tomhendricks474{at}cs.com (TomHendricks474) wrote in
news:cloelm$2n0d$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org: 

>>This is not correct. Populations will evolve even if the environment
>>is perfectly stable. There are two important reasons why this is so.
>>First, a large part of evolution is due to random genetic drift and
>>"environmental pressure" is irrelevant for this mechanism of
>>evolution. 
> 
> I have a follow up question.
> Doesn't this suggest that convergent evolution does not exist?

Convergence is convincing evidence that a trait is under selective 
pressure. But note that Larry did not say that drift causes all of 
evolution, only a large part of evolution. I disagree with him over just 
how much is a "large part", but think about it this way - if there was no 
drift, why would we need to have convergently evolved five types of 
anteaters? One should have sufficed.


 
> IF  the genetic drift pop and the original pop are both under the same
> stabilizing selection - how different would they be?
> They are both adapting to the same stable environment aren't they?

If you separate the populations they will become different even though both 
are adapting to the same environment.

 
Yours,

Bill Morse
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