Re: Middle English Plurals

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:

> 08-01-04 11:33, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > "Survival of the fittest" doesn't sound nice, admitted, but has

it

> > been abolished? When did that happen?
>
> The theory of natural selection has not been abolished; it has been
> incorporated into a more general theory. With the development of
> genetics (in particular, population genetics with its mathematical
> models and laboratory experiments) a new synthesis became

necessary.

> Darwin can't be blamed for the incompleteness of his original

theory

> (brilliant as it remains); he knew nothing about genes. Selective
> pressures affect evolution by altering the frequency of some genes

in a

> population, but many genetic changes spread thanks to random drift

(and

> some other factors), not because of natural selection. This means

that

> genetic change may be (and very often is) adaptively neutral. I

can't

> discuss it here at length, since it's essentially OT (except that

there

> are clear analogies between natural and linguistic evolution). If

you're

> interested in the details, join any group that discusses

evolutionary

> biology.
>
> As for "survival of the fittest", it's of course only a

slogan. "The

> fittest" may stand a better chance in the long run, but a great

many of

> the less fit also manage to survive in each generation. Survival is
> differential, not a matter of total success versus total extinction.
>

Yes, yes. And still you offer no analogy to selection pressure in
your model, and I do. Therefore my theory is more expressive and
should be preferred over yours.

Torsten