Abstract
EDWARDS1 has recently criticized Li's description2 of his formula for the rate of change of mean fitness in a population as the “fundamental theorem of natural selection” on the grounds that Fisher's derivation3 of the fundamental theorem used overlapping generations, whereas Li uses separate generations. Because Fisher3 said that his theorem held “the supreme position among the biological sciences”, and because at one time he worked on one of the many organisms which in the wild have non-overlapping generations4, it seems very unlikely that he thought the generation-system had any essential effect on his theorem, and it is not possible to exclude from consideration formulations with non-overlapping generations when discussing the generality of the theorem. True or untrue statements with one system of generations are likely to be just so with the other.
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References
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TURNER, J. Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection. Nature 215, 1080 (1967). https://doi.org/10.1038/2151080a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/2151080a0
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