The fundamental theorem of natural selection: the end of a story

Abstract

The direction of research in population genetics theory is currently, and correctly, retrospective, that is directed toward the past. What events in the past have led to the presently observed genetic constitution of a population? This direction is inspired, first, by the large volumes of genomic data now available and, second, by the success of the classical prospective theory in validating the Darwinian theory in terms of Mendelian genetics. However, the prospective theory should not be forgotten, and in that theory, perhaps the most interesting and certainly the most controversial, is Fisher’s so-called “Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection.” This article describes the history and the current status of that theorem.