"Tim Tyler"  wrote in message
news:cbf259$3tt$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...

> You cannot simply talk about ratios between two infinite quantities.

Agreed.

> so - unqualified mention of allele frequency in an infinite population
> makes no sense.

Your inference is valid only if you make the auxiliary assumption that
"frequency" is defined using a ratio.  It need not be.  It can be
defined directly as a probability.  Then ratios come in (via the
law of large numbers) only indirectly and only for finite samples
or populations.

Returning to Hardy-Weinberg, you will notice that the derivation of
the law uses frequencies as probabilities (i.e. random mating) -
ratios never enter into it, since large quantities N*p never come
into it.

However, in your current discussion with BOH regarding whether
half of the natural numbers are even, you should be able to
prevail easily enough.  He doesn't seem to have grasped the
subtleties.  He did have a great pun about "Apology" though.
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