My Thoughts on Biological Evolution by Motoo Kimura

Author:Motoo Kimura
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789811561658
Publisher: Springer Singapore

Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection

R. A. Fisher, at the beginning of his famous book Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (1930), states that natural selection and evolution are not synonymous and emphasizes the significance of separating the question of natural selection from evolution and of studying it as an independent subject. I believe the same thing applies to population genetics. In other words, I feel it would be unfortunate if population genetics were to be viewed simply as one part of evolutionary research and its value were to be judged only in relation to evolutionary theory. Of course, to argue about evolutionary mechanisms ignoring the theory of natural selection and knowledge of population genetics is a dangerous way to conduct science, similarly to arguing about the structure and evolution of the universe while ignoring physics.

Fisher’s book was at that time an epoch making one and contained many important and interesting results. One of them is what he called the “fundamental theorem of natural selection”, and in his words “[t]he rate of increase in fitness of any organism at any time is equal to its genetic variance in fitness at that time”. That is

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