Over at Uncommon Descent, Salvador Cordova (scordova) has managed to construct a quote mine from a recent PNAS paper..
Cordova quotes Masatoshi Nei: "Natural selection...is not the fundamental cause of evolution." As experience has shown, anytime an ellipse appears is a red flag that quote mining has ensued. The full quote, as written by Nei, reads: "Natural selection occurs as a consequence of mutational production of different genotypes, and therefore it is not the fundamental cause of evolution."
The Nei paper, as addressed by it's abstract, is presenting the notion that instead of phentoypic evolution being driven by natural selection with genetic mutation being an undercurrent, the roles of each are actually reversed. A novel notion, in my opinion, and the paper far exceeds my level of expertise in the topic. However, I don't see how this flies in the face of modern synthesis (aka "Neo-Darwinism"). The units of change are still genes, and a contributing factor to evolution is still natural selection via population dynamics. Nei seems to argue that the contribution of evolution via natural selection is less than that of mutation.
Cordova is doing nothing more than attempting to claim a cheap victory by a misquote. He thinks the paper contains some level of profundity to warrant mentioning. It reads like a new perspective on thinking of the contribution of mutation to natural selection.
Cordova's side-tangent into the fictitious Haldane's dilemma is evidence enough for me to not take him serious, though.
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