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Curt Kosswig |
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| b. Berlin, Germany, 30 October 1903; d.
Hamburg, Germany, 29 March 1982 Since the 1930's he had been working on cave fishes and showed an interest in evolutionary issues, but it was a paper he wrote while in exile in Turkey teaching at the University of Istambul, that set the basis for his studies on ‘regressive’ evolution (Kosswig 1949; for a more updated and accessible version see Kosswig 1960). Basically, he used the results of his own Mendelian studies to explain the rudimentation or loss of structures among cave animals. Without being a neo-Lamarckian, the fact that he used modern (at that time) genetic techniques to make his point gave respectability to his work. On the other hand, there is an underlying notion in his work about directionality in evolution which also sets him apart from contemporary neo-Darwinian thinking. As a matter of fact, the notion of ‘regressive evolution’ is still the central theme among members of the most productive group of hypogean fish researchers at the Zoological Museum and Zoological Institute at the University of Hamburg. This idea of ‘regressive evolution’ has been the source of monographic texts and, as Thinčs (1969) book title, the central idea for describing (although not necessarily explaining) the common features among troglomorphic organisms. The major problem with ‘regressive evolution’ is that it gives the impression that the evolution of cave organisms is not the result of non-Darwinian mechanisms and, thus, set apart from mainstream evolutionary thought as evidenced by the attempts to explain phenotypic simplification by means of neutral mutations (e.g., Wilkens 1988). However, this view of cave life had three difficulties: (1) shared characteristics among troglomorphic organisms that are phylogenetically unrelated seem to be an excellent example of convergent evolution and are therefore easily explained by using neo-Darwinian mechanisms; (2) the fact that the gain and loss of characters in evolution is a common phenomenon; for example, nobody has had the anti-anthropocentric temerity to label Homo sapiens the result of ‘regressive evolution’ because that species lost the tail, most of the pelage, and the ability to graciously jump from one tree to another from its ancestors; (3) if this evolution is regressive, then the question of ‘regressive to where?’ remains unanswered (for further discussion see Romero 1985). |
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