02/08/06

Notes from 02/08/06

Darwin's theory as published in 1859 wouldn't work
Darwin noted that no one knows how inheritance works
Everyone believed in blending inheritance
Jenkins pointed out why Darwin's theory wouldn't work if blending inheritance was believed to be a part of it
- Blending leads to homology, not variation
- The further it spreads (an advantageous mutation, that is), the weaker, more watered down it becomes.

Mendel showed that no blending occured but tha there were two copies, and dominant / recessive alleles.
Frequency dependent selection will balance sex ratios
Fischer first proposed balanced sex ratio by using population genetics
Weissman proved that acquired traits don't get passed on by cutting off 22 generations of mouse tails. He pointed out the difference between what happens to your soma cells and your gametic cells.
- Lyell was the first to support that traits _do_ get passed down
de Vries sees a flower change color suddenly and thinks it has something to do with non-blending. He finds Mendel's old work and is amazed.
Goldschmidt suggests macro-mutationism and develops "Hopeful Monster" theory.
Naturalists pointed out that two distinct species were distinct without being very different at all.
R.S. Lull was an American paleontologist who believed that Irish Elk proved an internal drive, because why else could you possibly need antlers that big?
The biogenetic law of Haeckel suggests that "ontogony recapitulates phylogeny" or to say that we undergo the evolution pathway in the embrionic pathway.
The Neo-Darwinian Synthesis:
- This synthesis combined three important theories

Germline mutations are heritable, but somatic are not. Acquired traits are not passed on.
Natural mutations are less severe than those in lab. Super-freaks are not what we mean when we say that mutations cause variety.
What seems to be blending is actually phenotypes coded for by many genes.

Fisher and Wright did the first mathematic proof of naturual selection working under the theory of microevolution. This book had the proof of natural selection regulating sex ratios