Amazing lecture, congratulations. I have a simple question. Given that the most basic relationships e.g. population size and fitness, are unknown, that population genetics has hundreds of simplifying assumptions, that the most important bits of biology get ignored, what exactly can population genetics predict? And if cannot predict anything useful, how is that population genetics has been used as the basis for evolutionary theory for so long, if it proves nothing? If we cannot even predict the fate of a beneficial mutation, how can we claim to know how fish become amphibians, and artiodactyls become whales?
Amazing lecture, congratulations. I have a simple question. Given that the most basic relationships e.g. population size and fitness, are unknown, that population genetics has hundreds of simplifying assumptions, that the most important bits of biology get ignored, what exactly can population genetics predict? And if cannot predict anything useful, how is that population genetics has been used as the basis for evolutionary theory for so long, if it proves nothing? If we cannot even predict the fate of a beneficial mutation, how can we claim to know how fish become amphibians, and artiodactyls become whales?