rationalskepticism.org

Darwinsbulldog wrote:

GenesForLife wrote:

Allan Miller wrote:

Nope - I was stating the minimal condition. If you switch off mutation, but still allow birth and death to continue unhindered, then you have turned off the tap, and evolution will gradually cease. You don't need to do anything else. (Strictly, of course, evolution only really stops when there is just the one, homogeneous species at the end of the process. Either way, variation would diminish inexorably, and without a source of variation, there is no evolution).

A bit difficult to do that, given that recombination is such a feature of animal genomes Stopping birth and death, on the other hand, will ensure that allele frequencies do not change; that, consequently , means no more evolution.

No, evolution will still go on. Epigenetic changes, cell lineage changes and competition. To completely stop evolution, you have to stop life itself.