By Stephen Jay Gould
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Sample text
But how could the transitional form have survived, either stuck like a lead weight on the bottom as buoyancy failed, while: breathing required access to the surface; or raring to float but gasping for breath? " Darwin's ingenious solution involves a double linkage of one-for-two, with two-for-one—mysterious when stated so abstractly but beautifully simple by illustration, with lungs and swim bladders as a primary example. First, Darwin tells us, single organs often perform m o r e than one function—one-for-two: Numerous cases could be given .
Each set includes an upper and lower bar, pointing forward and hinged in the middle. Obviously, this arrangement, although evolved for supporting gills, looks uncannily like the upper and lower jaws of a typical vertebrate. We do not know for certain whether jaws arose from a functioning gill arch that m o v e d forward to surround the mouth or whether jaws and gill arches just represent two specializations, always separate, but generated from the same system of embryological development. In either case, we do not doubt that gill supports and jaws are h o m o l o g o u s structures (that is, evolved from the same source and representing the " s a m e " organ in different forms—like arms and legs or fingers and toes).
In these cases, one of the two organs might with ease be modified and perfected so as to perform all the work by itself; . . and then this other organ might be modified for some other and quite distinct purpose. We can now understand why Darwin liked the example of lungs and swim bladders so much. He had made a reasonable conjecture about one-for-two in arguing for supplementary respiration in swim bladders, and he had definite evidence about two-for-one in the presence of numerous living fishes with dual systems of breathing—gills and lungs.