Mutation and evolution

Category: Uncategorized

  • evol-mut-circle

    evol-mut-circle is an international group of scientists, philosophers, and historians interested in research on the role of mutation in evolution, particularly as a dispositional factor. The group meets monthly via videoconference for seminars and discussion. Coordination of activities occurs via an email list. To join, contact Arlin. Upcoming sessions Virtual…

  • Updates to Mutation, Randomness and Evolution

    Most recent update: 3 November, 2023, initial version. See the change-log at the bottom for details. This is an ongoing list of updates and corrections to Mutation, Randomness and Evolution, including typographic errors, as well as substantive errors and updates to knowledge. Typos and glitches The following mistakes (given in…

  • What on earth is “mutationism”? Some possible answers

    The term “mutationism” appeared in the early 20th century in regard to the views of early geneticists such as de Vries, Bateson, Punnett, and Morgan (e.g., Poulton, 1909 or McCabe 1912). These leading thinkers did not use “mutationism” to describe their own diverse views.[1] Perhaps they thought of themselves as…

  • The definition of “mutation bias”

    Mutation bias: a systematic difference in rates of occurrence for different types of mutations, e.g., transition-transversion bias, insertion-deletion bias Brandolini’s law: it takes 10 times the effort to debunk bullshit as to generate it If I were to misdefine “negative selection” or “G matrix”, evolutionary biologists would go nuts because…

  • A bit about non-obviousness and theories

    It has been said that the reception of any successful new scientific hypothesis goes through three predictable phases before being accepted. First, it is criticized for being untrue. Secondly, after supporting evidence accumulates, it is stated that it may be true, but it is not particularly relevant. Thirdly, after it…

  • King’s amino-acid findability argument

    Whereas Kimura (1968) proposed his version of the Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution as the answer to an esoteric problem of population genetics theory, King and Jukes (1969) proposed a theory driven by the results of macromolecular sequence comparisons. Molecular evolution, in their view, demanded “new rules.” As evidence for…

  • Normalizing and appropriating new scientific findings

    This is a long but organized dump of some thoughts on a particular type of distortion that arises from an attitude of conservatism or traditionalism. It is part of a longer-term attempt to understand controversy and novelty, with the practical goal of helping scientists themselves to cut through bullshit and…

  • The Haldane-Fisher “opposing pressures” argument

    The Haldane-Fisher “opposing pressures” argument is an argument from population genetics that played an important role in establishing the Modern Synthesis orthodoxy, and which continued to guide thinking about causation throughout the 20th century. The flaw in the argument was pointed out by Yampolsky and Stoltzfus (2001) when they showed…

  • Index to bad takes

    Unfamiliar ideas are often mis-identified and mis-characterized. It takes time for a new idea to be sufficiently familiar that it can be debated meaningfully (a really long time, in the case of the theory of arrival biases). We look forward to those more meaningful debates. Until then, fending off bad…

  • Bad takes #7: requires sign epistasis

    Unfamiliar ideas are often mis-identified and mis-characterized. It takes time for a new idea to be sufficiently familiar that it can be debated meaningfully. We look forward to those more meaningful debates. Until then, fending off bad takes is the order of the day! See the Bad Takes Index. Svensson…