Instead of an update, I want to specifically point readers to Evolgen's extended post on the nearly neutral theory. He takes my 10 yard pass on genetic drift and jukes and jives all the way to the end zone (with a good block from John Hawks). The take home message is that science is about successively more accurate approximations of nature, with the caveat that in probabilistic field like much of genetics the "answer" is the most likely explanation (expectation), around which there will be exceptions to the rule galore (variance). Chad's initial post seems to have been a little epidemic in this corner of SB, let's see if it abates now....
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Chad Orzel is asking about misconceptions in science that irritate. Evolgen and Afarensis have chimed in. My problem is not an misconception, it is a pet peeve. As I've noted before, random genetic drift is a catchall explanation for everything.
I am not saying drift is not powerful, it is the…
I have spoken of the probability of extinction and the rate of substitution once past extinction, but now to something more prosaic, genetic drift. My post is based on John Gillespie's treatment in Evolutionary Genetics: Concepts & Case Studies. Like R.A. Fisher he does not think much of…
Update on paper access: You can get it here already.
Note: I'm going to put a link roundup (updated) at this post. End Note
Recent acceleration of human adaptive evolution:
Genomic surveys in humans identify a large amount of recent positive selection. Using the 3.9-million HapMap SNP dataset, we…
I have mentioned a few times that I am re-reading The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection by R.A. Fisher. I read it a few years back when I didn't know anything about evolutionary theory, so I believe this run through will be more frutiful. For those of you who don't know, R.A. Fisher was…