loudmouth writes:
PE doesn't argue with the mechanisms (random mutations and natural selection) but rather about what we would expect to see in the progression from one niche strategy and the next and the consequences both in morphology and in the fossil record. I'll stop here, this is too much like preaching to the choir.
Sometimes preaching to the choir is nice, less stress on the cardiovascular system than trying to argue about spiritual universes separating 6200 years ago.
So if you pull in the idea of a non-evolving population you have to have a certain theoretical setup if I remember correctly:
1. no mutation or no expressed mutation
2. no natural selection
3. very large populations (technically infinite I suppose)
4. Everyone breeds, and breeds at random.
5. everyone produces the same number of offspring
6. there is no migration in or out of the population
This would produce a truly static population right? So is the rate of evolution simply defined by how far removed the population is from these traits? Does anyone know if there are mathematical models that show the relationships of these variables to how fast the population evolves? I can't imagine that it would be too difficult to write of the model especially if you are defining the initial conditions and don’t have to immediately justify that they correspond to a specific reality.
I think you could make some impressive predictions from such a model, and I have a feeling this is probably been done extensively somewhere. I am going to go dig through the literature.