Talk:Neutral theory of molecular evolution

message: I suggest editors examine this excellent review article by Nei. I think it is a free publication. Regards GetAgrippa 16:48, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Link! Graft 17:07, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think that this 'review' necessarily provides a NPOV, apart from the fact that the author views neither natural selection nor genetic drift as the primary driver of evolution. -AC
Another contiguous subject that I added the abstract for readers to determine do they want to bother to read it is related to directed mutations :Crit Rev Microbiol. 2003;29(1):25-35.  Links 
The directed mutation controversy in an evolutionary context.Brisson D.
Dept. Ecology and Evolution, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794-5245, USA. brisson@life.bio.sunysb.edu
"Neo-Darwinists have long held that random mutations produce genetic differences among individuals, and selection increases the frequency of advantageous alleles. In 1988, Cairns et al. claimed that an environmental pressure can cause advantageous mutations to occur in specific genes to alleviate that particular pressure. Directed mutation, as proposed by Cairns, has been all but eradicated from evolutionary thinking. However, more than a decade of research spurred by the Cairns et al. paper has cast doubt on three neo-Darwinian principles: (1) mutations occur independently of the environment, (2) mutations are due to replication errors, and (3) mutation rates are constant. This mini-review explores the history of the controversy and the decade of research that followed so as to place it in an evolutionary context. Several of the cellular mechanisms and models that explain the increased genetic diversity in populations experiencing adverse environmental pressure are described. In most cases it is clear that the increased genetic diversity is due to breakdowns of cellular machinery or alleles evolved for a purpose other than increasing genetic diversity, rather than to cellular systems that have been evolutionarily selected to increase the genetic diversity in times of stress." Regards GetAgrippa 20:19, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Well, I'm not impressed. The review is weak on ecological genetics, and the author claims facts which are disputable or just plain wrong. For example, after the significant claim "truncation selection apparently occurs very rarely in nature" he quotes two of his own papers which are full of mathematical population genetics, but derisible on the issue of field-based ecological genetics. This is important because the many, many claims of neutrality with respect to selection have been so very rarely shown to be the case in reality. Most claims have simply not been investigated empirically. Where they have been, it is often the case that selection is not only present, but hugely significant. In the field of polymorphism (which he summarises poorly and incorrectly) readers might like to check our Polymorphism (biology) article, which lays out some of the evidence from actual field experiments. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:55, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Excellent Review Article on subject

message: I don't know about others, but I think this article is difficult to understand for a non-expert; it's pretty technical, but perhaps more importantly, it seems to discuss the history and development of the theory mixed in with the ideas itself.  What do you think?  I think it would clarify the article greatly to separate out the history into a section, and make another section that discusses the theory as it stands.  Cazort 13:56, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Correct: that development is definitely needed. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:49, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article non-accessible / Hard to Understand 

message: which states that the vast majority of genetic variation is selectively neutral.
Although this gets at a key idea in the theory, I don't think that this is precisely correct. In The neutral theory of molecular evolution (Cambridge U. Press, 1983), Kimura states: "The neutral theory asserts that the great majority of evolutionary changes at the molecular level...are caused not by Darwinian selection but by random drift of selectively neutral or nearly neutral mutants" (page xi). In other words, this is an answer to the question: "Of those alleles that arise through mutation and become fixed in a population, by what mechanism(s)/process(es) did they become fixed (and in what proportions)?" Kimura's answer to this question does not mean necessarily that a vast majority of genetic variation in a given population is selectively neutral. It means that most evolutionary changes (on the molecular level) occurred through stochastic processes. -AC  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.17.149.63 (talk) 03:12, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This suggestion should be read with the previous comment about the benefits of an historical approach. 1) Kimura's original ideas must be accurately stated, b) Its weaknesses and defects listed, and c) Present status of theory, including significant differences of opinion, stated. This is indeed not an easy subject, and our account must be carefully planned. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:57, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Imprecise formulation of the theory? 

message: I think this quote reads like a bad after-dinner speech, where somebody's aging professor, an intransigent and unyielding selectionist, was present, and you didn't want to embarrass him about it. Don't most of the summaries of the history of the debate finally admit that the neutralists won and the debate is over? Metzenberg (talk) 05:54, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: My reading of the literature since 2000 is that this is still a live area of debate and research. In any event, quotes and opinions in a WP article must be pinned to reliable sources published in refereed journals and publishers of repute. There is nothing wrong with Graur & Li as a source. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:50, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll second that. Although I get the sense that the question is becoming: "How much?" rather than "Which one?" --Pugettia (talk) 16:41, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

text: Graur & Li is an excellent source. The problem is, the quote is out of context. Metzenberg (talk) 09:58, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Graur & Li (2000) Quote 

message: Can a professional address recent discoveries showing that synonymous mutations are not neutral and may be quite beneficial or detrimental, and that such situations are not extremely rare? I have only read the Scientific American article by Chamary and Hurst (the latter seems to be the primary investigator for most of the studies alluded to in the piece). Aldebrn (talk) 15:00, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Synonymous mutations not always neutral 

message: Palaeoanthropologists typically use palaeomagnetism, uranium series dating, and cosmogenic isotope dating.  If radiocarbon dating is to remain in the artical, then please site a reference. 98.95.166.61 (talk) 01:25, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dating methods 

message: I'm sorry, it's absurd that one should have a detailed exposition of a single, unremarkable, paper dominating a significant portion of this subject's page. Since when were researchers allowed to advertise their work on Wikipedia? Perhaps it would be better to have a sentence on his work, with others, in a new section "recent research". But to have a big bulk of text on one paper (have a look at the where it's cited to see it's "influence") belittles the subject.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.162.75.91 (talk) 09:58, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, this section should be deleted. From what I remember, the paper is about neutrality, but not about the neutral theory at all. I had been going to do the deletion, but first I had wanted to be thorough, and check my memory by looking at the paper. Meantime, I stashed the text in question into its own section as a holding device. This page needs a lot of work, I hope to get around to it some time. Joannamasel (talk) 14:34, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

text: I'm going to go ahead and delete this now, given the absence of any cleanup of this section in the time gone by since these comments. Joannamasel (talk) 22:17, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Implications for evolvability in asexual populations 

message: This article needs a definition of "neutral" (or a wiki link) in the lead section. --161.23.234.22 (talk) 20:02, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Done Joannamasel (talk) 02:12, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  neutral 

message: It's unclear what the current reference 11 Provine (1991) refers to. It should probably be expanded or removed. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 02:31, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Provine (1991) 

message: — Assignment last updated by Cba021 (talk) 19:10, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Wiki Education assignment: Adv Molecular Bio Bass-FSU-Fa23