Darwin-L Message Log 1:145 (September 1993)

Academic Discussion on the History and Theory of the Historical Sciences

This is one message from the Archives of Darwin-L (1993–1997), a professional discussion group on the history and theory of the historical sciences.

Note: Additional publications on evolution and the historical sciences by the Darwin-L list owner are available on SSRN.

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<1:145>From ahouse@hydra.rose.brandeis.edu  Thu Sep 16 12:13:19 1993

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1993 13:19:44 -0500
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
From: ahouse@hydra.rose.brandeis.edu (Jeremy John Ahouse)
Subject: Re: Re: Lamarkianism in linguistic change

>Anax writes:
>> The organic sense of evolution is a change
>> in the allele frequencies of a population...  the other senses of
>> evolution I don't feel are really 'evolution' for a variety of
>> reasons.

Peter replies:
>Did Darwin knnow about allele frequencies?  If he didn't, doesn't this
>statement imply that Darwin was not writing about that which is "really"
>evolution?

    I agree with Peter's thrust.  This would be an unfortunate
definition of evolution.  And really it sounds more like propaganda for the
new synthesis population geneticists.  I think it would serve better to
claim (a claim that may well be frequently demonstrated) that changes in
allele frequencies are strongly correlated with morphological and other
changes rather than to make the 2 isomorphic and drop evolution into the
allele frequency only basket.

    - Jeremy

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