Veuille M
Ecole pratique des hautes études et Groupe de Recherche CNRS 1928, laboratoire d'écologie (CC 237), université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie, 7, quai Saint-Bernard, 75252 Paris cedex 5, France.
C R Acad Sci III. 2000 Dec;323(12):1155-65. doi: 10.1016/s0764-4469(00)01256-7.
Population genetics was put forward as a mathematical theory between 1918 and 1932 and played a leading part in the rediscovery of the concept of natural selection. As an autonomous science developing Mendel's laws at the population scale and a key element of the Darwinian theory of evolution, its dual status led its practioners to initially overlook some consequences of Mendelism not accounted for by the Darwinian theory, including random drift and the cost of selection. The latter were put forward on purely theoretical grounds in the 1950s, but their importance was acknowledged only when empirical data on protein evolution and enzyme polymorphism (since 1965) and on DNA variation (since 1983) were obtained. The neutralist/selectionist debate that ensued involved disagreement over the scientific method as well as over the mechanisms of molecular evolution. Population genetics has long assumed the existence of natural selection a priori. It has since recentred around the null hypothesis that molecular evolution is neutral. This new approach, applied to sequence comparison and to the study of linkage disequilibrium, is logically more justified, yet empirical observations derived from it paradoxically show the overwhelming importance of selective effects within genomes.
群体遗传学于1918年至1932年间作为一种数学理论被提出，并在自然选择概念的重新发现中发挥了主导作用。作为一门在群体层面发展孟德尔定律的自主科学以及达尔文进化论的关键要素，其双重地位导致其从业者最初忽略了一些孟德尔主义中未被达尔文理论解释的后果，包括随机漂变和选择成本。后者在20世纪50年代基于纯粹的理论依据被提出，但直到获得了关于蛋白质进化和酶多态性（自1965年起）以及DNA变异（自1983年起）的实证数据后，其重要性才得到认可。随之而来的中性论者/选择论者的争论涉及到对科学方法以及分子进化机制的分歧。群体遗传学长期以来一直先验地假定自然选择的存在。此后，它围绕分子进化是中性的零假设重新聚焦。这种应用于序列比较和连锁不平衡研究的新方法在逻辑上更合理，但由此得出的实证观察结果却自相矛盾地表明了基因组内选择效应的压倒性重要性。
