Guy Hoelzer  wrote in message
news:...
> in article bm51cn$1lvt$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org, Representative Trantis at
> a{at}a.com wrote on 10/9/03 6:18 PM:
> 
> > There is a debate in evolutionary theory as to what is the most important
> > factor in evolution.
> > 
> > 1) The mutations which occur.
> > 
> > 2) The fitness of such mutations.
> > 
> > This is described well in Richard Dawkins'  'Climbing Mount Improbable', in
> > which he states that it is possible that natural selection would love to
> > allow a creature to develop in a particular way, but can't because the
> > appropriate mutations never arose. He also states that it is possible that
> > mutations aren't the limiting factor, rather it is that, for whatever
> > reason, natural selection doesn't 'keep' those mutations. He hints that he
> > has an open mind on this one but leans slightly towards number 2.
> > 
> > When studying human sexual instincts, and sexual selection, many
books, when
> > explaining one method by which one sex tries to outwit the other, explain
> > that it is in the interest of the other to develop a counter strategy. It's
> > nearly always there and the books tend to rattle off the appropriate
> > developments in the other sex. When thinking about this, and how the
> > appropriate counter instincts are oftern there, can't help thinking that
> > this strongly hints towards the latter of the two in the debate, (The side
> > Dawkins slightly favours).
> > 
> > Thoughts?
> 
> My thought is that I think you have posed a bad question.  For example,
> mutation is completely essential for evolution, so it is hard for me to
> imagine that ANYTHING is a more important factor in evolution.  I also think
> that evolution could not persist without the influence of a deterministic,
> adaptive sub-process like natural selection.  I don't know what it would
> mean to say that one essential component is more or less important than
> another.
> 

Put another way, even the most strongly Darwinian arguments of human
(and other) evolution tend to restrict their strategy set to the realm
of the physically possible.  A genetic variant male who could snap his
fingers and have every female of his species impregnated with his
offspring would very quickly dominate the gene pool, but noone
believes that such a gene is likely to arise any time soon.  Implicit
in selective arguments are constraints, and among these constraints
are the availability of a genetic basis for hypothetical traits.
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