Accounting for evolution:An assessment of thepopulation method

The theme of these notes, in general, is the population dynamics of evolutionaryprocesses, and, in particular, a number of accounting concepts that are central to anyunderstanding of processes of evolution of the variation and selective retention kind.The accounting concepts I use are naturally true by the meaning attached to the termsemployed but this does not make them any less useful as devices for sorting outdifferent ideas in relation to evolutionary dynamics. Indeed, once the accountingconcepts are clear it is a more straightforward matter to give an explanation of theevolutionary process in terms of cause and effect...