Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The act of leaping, jumping, or dancing.
  • noun Discontinuous movement, transition, or development; advancement by leaps.
  • noun Genetics A single mutation that drastically alters the phenotype.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The name ‘saltation,’ or in recent years ‘mutation, has been applied to extreme fluctuation, the immediate cause of which is unknown. The experiments of Dr. Hugo de Vries on the saltations of the descendants of an American form of evening primrose (Œnothera lamarckiana) have recently drawn general attention again to the possibility that saltation has had a large part in the process of formation of species.
  • noun Saltatory action; the act or movement of leaping, or effecting a saltus; a leap or jump; hence, abrupt transition or change.
  • noun Jumping movement; beating or palpitation.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A leaping or jumping.
  • noun Beating or palpitation.
  • noun (Biol.) An abrupt and marked variation in the condition or appearance of a species; a sudden modification which may give rise to new races.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A leap, jump or dance.
  • noun Beating or palpitation.
  • noun biology A sudden change from one generation to the next; a mutation.
  • noun Any abrupt transition.
  • noun geology, fluid mechanics The transport of loose particles by a fluid (such as wind or flowing water).

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun (geology) the leaping movement of sand or soil particles as they are transported in a fluid medium over an uneven surface
  • noun a light, self-propelled movement upwards or forwards
  • noun an abrupt transition
  • noun taking a series of rhythmical steps (and movements) in time to music
  • noun (genetics) a mutation that drastically changes the phenotype of an organism or species

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin saltātiō, saltātiōn, from saltātus, past participle of saltāre, to leap, frequentative of salīre, to jump; see salient.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin saltus ("to leap").

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Examples

  • One of the primary indications that the RNA signatures are, in fact, remnants of an evolutionary saltation is their discrete character.

    A Disclaimer for Behe? 2009

  • Alan Fox: If you are using "saltation" in its commonly understood meaning (with Goldschmidt as its premier proponent), I don't think you will find any current evolutionary biologist allowing it as a possibility.

    Common Descent & Common Design – An Unexpected Outcome 2008

  • If you are using "saltation" in its commonly understood meaning (with Goldschmidt as its premier proponent), I don't think you will find any current evolutionary biologist allowing it as a possibility.

    Common Descent & Common Design – An Unexpected Outcome 2008

  • Darwin never said that there would be a transformation of one species into another in one generation, and no evolutionist now claims this it's known as "saltation", and is discreditied.

    Kirk Cameron attempts to debunk Darwin 2009

  • Due to the process of wind-loom movement of dunes ( "saltation"), dune sands fall within a narrow range of particle size.

    Chapter 9 1995

  • The term "saltation" implies large leaps, such as sudden speciation.

    Scientific Blogging jtwitten 2010

  • This is called “saltation” Google it, and results in many examples of self-organized patterns - most commonly in deserts and snow fields by the wind, and in shallow sandy bottoms, where the moving fluid is water in slow regular wave or tidal oscillation.

    Sand dune - The Panda's Thumb 2010

  • The paper specifically rejects typogenetic saltation.

    Common Descent & Common Design – An Unexpected Outcome 2008

  • No. I am just giving an example of a (former) evolutionary biologist who doesn't allow the possibility of saltation.

    Common Descent & Common Design – An Unexpected Outcome 2008

  • The focus on “large amounts of specified information” my emphasis also reduces his entire book to a strawman argument, since the TOE neither predicts nor expects saltation.

    Stephen Meyer's Bogus Information Theory - The Panda's Thumb 2010

Comments

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  • "A recent study finds that saltating sand particles induces a static electric field by friction. Saltating sand acquires a negative charge relative to the ground which in turn loosens more sand particles which then begin saltating. This process has been found to double the number of particles predicted by previous theory. This is significant in meteorology because it is primarily the saltation of sand particles which dislodges smaller dust particles into the atmosphere. Dust particles and other aerosols such as soot affect the amount of sunlight received by the atmosphere and earth, and are nuclei for condensation of the water vapour."

    -- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Saltation_(geology)&oldid=536970750

    March 1, 2013