Evolution without Natural Selection
At a banquet last night, one of the speakers (Michael Lynch?) talked about his research in evolutionary biology. What he looks at is the evolution of DNA apart from natural selection. That sounds odd, but it isn’t. Suppose mutations occur that neither help nor hinder fitness. What will happen? Creatures will evolve randomly, and it is interesting to study what happens– how much diversity one gets, and so forth. Also, much of human DNA is “junk DNA” that does not seem to have any function, or “jumping genes” that move from place to place on the genome. These are something like parasites, and their spread only incidentally is determined by natural selection on the DNA proper. An interesting topic.