> There are actually many more mechanism in evolution, such as genetic drift or geographic separation. You're merely focusing on one special aspect of evolution

> There are actually many more mechanism in evolution, such as genetic drift or geographic separation. You're merely focusing on one special aspect of evolution here. No, it's not some ad-hoc aspect among many. Notice that I was trying to illustrate what it means to say that some theory is foundational in a field. It means that, if you remove it, the rest of the edifice falls apart. Imperfect self-replication and survival-of-the-fittest are foundational in that sense. You cannot make sense of concepts such as speciation through geographical separation, neutral mutations, theories about why genders exist, kin selection, eusociality, etc etc etc without those foundational pieces. What you say is a bit like saying that the Theory of Relativity is just one special aspect of theoretical physics: there's also planetary dynamics, for example. > Fitting quote: The danger with these types of quotes is that they tend to end up applying to oneself.