"John Edser"  wrote in message
news:biankq$2ls5$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
>
>
> wilkins{at}wehi.edu.au (John Wilkins)wrote:-
>
> JE:-

> The misuse of random drift to contest selective evolution
> is an example of a destructive misuse of chance. For
> years this misuse has blocked rational thinking as
> to how random temporal variation affects selection
> and what the logical connection of heritable variation
> is to Darwinian natural selection (the differential
> reproduction of fertile adult forms). 

It is easy for me to feel loosely aligned with your attitude to the "drift"
concept, but not so in respect of your own "blocked rational thinking"
(reluctance/inability to overview) the kinds of interactivity that
constitute the process of natural selection. In other words, what I likewise
find both logically inEPT and off-putting is your insight-mutilating mindset
in relation to the possibility (e.g. realizable as per my concEPTual and
metaphorical means) of explaining, or gaining and maintaining a remarkably
revealing and unifying understanding of, *how this principle operates* in
(has operated throughout) the phylogeny of geno/phenotypes; in particular
(since to us most importantly -- whether we know it or not) *our own*
species and our mental, emotional, and otherwise Behavioral characteristics.

People's thinking may be stiflingly septal (compartmentalized) - as opposed
to concEPTualized in a sEPTic and otherwise EPTly methodic and flexible
manner.

An unusually clear example of this is your dogged defining (and defending)
of your idea that Darwinian natural selection is "the differential natural
selection as a reproduction of fertile adult forms".

That idea ought to have died at birth since its destiny was an 'explanatory
dead end'.

[But for various reasons -- not the least AEVASIVE reasons/reasonings -- it
did not.]

The *denatured* logic behind this notion is however a phenomenally fertile
ground for debate in this NG. ;-)

For your reference, it is at present being 'dealt with', in a round-about or
abstract sort of way, in the "Intersecting set of fitness" thread. :-)

Better put a stop to my own slightly adverserial AEVASIVE habit and
preoccupation, at least for now.

Peter

P.S.
Enjoyed finding out that you were ALSO (meant x 2) a musician. And that
(somewhat ironically illuminating of me :->) one of a more free and easy
(jazzy) kind than me, at that.
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