WTF is wrong with people

For God's sake Faith, evolution by descent with modification is the first plank of Darwin's original theory but it was made even more extraordinary because Darwin went on to tell us how he thought it worked - by NATURAL SELECTION.His book was called:On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life Hidden! It's one of the most famous ideas in science and it's been around for 150 years. It changed the world.How on earth do you have the brass balls to discuss evolutionary theory without knowing or understanding the absolute basics? You wouldn't know what an allele was if it bit you on the arse.

Well silly old us. There we were thinking that you didn't believe in evolution when all along it turns out that you accept mutation, genetic drift and natural selection and that isolated populations will change over time as a result of those - and other - mechanisms.So we have descent with modification by natural selection. And a few more modern bits and pieces too. Congratulations, you're now what you call an "evolutionist."

Oh, absolutely. I was just trying to separate the agents than cause change from the agent that directs change once caused because Faith thinks that merely separating a population both causes and directs change.Well, I think that's what she thinks - she's all over the place.

Ok, so for the record, selection is an important part of the process and has been so for 150 years ;-)But now I'm going to really fcuk things up. It's not always as simple as this is it?We now have the whole new world of evo devo which may allow the phenotype to drive the genotype - a whole inversion of what we, or at least I, used to think. This from the wiki: Evolutionary developmental biology - WikipediaNow that is a real shocker.But I've always felt that there was something missing from the ToE, something to explain major changes that just don't seem credible using the standard bit by bit model.I studied biology at degree level in the 70’s and spent a long time looking at the sequence of development of jaw bone into the bones of the middle ear - a clasical demonstration of long term evolution. It was undeniable, I held the bones in my hands - or plaster copies of them - it happened and it was evolution wot did it, but like our creationist friends it just did not seem possible. Evo Devo though seems to supply another route.I only wish I'd kept studying it - now it's all so advanced that I'd have to devote far too much of my life to understand it.

Seems like it simply adds to it to me - and makes it a little easier to understand how major changes can be made.If organisms have a box of parts that are common across phyla that can be plugged in, or not, dependant on swiching on or off regulatory genes, it makes big changes to morphology easier to do - or understand.Selection would carry on as usual.

.....and...... .....and..... The problem here Faith is that you have absolutely no idea what evolution is, you've never studied it, when you google away at it you consistently get it wrong because you're trying to force it into some preconceived model in your head and when we try to explain it to you you refuse to listen.Instead of learning what millions of scientists have fought to discover over 150 years, you try to invent your own explanations from a few random and barely understood facts. You don't even see that admitting that you don't know what genetic drift is after years of discussion, then telling us that it's wrong anyway isn't just foolish, it's downright laughable.How do you have the balls to do that?

"Oh, all right then, we'll call it a draw"

I've just picked this out of your rants because you are obviously very impressed with it and think you've discovered some evolutionary dirty truth.I've said before that the fact that the isolation of a small sub-set of a main population reduces genetic diversity in the smaller population (and in the larger one too but to a lessor degree) is a statement of the blindingly obvious. Is there a reason why you think that biologists may not have noticed this?Just so you're clear, you do know that biologists have a name for it and have recognised it as a method of speciation for over 70 years don't you? Founder effect - Wikipedia