>flefever at ix.netcom.com(F. Frank LeFever) writes:
> In <33C0D867.46AE at umich.edu> "John H. Casada" <casad at umich.edu> writes:
> >F. Frank LeFever wrote:
> >><snip>
> >> Remember: it is not the individual's advantage, but the species'
> >> advantage.
> >As the evolutionists have repeatedly hammered me with this, I will
> >pass it on to you. Current evolutionary theory states that it is
> >indeed the individual's advantage and not the species'. Natural
> >selection takes place at the individual and not species level.
> >This does not present an insuperable obsticle, though. It is to the
> >individual's advantage to see his genetic material passed on, even if
> >it is done indirectly through close kin and not by his direct
> >production of progeny.
> Someone else (from Canada) emailed me much the same message (i.e.,
> individual not group advantage and selection) and was awaiting more
> time and energy to think it through before replying, but you've
> prompted me to say something, no matter how un-jelled.
> I'm too lacking in the in-depth reading of current theory to do much
> more than wing it, but given the eventual acceptance of some ideas
> previously sounding off-the-wall (e.g. non-chromosomal inheritance),
> I'm not ready just now to call it a closed issue.
> My thoughts:
> a species is not a collection of clones, but an aggregation of
> genotypes with genes shared and unshared to varying degrees, but to the
> extent that the heritance of some common core is promoted by the
> existance of individuals with more-than-usual unshared or sparsely
> distributed characteristics, I can see the possibility of continuity as
> a species but also shifts in the distribution of shared
> characteristics, i.e. evolution of the species.
