title: Distinguishing drift and selection empirically: "the great snail debate" of the 1950s.
abstract: Biologists and philosophers have been extremely pessimistic about the possibility of demonstrating random drift in nature, particularly when it comes to distinguishing random drift from natural selection. However, examination of a historical case--Maxime Lamotte's study of natural populations of the land snail, Cepaea nemoralis in the 1950s--shows that while some pessimism is warranted, it has been overstated. Indeed, by describing a unique signature for drift and showing that this signature obtained in the populations under study, Lamotte was able to make a good case for a significant role for drift. It may be difficult to disentangle the causes of drift and selection acting in a population, but it is not (always) impossible.
authors.affiliation: Department of Philosophy, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA. RLMillstein@UCDavis.edu
authors.forename: Roberta L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Millstein
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D040961:Genetic Drift; D049673:History, 20th Century; D012641:Selection, Genetic; D012908:Snails