John Edser wrote:
> Tim Tyler  wrote:
> 
> 
>>>>TT:_
>>>>It sounds as though we all agree that drift has specific
>>>>effects on the population.  
>>>
>>[...]
>>
>>
>>>>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.

This is wrong.  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.

Bob

-- 
Bob O'Hara

Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics
P.O. Box 68 (Gustaf H„llstr”min 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: http://www.jnr-eeb.org
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