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Doing evolution's sums

PLoS Biology has a review of Elements of Evolutionary Genetics up, Evolution Is a Quantitative Science:

But why has evolutionary genetics stood apart from biology’s resolutely qualitative, rather than quantitative, tradition? Most remarkably, while biomechanics employs the laws of physics, and biochemistry is founded on the quantitative science of chemistry, evolutionary genetics is based on axiomatic foundations that are entirely biological, and yet are capable of precise mathematical formulation. The rules of Mendelian genetics, encapsulated by unbiased inheritance and random mating in a diploid genetic system, predict Hardy-Weinberg frequencies, the binomial sampling of gametes in finite populations determines the properties of genetic drift, and, with a Poisson process of mutation, the complex theory of neutral genetic variation can be established on the basis of very simple assumptions.

A few books to get a historical perspective of the origins of modern evolutionary genetics (albeit with a pop gen focus), The Origins of Theoretical Population Genetics, Sewall Wright and Evolutionary Biology and R.A. Fisher: The Life of a Scientist.

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