-----------------------------------
lucaspa
Mon Mar 15, 2004 7:35 pm


-----------------------------------
I'm observing two subtle but important shifts in your argument.

Darwinism has suddenly become Social Darwinism
I didn't see that anywhere in Resuable's posts.

Evolution has suddenly become adaptation.
The short definition of evolution is "descent with modification".  Natural selection is the part of "modification" that is the designs in plants and animals.  Natural selection is the major mechanism of modification and the process that leads to the formation of new species.

although I'm not sure what you mean by "non-adaptive".
Some features of plants and animals are not adaptive. For instance, male nipples themselves are not adaptive. They are a side-product of development and the adaptation of female nipples -- which are adaptive.

On a molecular level, many amino acid sequences for proteins do equally good jobs.  Thus, changes in amino acid sequences are often non-adaptive because they don't change the activity of the protein involved.