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→Neutral Evolution
::I'll need more convincing than that. A change in hair colour could be no stretch of the imagination be considered '''macro'''evolution. Perhaps the following analogy is bad, but if mutations could be rated according to their impact, some might be negative (-1), some positive (+1), and some neutral (0). An accumulation of neutral changes (0+0+0+0+0+0)... I think you can see where I'm going there. [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 20:13, 14 April 2007 (EDT)
::I'll need more convincing than that. A change in hair colour could be no stretch of the imagination be considered '''macro'''evolution. Perhaps the following analogy is bad, but if mutations could be rated according to their impact, some might be negative (-1), some positive (+1), and some neutral (0). An accumulation of neutral changes (0+0+0+0+0+0)... I think you can see where I'm going there. [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 20:13, 14 April 2007 (EDT)
:::Sure, a string of selectively neutral mutations is itself selectively neutral. But the phenotypic effect of each may be non-zero, so when you add ''those'' together, you can end up with an arbitrarily large phenotypic shift.
:::For that matter, even silent mutations contribute to evolution by providing more variation upon which future mutations can act. [[User:Tsumetai|Tsumetai]] 20:39, 14 April 2007 (EDT)
== Conservative what the...!? ==
== Conservative what the...!? ==