Questions on "Random" Mutations

Dawkins is well aware that dogs have a massive genetic diversity which was tapped into by humans through selective breeding. Dawkins states that this diversity came from mutation, before we started domestication (and obviously, to a lesser extent afterwards). The article you refer to can still be found here.Someone asked him directly once about an experiment involving evolving fish and how quickly their colours changed. Dawkins said that the diversity was probably already there, rather than mutation occurring during the experiment. You can watch that here (Q & A session)Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

I have no idea what 'evolutionary older' means. I wasn't attempting to prove that the diversity arose by mutation, I was explaining Dawkins' position. Yes. Lots of times. Successfully. We have to remember that aggressive artificial breeding reduces genetic diversity. Nevertheless - we do not know there are no descendant species. We'd have to go back 100,000 years and try and breed modern dogs with older dogs to see if they are still the same species.Even if they could it wouldn't mean anything. Speciation isn't something that HAS to happen. Exactly. Mutation is probably needed in almost all or all cases. The chromosomes have to stop recognizing each other so that germ cells cannot be produced. What is simple? That variation is required as well as the fact that nature can select? It is simple, but such is the way with science - it always looks simple in hindsight! Does anybody disagree? It is a force of keeping what works, a force that can lead to adaptation. It is certainly conservative whereas mutation is radical. The two combined...Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Except that Dawkins managed to construct the metaphor in such a way that the rower teams would reproduce and the rowers (and their position) were heritable traits. It was intended to show that genes can benefit through selfish cooperation, and it worked.You need to have replication and heritable traits in your example before it can have the same level of validity as this.

You quoted the conclusion not the setup - did you think I wouldn't notice or something. The set up is as follows:

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Suppose it is important in a really successful crew that the rowers should coordinate their activities by means of speech. Suppose further that, in the pool of oarsmen at the coach's disposal, some speak only English and some speak only German. The English are not consistently better or worse rowers than the Germans. But because of the importance of communication, a mixed crew will tend to win fewer races than either a pure English crew or a pure German crew.

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The coach does not realize this. All he does is shuffle his men around, giving credit points to individuals in winning boats, marking down individuals in losing boats...What will emerge as the overall best crew will be one of the two stable states--pure English or pure German, but not mixed. Superficially, it looks as though the coach is selecting whole language groups as units. This is not what he is doing. He is selecting individual oarsmen for their apparent ability to win races... Selection at the low level of the single gene can give the impression of selection at some higher level.

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So do we have replication? Yes. The 'genes' replicate in that the rowers are moved on into the next generation of boats. They are also shuffled (genetic recombination). The boats inherit the genes from the last race. The coach selects consistently winning individuals to be 'passed on' (he is natural selection in this analogy) and consistently losing individuals to not be passed on. By doing this he can construct a solid team without ever knowing that he is selecting based on language. Yes - the shuffling of genes is more extreme than in nature, but the analogy is to show how the genes are being selected for their ability to work well with the other genes in the pool to produce a good team on average. At first - but since the coach is selecting his team some alleles will be on less teams and some will be on more teams as time goes on. Gene frequency, in the sense conveyed in the analogy, is shifting. Precisely! So an allele needs to be on a consistently winning team. If there are 10 English men and 4 Germans in the pool, the Germans will often be on teams with English men and so will often lose and get marked down, making them less likely to be picked for other teams in the future. Dawkins puts forward the view point that genes that work together well to build better 'boats' or phenotypes will be selected for and increase in frequency.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Yes, the point is that any mix would be detrimental. It was a quick example to show how ESSs concept allows us to see how a compatible combination of genes can appear to be selected for as a unit. If you had read the book you'd know that this is a simple example and real life examples drawing on the simple principles developed in the analogies are produced. His conclusion was that "well-integrated bodies exist because they are the product of an evolutionarily stable set of selfish genes". It is a furtherance of the idea he was building up to in the previous chapter and that he touched on his butterfly example in the earlier Chapter 3 (p31-32).Either way - the example meets the requirements whereas your concept of programming languages doesn't.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.