Darwin-L Message Log 1:158 (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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<1:158>From TREMONT%UCSFVM.BITNET@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU  Thu Sep 16 20:04:52 1993

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1993 17:58:13 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Elihu M. Gerson" <TREMONT%UCSFVM.BITNET@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU>
Subject: Evolution as allele frequencies
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

The implication of Junger's question was, I think, that Darwin was
able to develop a pretty good theory of evolution without any notion
of allele frequencies, and hence, that allele frequences are not very
important to understanding evolution.

Certainly this seems very plausible if one thinks of evolution as
involving adaptation and/or speciation. Have the population geneticists
given us a good definition or example of either phenomenon in population
genetics terms yet? Or are we still relying on "isolation mechanisms"
which never actually appear in the equations?

Elihu M. Gerson
Tremont Research Institute
458 29 Street
San Francisco, CA 94131
415-285-7837  tremont@ucsfvm.ucsf.edu

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