On Fri, 2 Apr 2004 05:56:32 +0000 (UTC), jimmcginn{at}yahoo.com (Jim
McGinn) wrote:

>Guy Hoelzer  wrote 
>
>> > Science was supposed to explain the way things are.  Random
genetic drift
>> > shrugs its shoulders and says there is no explanation.
>> 
>> Drift is as much an explanation as selection.  It is not giving up, nor is
>> it a mysterious black box.  Drift is based on the physical reality of
>> sampling error.  Sampling error is as real and meaningful a source of change
>> as say patterns of predation.  
>
>Sampling error is not a source of causation.  It 
>represents the inability to measure accurately.  
>What you are literally saying here, Guy, is that 
>evolution is, to some degree, the result of our 
>inability to measure it with 100% accuracy.  If 
>you were a physicist or a chemist and you presented 
>this notion to your colleagues you'd be laughed out 
>of the room.  
>

If a scientist does the sampling, then sampling error is the inability
to measure accurately.  However, if nature is doing the sampling, then
the "error" is part of natural processes.  

If gene frequencies change from generation to generation because of
"sampling error" in who gets to reproduce and who gets to survive,
then that is just as much an evolutionary change as if the change
occurred because of fitness differences (selection).  Physics and
chemistry are full of events that incorporate sampling error as an
integral part of the science.  Look at the statistical distribution of
energies in a population.  Look at quantum tunneling.  Look at
diffusion and random walk processes.  Science is filled with phenomena
based on random processes, statistical distributions, and (yes, John
Edser) with expected value calculations.
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