Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!bill
From: bill@ut-emx.uucp (Bill Jefferys)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: non-genetic evolution... not
Message-ID: <47604@ut-emx.uucp>
Date: 22 Apr 91 03:35:49 GMT
References: <79788@bu.edu.bu.edu> <47570@ut-emx.uucp> <79798@bu.edu.bu.edu>
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin; Austin, Texas
Lines: 35

In article <79798@bu.edu.bu.edu> colby@bu-bio.UUCP (Chris Colby) writes:
#In article <47570@ut-emx.uucp> bill@ut-emx.uucp (Bill Jefferys) writes:
#
#>Yet the wasp retains the ability to produce males, so it
#>is the _conditions_ under which the embryo develops
#>that determine the sex. A non-genetic "evolution" that
#>"breeds true" as long as the bacterium is present.
#
#	You are confusing the process of evolution with simple
#change. If the gene pool of the wasps did not change (ie there
#are still the same frequency of male and female determining 
#genes), then the population did not evolve. This is true even
#if there are more females than males compared to some time in
#the past.... 

Well, I _did_ put quotes around the word "evolution" in my
post, so I am not confused.

#	Remember that evolution is _defined_ as a change in the
#gene pool; therefore non-genetic evolution is by definition non-
#sensical. Populations phenotypes (expression of genes) can change
#without the gene pool changing. This can often be very interesting
#(as in the wasp case), but it is not evolution.

Well, Darwin would not have understood this definition of
evolution, as the concepts "gene" and "gene pool" postdate
him by a considerable time. For Darwin, evolution meant
"descent with modification." You may decide for yourself
whether this applies to the wasp example.

Bill Jefferys

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