Evolutionary Conversations…

A lot of interesting posts appeared over the past day or two concerning evolutionary theory, what evolution is and how it works.
It all started with Jonah Lehrer’s article in SEED Magazine on the ideas of Joan Roughgarden:The Gay Animal Kingdom to which PZ Myers responded with Evolution and homosexuality and Jonah responded with agreement: PZ vs. Roughgarden.
I responded with a post in which I linked to my old review, Books: ‘Evolution’s Rainbow’ by Joan Roughgarden, and ended with a minor quip that switched the discussion from homosexuality to the question of units of selection: Sexual Selection is not dead yet!
Razib responded with: Levels of selection: controversies no one cares about? to which Robert Skipper responded with excellent post: Apathy About the Levels of Selection.
Then I rattled Razib (again – he’s read them before…we go waaay back!) with two reposts from my old blog, each taking sideways stabs at crude genocentrism: How To Become A Biologist and Lysenko Gets A D-Minus On My Genetics Test.
This gave Razib an idea to ask for a 10-word definition of evolution: Evolution in less than 10 words – give it a shot! John Hawks was the first to respond with Evolution in less than 10 words
RPM did much better: Evolution, the Population Geneticist’s Perspective. And Robert Skipper did much, much, much better: 10 Words About Evolution. I left my own definition in the comments on both of these posts. [Update: John Wilkins offers his own interesting definition: Evolution in less than 10 words]
On a somewhat different topic, the new study of evoluiton by hybridization in butterflies was ably explained by Carl Zimmer in Darwin, Meet Frankenstein and John Wilkins in Homoploid speciation – what is it, and why does it matter?