Darwin, and After Darwin, Volume 3 of 3: Post-Darwinian Questions: Isolation and Physiological SelectionRomanes, George John
Science
Darwin, and After Darwin, Volume 3 of 3: Post-Darwinian Questions: Isolation and Physiological Selection
Romanes, George John
Evolution (Biology); Heredity
4. Where varietal divergence has begun in the absence of
cross-infertility, such divergence seems, as a general rule, to have
been incapable of attaining to a specific value.
5. Therefore, in the vast majority of such cases, it must have been
those varietal changes of structure, size, colour, &c., which happened
to have afterwards been assisted by the reproductive change that were on
this account _selected_ as successful candidates for specific
differentiation.
6. It follows, that it makes no difference to the general theory of
physiological selection in what proportion of cases the physiological
change has been the initial change; for, whether prior or subsequent to
the varietal changes with which it becomes associated, its presence has
been equally important as a condition to specific divergence.
7. When physiological isolation becomes associated with natural
selection, or any other form of homogamy, the segregative power of both
is augmented. Moreover, so great is the augmentation that even very
moderate degrees of physiological isolation--themselves capable of
effecting little or nothing--become very powerful when associated with
moderate degrees of any other kind of homogamy, and vice versa.
8. The theory of physiological selection effectually explains the
divergent evolution of specific types and the cross-infertility of such
types when evolved.
* * * * *
To prevent, if possible, the continuance of certain misunderstandings
with regard to my original statement of the new theory, let me here
disclaim some views which have been assigned to me. They are:
1. That the theory of physiological selection is opposed to the theory
of natural selection. Far from this being so, it is--at all events in my
own opinion--a very important aid to it, in preventing free
intercrossing on a common area, and thus allowing divergent evolution to
occur within that area.
2. That, in advancing the theory of physiological selection as "an
additional suggestion on the origin of species," I wish to represent it
as being the originating cause of _all_ species. What I hold is, that
all species must have owed their origin to _isolation_, in some form or
other; but that as physiological selection is only one among many other
forms of isolation (including natural selection), and as it can only act
on common areas, a large number of species must have been formed without
its aid.
3. That I imagine physiological varieties always to arise
"sporadically," or as merely individual "sports" of the reproductive
system. On the contrary, I expressly stated that this is _not_ the way
in which I suppose the "physiological variation" to arise, when giving
origin to a new species; but that it arises, whenever it is effectual,
as a "collective variation" affecting a number of individuals
simultaneously, and therefore characterizing "a whole race, or strain."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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