Most of you know Richard Lewontin as one of the authors on a paper that every student of evolution must read [The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm]. He's also famous for other reasons [Good Science Writers: Richard Lewontin] [The Cause of Variation in a Population].
Lewontin was interviewed last February by Susan Mazur as part of her coverage ot the Altenberg 16 [see We Need to Soften the Modern Synthesis]. Lewontin starts off well by explaining that natural selection isn't the only game in town [THE ONE AND ONLY RICHARD LEWONTIN].
Suzan Mazur: Is it your opinion that natural selection is here to stay?
Richard Lewontin: Natural selection occurs. The problem for the biologist is that natural selection is not the only biological force operating on the composition of populations. There are random forces because after all population is only finite in size. And even if there’s no natural selection, everybody does not have exactly two children. Every couple doesn’t exactly have two children to replace it. And there’s randomness in which sperm fertilizes which egg. So things change for that random reason. And things change because species go extinct. Nobody knows why any particular species ever went extinct. But every species goes extinct.
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