Random Factors: An Interview with 2017 Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal Recipient Richard C. Lewontin.

The Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal is awarded to an individual member of the Genetics Society of America for lifetime achievement in the field of genetics. It recognizes the full body of work of an exceptional geneticist. The 2017 recipient is Richard C.

The mystery of language evolution.

Understanding the evolution of language requires evidence regarding origins and processes that led to change. In the last 40 years, there has been an explosion of research on this problem as well as a sense that considerable progress has been made. We argue instead that the richness of ideas is accompanied by a poverty of evidence, with essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved.

A structured coalescent process for seasonally fluctuating populations.

Many short-lived organisms pass through several generations during favorable growing seasons, separated by inhospitable periods during which only small hibernating or estivating refugia remain. This induces pronounced seasonal fluctuations in population size and metapopulation structure. The first generations in the growing season will be characterized by small, relatively isolated demes whereas the later generations will experience larger deme sizes with more extensive gene flow.

Measuring the sensitivity of single-locus "neutrality tests" using a direct perturbation approach.

A large number of statistical tests have been proposed to detect natural selection based on a sample of variation at a single genetic locus. These tests measure the deviation of the allelic frequency distribution observed within populations from the distribution expected under a set of assumptions that includes both neutral evolution and equilibrium population demography. The present study considers a new way to assess the statistical properties of these tests of selection, by their behavior in response to direct perturbations of the steady-state allelic frequency distribution, unconstrained by any particular nonequilibrium demographic scenario.