Re: Rapid Lizard Evo

[Dann Pigdon <dannj@alphalink.com.au>]

Dan Chure writes: 

> Of course, the argument to be made from this, in some circles, will be 
> that evolution does not take millions of years to occur and this is in 
> line with a young Earth.  Phenotypic plasticity is meaningless to the 
> general public and will sound like a scientific coverup.

One of the worst generalisations about evolution is that it mostly involves 
random genetic mutations over long periods of time. I suspect that random 
mutation plays only a very small part in the evolutionary process, and that 
other processes (recombination, RNA interferance, learned behaviour, to name 
a few) provide far more fodder for natural selection to act on, and on a 
much smaller time scale. 

Relying on random mutation is fine, as long as those mutations are actually 
beneficial (which most aren't), and as long as your environment doesn't 
change faster than *beneficial* random mutation can keep up with (which it 
almost certainly will). Otherwise you'd better have some short-term backup 
plans just in case. 

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Dann Pigdon
GIS / Archaeologist              http://geo_cities.com/dannsdinosaurs
Melbourne, Australia             http://heretichides.soffiles.com
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