John Edser wrote:

>>>>>>TT:-
>>>>>>It acts to cause undirected -
>>>>>>and most likely in the long term deleterious - changes in
>>>>>>the population.
> 
> 
>>>>>JE:-
>>>>>Therefore, I  see no _rational_ argument that
>>>>>can allow drift, which can only "cause undirected -
>>>>>and most likely in the long term deleterious -
>>>>>changes in the population" to cause evolution, yet
>>>>>this remains the Neo Darwinistic position in 2004.
> 
> 
>>>>TT:-
>>>>That's a simple matter of definitions:
>>>>Evolution is normally *defined* to be genetic change
>>>>in a population.
>>>>*Even* deleterious changes fit into that definition.
> 
> 
>>>JE:-
>>>Drift is just a defined random
>>>process of sampling error.
>>>All random processes remain ubiquitous.
>>>Therefore, if you define any gene freq.
>>>changes via genetic drift as "evolution"
>>>and not as strictly "temporal variation" the
>>>theory of evolution becomes a non refutable.
> 
> 
>>BOH:-
>>This is wrong.
> 
> 
> JE:-
> Dr O'Hara has never understood the experiment
> I have proposed (please refer to Dr O'Hara's
> entirely confused rely).
> 
It is not clear to Dr. O'Hara which "confused reply" is being referred to.


>>BOH:-
>>Here are a few actual examples in the literature where
>>people have actually used real data to test whether evolurion could be
>>due to drift:
>>Fisher, R. A., Ford. E.B., (1947). The spread of a gene in natural
>>conditions in a colony of the moth Panaxia dominula L. Heredity 1:143-174.
>>Koskinen M.T., Haugen, T.O., Primmer, C.R. (2002).  Contemporary
>>fisherian life-history evolution in small salmonid populations.  Nature
>>419: 826-830.
>>Manly, B.F.J. (1985).  The Statistics of Natural Selection.  Chapman &
>>Hall, London, U.K.
>>Mueller, L. D., Wilcox, B. A. , Ehrlich, P. R. , Heckel, D. G. , Murphy,
>>D. D. . 1985. A direct assessment of the role of genetic drift in
>>determining allele frequency variation in populations of Euphydryas
>>editha. Genetics 110: 495-511.
>>I've thrown in Manly because he has a re-analysis of the Fisher & Ford
>>data, as well as several other tests.  BTW, this list is not complete,
>>only a few choice picks from a manuscript of mine.
> 
> 
> JE:-
> Dr O'Hara has failed to understand the
> point of this discussion : TO PROVIDE
> POPPERIAN POINTS OF REFUTATION for the
> proposed evolutionary process of
> drift acting without selection.
> 
Dr. O'Hara has provided references to tests of precisely the hypotheses 
suggested, which indeed do provide refutations of the hypothesis that 
the changes in the populations studied were due to genetic drift.  He 
would advise Mr. Edser to read these references before commenting further.

Bob

-- 
Bob O'Hara
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
P.O. Box 68 (Gustaf Hällströmin katu 2b)
FIN-00014 University of Helsinki
Finland

Telephone: +358-9-191 51479
Mobile: +358 50 599 0540
Fax:  +358-9-191 51400
WWW:  http://www.RNI.Helsinki.FI/~boh/
Journal of Negative Results - EEB: www.jnr-eeb.org
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