John Edser wrote:
>>>BOH:-
>>>The means of quantifying "all evolutionary change"
here is not clear.
>>>State the metric used - and the question of whether genetic drift
>>>comes in at the #1 position will probably be clearer.
>>
>  
> 
>>LM:-
>>I mean the sum all evolutionary changes of any sort by whatever 
>>definitions are used by a large number of scientists.
> 
> 
>>JE:-
>>Pardon me butting in but..
>>please state what would be EXCLUDED from such an
>>_amazingly_ wide acceptance of what you insist can
>> _scientifically_ constitute "evolution", i.e. please 
>>provide at least one example of a _non_ evolutionary 
>>change within a biological system.
> 
Any change that isn't heritable.

>>LM:-
>>Did you have something else in mind that would 
>>shift random genetic drift into second place?
> 
> 
>>JE:-
>>Darwinian natural selection, exactly as Darwin
>>stated it but with his implicit assumptions
>>made explicit.
> 
> 
> BOH:-
> I think I should point out that John's definition of fitness excludes 
> the possibility of drift (because he defines fitness in terms of the 
> actual number of offspring, rather than the expected value).
> 
> JE:-
> Dr O'Hara has misrepresented my position.
> Drift is _included_ as temporal variation
> (random variation over time) within Darwinian
> selective events. 

John, what is your definition of fitness?  I was specifically describing 
your definition of fitness, but in your reply you didn't make any 
mention of it, so it's not clear to me how I've misrepresented you.

Bob

-- 
Bob O'Hara

Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics
P.O. Box 4 (Yliopistonkatu 5)
FIN-00014 University of Helsinki
Finland
Telephone: +358-9-191 23743
Mobile: +358 50 599 0540
Fax:  +358-9-191 22 779
WWW:  http://www.RNI.Helsinki.FI/~boh/
Journal of Negative Results - EEB: http://www.jnr-eeb.org
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