On Sat, 22 May 2004 02:26:53 +0000 (UTC), 
Anon.  wrote:
> Larry Moran wrote:
>> On Thu, 20 May 2004 23:28:56 +0000 (UTC), 
>> Phil Roberts, Jr.  wrote:

[snip]

>>>Yes.  But with the exception of Gould, most theorists consider
>>>natural selection to be the prime mover of evolution.  So for
>>>me its always been a moot point.
>> 
>> In terms of total amount of evolutionary change, random genetic
>> drift is the main mechanism of evolution, by far. Almost all
>> evolutionary biologists know this.

> Doesn't that depend on how you measure evolutionary change?
  
I suppose. One could presumably eliminate or ignore some kinds of
evolutionary change in order to make natural selection seem more
important.

> At the sequence level, I would agree (well, until someone shows
> me some evidence to the contrary).

Okay. So, if we take into account ALL evolutionary change then you
agree that random genetic drift is the most important mechanism?

> At the phenotypic level, I would expect selection to be more
> important.

Far enough. I guess you could say something like ...
  
  "If we ignore evolutionary change at the genetic level and  
   non-visible phenotypic changes at the molecular level and 
   concentrate only on visible morphological phenotypic change
   in evolution, then it is widely believed than evolution is 
   mostly due to natural selection."
   

Larry Moran











>> 
> Doesn't that depend on how you measure evolutionary change?  At the 
> sequence level, I would agree (well, until someone shows me some 
> evidence to the contrary).
> 
> At the phenotypic level, I would expect selection to be more important. 
>   But I've not seen any actual quantitative evidence, and it's not clear 
> to me how to measure this.  Over a short evolutionary time span a 
> statistic comparing Qst and Fst could be used, I suppose, but I haven't 
> seen any statistic (something else on my list of things to work on!).
> 
> Bob
>
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