Susan Brassfield wrote:
>who believes in saltation? I was under the impression that it was discarded
>nearly 100 years ago with the discovery of genetics.
It's just an old-fashioned word for 'macromutation'. Mendelian genetics
with its particulate model of inheritance answered the criticism based
on blending-inheritance theories, that valuable mutations should be
diluted and swamped out of existence after a few generations. I don't
know of any other connection between genetics and evolutionary theory
100 years ago. I would think that the model that preserves a wonderful
mutation intact would not be a problem for macroevolutionary theorists.
--Cliff Lundberg ~ San Francisco ~ 415-648-0208 ~ cliff@cab.com
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