Specifically, as evolgen points out the acceleration paper was focused on adaptive evolution, the subset of allele frequency changes driven predominantly by the force of natural selection. What’s the rest? Read the post.
Why does this matter? Evolution is a science, and in science this sort of pedantic precision in definition, terminology and meaning matters a great deal because it is embedded in a contingent system. One of the most frustrating things about the necessity of the rearguard action against Creationists is that the “controversy” swamps this reality, that evolution is a science which is the process of refinement and change due to theoretical & empirical developments. Instead evolution is only discussed in the broadest generalities, which is an insight with might spark the imagination in the 19th century, but is now simply a background assumption which serves as the framework for the real action. Books such as this one are a necessary evil. Why evil? Because the time invested in the production of that prose could have been time devoted to research and (alas) grant writing.
Comments are closed.