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Distinguishing Drift and Selection Empirically: “The Great Snail Debate” of the 1950s

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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.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Joe Cain (no relation, he tells me, to A. J. Cain), Mike Dietrich, and Rob Skipper for extensive discussion concerning these issues, as well as Jean Gayon, Jon Hodge, Will Provine (who disagreed with me, strenuously and with good humor), Elisabeth Lloyd’s Biology Studies Reading Group at Indiana University, and three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier draft. I would also like to thank audiences at the following venues: HSS 2005; the Future Directions in Biology Studies workshop (sponsored by the International Society for History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology, or ISHPSSB); the UC Berkeley History and Philosophy of Logic, Methodology, and Science (HPLMS) Working Group; and the Center for Philosophy of Biology at Duke University’s 6th Annual Conference in Philosophy & Biology. Each of these groups graciously listened to and provided helpful feedback on various versions of this paper. Finally, I would like to thank John Beatty for inspiring me to pay attention to snails and drifters, and for his usual gentle yet incisive questions about my conclusions.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA, 95616, USA

    Roberta L. Millstein

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Millstein, R.L. Distinguishing Drift and Selection Empirically: “The Great Snail Debate” of the 1950s. J Hist Biol 41, 339–367 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10739-007-9145-5

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