Balance of nature illustrated (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, February 26, 2015, 01:01 (3345 days ago) @ George Jelliss

George: This PDF is about the causal "forces" at work in evolution.
> Natural selection versus Drift:
> 
> http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/3035/1/DriftPSApaperFinal.pdf
> 
> I thought it might fit into this thread, 
> especially as dhw is on about "chance" again!-I don't see how forceful natural selection can really be. It only acts on what is presented to it. And that presentation depends upon mutations, epigenetic alterations as well as underlying genetic drift. I view it as at the end of an assembly line and allowing a good product to be spit out. I can't really follow the mathematical arguments in the article, but I understand that the size of a population, of course, must alter the probabilities. The article fits slow step by step Darwin theory of evolution, but it doesn't solve major issues like why the Cambrian Explosion happened. The article does not deal with epigenetics at all, so I don't know how organism self-inventiveness fits into the author's discussion, if at all.