tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post3920136297571247658..comments2024-02-29T03:57:00.088-05:00Comments on The Mermaid's Tale: Challenges to reflex darwinian explanation...are they conveniently overlooked?Anne Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09212151396672651221noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-75112567762594848252014-05-24T06:40:38.212-04:002014-05-24T06:40:38.212-04:00... forgot so many... like there's one explana...... forgot so many... like there's one explanation for the evolution of any given trait or species and like some species have stopped evolving.Holly Dunsworthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05260104967932801186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-54665743909727730042014-05-24T06:39:24.851-04:002014-05-24T06:39:24.851-04:00Thanks to a few particularly honest students I lea...Thanks to a few particularly honest students I learned that it's awfully difficult and confusing for people to unlearn mistaken and too-simple facts they've accepted like any given trait is governed by one or a few discoverable genes, mutation = rare, mutation = recessive, mutation = bad!, evolution only occurs by selection, selection is what every evolutionary scenario is describing, and everything other than natural selection is "environment."Holly Dunsworthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05260104967932801186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-53806255462835031802014-05-23T20:36:35.011-04:002014-05-23T20:36:35.011-04:00@ Anonymous,
It's hardly force-fitting. If yo...@ Anonymous,<br /><br />It's hardly force-fitting. If you have average group differences it might be in part due to differential selection between groups of a quantitative trait. An example is height differences between North & South Europeans that appears in part due to differences in allele frequencies. <br /><br />http://infoproc.blogspot.co.nz/2011/05/height-breeding-values-and-selection.htmlMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01133142115539961665noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-60289589174554598402014-05-23T13:36:36.298-04:002014-05-23T13:36:36.298-04:00Genetic determinists (e.g. hereditarians) who rati...Genetic determinists (e.g. hereditarians) who rationalize inequality between groups (sex, class, ethnicity, nation) with putative gene variants that determine behavior seem stuck in the 70s hyperadaptationism. Which makes sense because modern hereditarianism is an offshoot of sociobiology. And they're force-fitting population genomic data into their worldview.<br /><br />To them, it's all about selection on alleles resulting in adaptation. Never mind plasticity, drift, meiotic drive, genetic accommodation, culture, epigenetic inheritance, environmental inheritance, prions, HGT, developmental constraint, and so on.<br /><br />Evolutionary theory has moved on from the 60s-70s refinement (Williams, Maynard Smith, Hamilton, Trivers) of the Modern Synthesis. The hereditarians haven't gotten the memo on the Extended Synthesis. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com