"Robert Karl Stonjek"  wrote 

> Thanks, Jim.  I agree that evolution acting only on individuals is
> shortsighted and that hereditary by sexual means effectively weaves
> entire populations together into more complex composite units.  That
> doesn't mean that entire populations are selected for.

As I see it selection happens on all levels simultaneously.  And this 
is true in all instances (ie. regardless of whether it involves sex or
not).  (Also, and along the same lines, there is no requirement that 
entire populations be selected for selection to take place at the 
level of the population or any level.)  The fact that we have to make 
choices about what "unit" of selection we employ to conceptualize a 
selective process does not change the fact that selection is not a 
process that happens on one level at the exclusion of the others.  
Like I said, it happens to all levels simultaneously.  The death or 
success of an individual, for example, changes the composition of the
population, even if only in a minute way.  The same is true for all
other levels of biological phenomena.  Sorry to be railing on about 
this.  It's just that there is a world of neoDarwinists out there who 
would have us believe that we are obligated to assume selection 
happens to individuals only.  And what is especially troubling is 
that many conventions of the neoDarwinian paradigm have this 
assumption built into them.

> The between assertion is that individual fitness effects entire
> populations, and the fitness of entire populations effects the
> individual.

I agree.

> 
> The genetic inheritance of any individual will have a contribution of
> genes from all the members of a population - it is only a question of
> how far back in the population's history one must go back for this to be
> true.  I estimate that for quick breeding animals, say with a life span
> of two or three years, this period is just one or two hundred years.
> That is, if we trace the genes of any individual alive now we will find
> contributions from all the breeding populations of one hundred years
> ago.
> 
> Likewise, the genes of any breeder now will find there way into the
> entire population by about the same period (it doesn't mean they stay
> there).
> 
> Thus if there were 10,000 variable genes and a population of 100
> individuals then, if some individual had a unique marker on all his/her
> variable genes (those that may or may not be shared) then we  would
> expect that all members would have some markers after 100 years.
> 
> If the genes so transferred are active in some detrimental way then we
> can expect to see that all lineages extent after 100 years will have
> been effected and lost individuals as the genetic machinery attempts to
> extricate the errant genes from the population.
> 
> I think one only has to look at ones own inheritance to get a picture of
> how inheritance really works.  Our genetic inheritance comes from the
> contribution of two individuals.  There inheritance from four.  If there
> are generations every 25 years and no inbreeding, then, if you are 25
> years old your inheritance over the last century involves 16 Great great
> grandparents.  The century previous we're up to 256 individuals.  The
> next century its 4,096.  Four centuries we're up to  65,536 and half a
> millennium we're looking at just over a million.  If we go back to the
> year 1 (there was no year zero)  you have 1E24 contributors.  That's
> more than the current population, even if we throw in all the great apes
> and farm animals in the world.
> 
> As a matter of fact, just a bit over 8 centuries ago we had 8 billion
> contributors.  So for humans the period I mention above is less than 8
> centuries IF there was no racial differences.  There is (ie limited
> inter-rational genetic exchange in the past).  There is also physical
> divisions - the Australian Aboriginals have only had continuous Western
> contact for the last couple centuries.
> 
> But we can also make the same observation about our offspring and the
> spread of our own genes.  In fact, rather than centring on an individual
> as a carrier of exclusive genes it would be more correct to think of
> individuals as a precipitation from a fluid gene pool.
> 
> For genes to be stored there must be lock and key.  This couldn't be
> simpler.  If there are two components to the gene, either part inherited
> exclusively down the female or male side or by  some  smaller triggering
> gene (the gene  in question does not express without the presence of
> another gene) then the keys can disappear leaving the bulk of the gene/s
> responsible for some trait.
> 
> It think it would be more logical to find that some gene does not
> express if there is some particular gene present - the other gene acts
> to block expression of some other.  Thus if the gene that causes the
> growth of skin is present then scales do not develop.
> 
> As the details are not known then  we can not say too much except that
> individual lineages are interesting but have only a limited impact on
> entire populations and so on evolution. 

Individuals are never separate from lineages and vice versa.  The
mistake,
IMO, is to ever assume that we must chose one or the other. 
Indivduals
that are part of lineages that are successful can only benefit. 
Likewise,
lineages that have successful individuals are benefitted as a result.

> As individuals *must* be
> involved at some point in the evolutionary process, it is tempting to
> begin with the individual and follow evolution from there.  But
> individuals are but very brief way stations in a much broader process.

Yes, the trick (and it's a trick the value of which neoDarwinists seem
incapable of recognizing) is that even though we have no choice but to
*view* evolution from the perspective of one "unit" or another we are 
not obligated to assume that, therefore, selection is happening at
that
level exclusively.

> 
> It is almost like economists trying to understand the development of
> some industry by tracing the flow of individual dollars and their unique
> serial numbers. 

Good analogy.

> A whole science, but entirely misleading.

Regards,

Jim
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