The buffet and the sushi conveyor
The return of mutationism to mainstream evolutionary biology is evident in the way mainstream articles now describe the role of mutation in evolution, in our reliance on mathematical models that evoke a mutationist view, and in evo-devo research programs that focus on identifying causative major-effect mutations.
This shift has happened in a kind of sub-conscious way, without commentary or reflection. I’ll comment below on the reasons for that.
My main purpose here is to contrast way that the neo-Darwinian and mutationist views refer implicitly to two different regimes of population genetics evoked in two styles of self-service restaurant: the buffet and the sushi conveyor.