Tag: evolutionary genetics
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The revolt of the clay: an initial progress report
A “chance” encounter Earlier this month I was contacted by a reporter writing a piece on the role of chance in evolution. I responded that I didn’t work on that topic, but if he was interested in predictable non-randomness due to biases in variation, then I would be happy to…
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The surprising case of origin-fixation models
In a recent QRB paper with David McCandlish, we review the form, origins, uses, and implications of models (e.g., the familiar K = 4Nus) that represent evolutionary change as a 2-step process of (1) the introduction of a new allele by mutation, followed by (2) its fixation or loss. What could…
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The Mutationism Myth (3): Foundations of evolutionary genetics
This is the third in a series of 2010 blogs entitled “The Mutationism Myth” (a more scholarly version of this material ended being published in J. Hist. Biol. by Stoltzfus and Cable, 2014) In this oft-told story (see part 1), the discovery of genetics in 1900 leads to rejection of Darwin’s theory and…
Mutation and evolution 