On Thu, 12 Jun 2003 15:36:14 +0000 (UTC), "John Edser"
 wrote:

>
>JMcG:-
>It's silly to suggest that "chance" can be causal.  For example, 
>you can employ statistics to better predict when a baseball player 
>will hit a home run.  But does chance hit the ball over the fence?  
>No, the baseball player does.  Check out this link:
>
>http://www.coastalfog.net/buddhism/causeandeffect2.html
>
>Genetic drift is nothing but a more complex and, therefore, more 
>conceptually intractable version of the gambler's fallacy.  
>
>You could also do search in google using: Gambler's fallacy 
>
>It seems there are two types of gambler's fallacy, as described 
>on the following webpage:
>
>http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/gamblers-fallacy.html
>
>I think the one associated with genetic drift is the second of 
>the two on this page. 
>
>The thing that I think a lot of people don't get about evolutionary 
>biology is that biological phenomena is extremely complex (which 
>seems to contradict the apparent simplicity of the concept of natural
>selection) and so one must make extra effort to not fall victim to
>the numerous fallacies that us human are apt to fall into.
>
>JE:-
>Jim is absolutely correct. However, throwing 
>out the drift baby with the random bath water 
>is simply, not the answer. The solution is 
>extraordinarily simple: drift is just temporal 
>variation but it is not, evolution. Thus drift 
>can work with but cannot compete against, selection.
>
>Does anybody here disagree with the proposition
>that selection can cause evolution without drift
>but drift cannot cause evolution without selection?
>

By now you should have gotten the idea that a LOT of people here
disagree and declare, instead, that drift CAn cause evolution without
selection!

You say drift is "temporal variation" but that is, in fact, evolution.
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