Re: LEGALIZE IT
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SOme researchers think if anything, it's been speeding up recently.
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I'd definitely like to know more about that. Can you cite any sources?
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But since those "weakest" traits aren't being selected against, doesn't that just mean something like that they're more neutral in our current environment? This is not in opposition to darwinian theory.
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Some of they are being selected against, some aren't. But As long as they're not strongly being selected for, they won't survice and reproduce more than the other genes, which is what makes large evolutionary changes possible.
I feel kind of stupid explaining this to you, because I'm sure you already understand it, but it seems to me like maybe you making a mistake along the line. A major evolutionary change only happens after many, many generations of small steps towards it. Natural selection is what drives a population towards this particular change. Be it longer legs, more accurate vision, larger brain capacity, or whatever. If completely different traits are selected for in every consecutive generation, you're not going to get very far, because over a single generation there's so little that can reasonably mutate without dramatically altering the chances of survival. So if any major evolutionary change is to naturally take place in such an scenario, it'll be on based on random chance alone, not natural selection.
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Why not? Think about isolated populations. Think about drastic changes in the environent. Think about disease resistance, metabolic changes, population migrations, etc.
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None of these happen often enough on a large scale, nor make for a major change to be selected for. I guess a major event like an extremely contagious, world wide, short-term mortal disease or a severe change in all of earth's natural enviroment could change the way things are going, but that's not the point.
Did you watch the video? Really, Dawkins is a much better professor than I am. And you don't seem to be attacking my arguments (or his for that matter).
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