversations-all of them more or less
believably presented here for the first time in a connected account. Stone evidently has done his homework in the area of Victorian manners, for from the
book we receive a picture of the human side of
Charles as he would probably have wished himself
to appear.
Brackman's focus is the period 1855-1860, the
Wallace papers of 1855 and 1858, and their significance. Brackman argues that Charles and his
friends conspired to efface Wallace's role as the
originator of the theory of natural selection. There
is merit in Brackman's argument, and Wallace is
well portrayed in the book, which, unlike Stone's,
attempts to penetrate the conventionalism that today is widely accepted as the true history of those
times.
Gillespie's book is short, scholarly, and attempts
to weigh the theological factor in Charles' mentality
and work. For Gillespie, Charles' life bridged two
modes of understanding the world: creationism and
positivism. Of creationism, Gillespie reckons two
sorts: Christian, which Charles early overcame; and
theistic, which Charles took to his grave. Gillespie
thus views Charles' scientific progress as a gradual
discovery and exemplification of purely positivistic
explanation of the natural world-explanation that
invokes a final cause other than divine intent. This
view of Charles' accomplishment (personal discovery of the mode of positivistic explanation) is, perhaps, a reasonable alternative to the usual notion
(discovery of the natural law, selection, governing
the mechanisms of evolution). This view also suggests why Charles and his friends touted a non-falsifiable principle (selection) in their efforts to
achieve positivism. Irrefutability in those times was
universally considered a mark of true explanation.-

Gareth Nelson, Department of Ichthyology, American M u s e u m of Natural History, N e w York, NY

10024.
Syst. Zool., 31(1), 1982, pp. 106-108

Plate Tectonics and Biogeography in the Southwest Pacific: The Last 100 Million Years.-P.
F. 'Ballance (Ed.). 1980. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology and Palaeoecology, vol. 31, no.
2 4 , pp. 101-372. $65.75.

". . . panbiogeography . . . works to destroy at the

root what is academically comfortable . . ." (Croizat,
1964:708).
This special issue of the geological journal "Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology and Palaeoecology" contains papers presented in a Symposium

VOL.

31

held during the ANZAAS Congress at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in January, 1979.
There are eleven papers preceded by a short editorial preface.
In this preface the editor P. F. Ballance claims
that both plate tectonics and biogeography "have
advanced markedly in the last decade and it is
hoped that the papers presented here will provide
biologists with a clear statement of the geological
background to evolution in the Southwest Pacific,
and geologists with a clear statement of some biogeographic and evolutionary consequences of plate
and continental movements" (p. 101). There can be
no argument with the statement that plate tectonics
has advanced considerably in the last decade and
the first two papers in the volu~rle,by Coleman
("Plate tectonics background to biogeographic development in the southwest Pacific over the last 100
million years") and Kennett ("Palaeoceanographic
and biogeographic evolution of the Southern Ocean
during the Cenozoic, and Cenozoic microfossil datums") are extremely useful reviews of recent geological work that will be of great interest to all biogeographers concerned with this area.
I cannot agree with Ballance that biogeography
has advanced markedly in the last decade and this
symposium is certainly witness to that. In these
heady days following the acceptance of the "Four
Modernizations" (cladistics, vicariance, punctuated
equilibria, and Popperism) in systematics it may
seem reactionary to suggest that the major advance
in historical biogeography in the 20th century took
place in the decade 1950-60, specifically in the
works of Leon Croizat (1952, 1958). It is no wonder
that much of this volume is a morass of academic
cookery since on the first page we are set up with
a pseudo-problem, namely that Ballance's great advance in biogeographic theory seems to be what he
considers "is the lively debate concerning the relative importance of dispersal and vicariance (fragmentation of a biota consequent upon plate movements) in explaining the present distribution of
animals and plants" (p. 101). This definition will
come as news to the founder of vicariance biogeography, Leon Croizat, who of course developed that
discipline without any reference to plate tectonic
theory. In my understanding vicariance biogeography is founded on two principles: (1) "Tectonics,
not stratigraphy, are the proper standard . . . by
which to dovetail geology and biogeography (Croizat, 1964:259) and (2) "the main biogeographical
regions for terrestrial organisms are not those of
Sclater and Wallace, but regions no one has considered before, because they correspond not to modern
continents but rather to modern ocean basins" (Nelson, 1978:295). Neither of these principles is discussed in any depth anywhere in this volume. Only
three papers (by Knox, McDowall, and Cracraft)
touch even briefly on these central principles .of
vicariance biogeography and then only in the sense
that major works by Croizat are cited in passing in
a retrospective context.
Vicariance biogeography seems to have become

1982

REVIEWS

confused with narrative biogeographical explanations in terms of plate tectonic theory by a great
many biogeographers and the papers in this volume
provide ample testimony. Vuilleumier (1978) quite
clearly draws the distinctions. Surely if biogeographers have learnt anything in the last 50 years it is
that biogeography is not a handmaiden to geology,
and that it is a great mistake to undervalue biogeographic data in favor of geological or geophysical
data.
Eighty of the 270 pages devoted to the Symposium are taken up by papers by Stevens and Mildenhall of the New Zealand Geological Survey.
These papers are disappointing in that the authors
ignore the extensive evidence for a lost Pacifica
continent provided by both geology and biogeography (Croizat, 1964), and instead attempt to force
the biogeographic data, which speaks clearly of this
via the generalized tracks methodology and the theory of past biogeographic regions developed in over
10,000 printed pages by Croizat and completely ignored in this volume, into their particular understanding of plate tectonic models for the region.
This is not surprising since Stevens cites 19, and
Mildenhall 4, papers by Fleming, long an opponent
of now vanished land connections and their intimate relationship with the biogeography of New
Zealand, and absolutely none whatsoever and at all
by Croizat. Both papers are dominated by the now
obsolete concepts that (i) biogeography interrelates
with geology via stratigraphy and (2) that present
and past Southwest Pacific faunas and floras are
composed of unique elements that arise in centers
of origin outside the Southwest Pacific region, and
migrate into the region along specified dispersal
routes. Nowhere in this paper does Stevens explicitly state his adherence'to any biogeographical
theory but statements in other writings (Stevens,
1980) reveal his committments to standard flotsam
and jetsam biogeography: "Chance dispersal has
had a notable effect on the flora and fauna in the
New Zealand area" (1980:57); "As I hope I have
shown chance dispersal is a force to be reckoned
with in natural environments" (op, cit.: 58); and
". . . we should not under-rate the effectiveness of
chance dispersal" (op. cit.:245). The biogeography
of Stevens, based on a permanentist view of paleogeography, is straight out of Matthew and Simpson
via Darlington (his 1957 book is significantly cited
by Stevens along with works by Simpson) and
Fleming, and merely welded intact onto a plate tectonics framework. Stevens subtitles his paper "A
review" and Mildenhall his "A contribution." Neither description is particularly apt: they are best
described as obituaries of orthodoxy.
Winterbourn in his paper on Australasian freshwater insects reviews recent work and argues that
circum-Antarctic groups "seem best explained in
terms of vicariance of an ancestral, Gondwanaland
fauna" (p. 235) while groups with strong Oriental
affinities migrated into the area via later dispersal
pathways. Similarly Thornton in his paper on "Plate
tectonics and the distribution of the insect family

107

Philotarsidae (Order Pscoptera) in the Southwest

Pacific" concludes that the distributions of the
groups are explicable in terms of both vicariance
and trans-oceanic dispersal. His main argument for
trans-oceanic dispersal in Pscoptera seems to be
derived from a particular geological model-namely that members of one subfamily are found on islands that some geologists consider to be relatively
young and thus the insects could only have arrived
via waif dispersal. This is of course a central tenet
of Darwinian biogeography and Thornton is basing
his biogeography on stratigraphic considerations.
Knox contributes a paper on "Plate tectonics and
the evolution of intertidal and shallow-water benthic biotic distribution patterns of the Southwest
Pacific." His conclusion that "the problems involved in dispersal over long distances have not
been given adequate consideration by many biogeographers" (p. 294) is a lesson many of the contributors to this volume have yet to grasp. Chaproniere's paper on "Influence of plate tectonics on the
distribution of Late Paleogeile to early Neogene
larger Foraminiferids in the Australasian region" is
exactly what the title suggests-a biogeographic
study based on a particular geological model. The
same applies to the next paper by Fordyce on
"Whale evolution and Oligocene Southern Ocean
environments," which is firmly rooted in centers of
originldispersal biogeography and a gradualist approach to evolutionary problems.
McDowall in his paper on "Freshwater fishes and
plate tectonics in the Southwest Pacific" continues
his debate with Rosen et al., over biogeographic
theory and comes to the conclusion that even if
freshwater fish distributions are congruent with the
distribution patterns of other taxa that this common
pattern does not demand a common cause:
"The distributions of these fish certainly look
Gondwanian, but whether galaxiids, geotriids
and other fishes were a part of this hypothetical
biota or not, can be a matter only for speculation
and assumption. There is no evidence for or
against it" (p. 347).
McDowall is a positivist who believes that science deals essentially with observations which it
orders and classifies but never goes beyond. Since
the positivist view of science to which McDowall
subscribes was conclusively refuted almost fifty
years ago by Bachelard and Popper (Chalmers,
1976) there is no reason to take his paper or arguments seriously. Only those who haven't heard of
David Hume will do so.
Cracraft, in the final paper entitled "Biogeographic patterns of terrestrial vertebrates in the
Southwest Pacific" takes McDowall's arguments seriously enough to devote several pages to effectively refuting them. H e then presents an outline of
Southwest Pacific vertebrate biogeography and provides evidence for the recognition of a number 'of
tracks in the area. His paper suffers greatly because
he has chosen to ignore the major and detailed generalized track model for the Southwest Pacific de-

108

SYSTEMATIC2 ZOOLOGY

veloped in literally hundreds of pages by Croizat

(1952,1958) and summarized by Croizat (1964). For
instance Cracraft claims that an Australia-New Zealand track exists:
"New Zealand has a well-developed endemic
avifauna, but the relationships of the majority of
the genera and species are poorly known. Because most are representative of families present
in Australasia, it is reasonable to assume they are
components of an Australia-New Zealand t r a c k
( p 366).

I can find no reference to such a track in Croizat

(1952, 1958, 1964) nor have I yet discovered any
basis for this track, the apparent existence of which
originated with McDowall (1978; see Craw, 1979).
Since the relationships of the taxa on which this
track is based are "poorly known," according to
Cracraft, it is difficult to see how it is "reasonable
to assume" that this track has any basis in, or relevance to, the biogeography of the region. [cf. Croizat-Chaley, 1979:139-140: "It simply confirms what
has been to me evident for long years by now: a
generation (rather, two generations) of students of
nature fed the nonsense of such "darwinism" as by
Simpson and Could; of such "zoogeography" as by
Simpson, Mayr, Darlington, of such "cytogenetics"
as by Dobzhansky; and the like; generations so
brought up, I say, have lost their feeling for the
finer edge of analysis and synthesis in matters of
joint interest to space, time and form."]
It is both scandalous and astonishing that nowhere in three hundred pages devoted to the biogeography of the Southwest Pacific is Croizat's
detailed and sophisticated analysis of the biogeographical problems of the area even mentioned. On
these grounds alone this volume can hardly be rated
as a scientific document, despite the impressive

VOL.

31

number of obscure and highly specialized papers

cited by contributing authors. One can only conclude that many of the contributors to this symposium are 'school philosophers' looking at biogeography through the dirty spectacles of the technical
problems surrounding their own narrow specialities. The discerning student of biogeography will
not wish to linger over this volume.-Robin C .
Craw, Department of Zoology, Victoria University,
Wellington, New Zealand.
REFERENCES
CHALMERS,A. F. 1976. What is this thing called
science? University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, Queensland.
CRAW,R. C. 1979. Generalized tracks and dispersal
in biogeography: a response to R. M. McDowall.
Syst. Zool., 28(1):99-107.
CROIZAT,L. 1952. Manual of phytogeography.
Junk, The Hague.
CROIZAT,L. 1958. Panbiogeography. 2 vols. (in 3).
Publ. Author, Caracas.
CROIZAT,L. 1964. Space, time, form: the biological
synthesis. Publ. Author, Caracas.
CROIZAT-CHALEY,
L. 1979. Hennig (1966) entre
Rosa (1918) y Lovtmp (1977): Medio Siglo de
"Sistematica Filogenetica." Boletin de la Academia d e Ciencias Fisicas, Matematicas y Naturales
38, no. 116:59-147.
MCDOWALL,R . M. 1978. Generalized tracks and
dispersal i n biogeography. Syst. Zool., 27:88-104.
NELSON, G. J. 1978. From Candolle to Croizat:
comments on the history of biogeography. J. Hist.
Biol. 11:269-305.
STEVENS,G. R. 1980. New Zealand adrift. A. H.
& A. W. Reed, Wellington.
VUILLEUMIER,F. 1978. Qu'est-ce que la biogeographie? C. R. Soc. Biogeogr. 475:41-66.