Category: Uncategorized
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Bad takes #6: requires “drift in small populations”
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…
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Grounding internalism in the introduction process: from pop-gen to evo-devo
(work in progress: emerging manuscript, currently in the form of a persuasive essay) Abstract (This abstract is aspirational. The actual manuscript delivers the argument in a different way.) Historical debates on evolution featured internalist ideas that were considered together with, or in opposition to, an externalist focus on natural selection.…
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NRC Research Associateship: mutation and evolution
The US National Research Council (NRC) offers competitive Research Associateships for post-doctoral and senior scientists to conduct research in participating federal labs. The awards include a generous stipend as well as benefits (health insurance, travel, relocation), as explained on the program web site. To apply, you must write a brief…
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Getting “Lamarckian” right
Lamarck’s theory of evolutionary adaptation invokes the inheritance of adaptive responses that emerge by effort. Over a century ago, this mechanism was rejected by geneticists familiar with results on mutation and inheritance, e.g., Cuenot (1909) rejects Lamarckian modification on the grounds that hereditary variants emerge suddenly, rather than being brought on…
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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…
Mutation and evolution 