Re: Beyond the Savanna Mentality


Jim McGinn wrote:
> JAE wrote:
> > Jim McGinn wrote:
> > > JAE wrote:
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> > > > Actually, Jim, the
> > > > reality is that I consider you completely inconsequential and as a
> > > > result, really haven't bothered to even *try* to dispute your
> > > > "hypothesis." I've found your pronouncements on other subjects, like
> > > > your ridiculous dismissal of genetic drift,
> > >
> > > Which you cannot dispute.
> >
> > No, Jim, I could and did dispute your claim. Your claim involved your
> > own peculiar definition of terms that aren't shared by anyone other
> > than you
>
> As long as I make my definitions explicit that shouldn't be a problem,
> should it?
>
> and I found your explanation for why phenomena that are
> > actually observed don't, in your mind and only in your mind, exist.
>
> What are you talking about?

You have made up your own defintion of genetic drift that differs from
what scientists


> > I
> > realize you disagree but I also realize that your disagreement is
> > completely and utterly meaningless.
>
> Shut up, fool. You can't put two sentences together to formulate a
> hypothesis. You're kidding yourself if you think I care what you
> think.

This, of course, is your undoing. I believe Philip accurately
describes it as the McGinnian death spiral. Yes, yes, yes, continue to
tell me that I'm a fool and I should shut up and that I can't formulate
a hypothesis. The latter part is demonstrably false as I've proposed
and tested hypotheses and published these results. This latter part
seems lost on you, Jim, as you're seemingly unwilling to publish. Is
it perhaps because it's more difficult and you don't get the immediate
satisfaction of telling your critics--and there will be critics--to
"shut up, fool" or do you have some other bizarre rationalization?

I DON'T think you care what I think. That's rather obvious because if
you did care, you'd publish. But what also appears clear is that you
don't care what anyone thinks and for some reason don't care about your
own "hypothesis" else you'd do something more than parade around your
claims that it's "indisputable."


> It probably makes your feel good
> > to believe what you do, but you're um, what's that word? Oh yes!
> > You're wrong. Others have told you this as well and from my vantage,
> > you've done poorly in dealing with them as well, relying heavily on
> > your pronouncements that you're correct coupled with some peculiar
> > definitions of words that the rest of us have agreed mean something
> > else. Nothing will convince you otherwise, so I'm not going to bother,
> > but you look more the kook than anything else in the process. Since
> > you don't seem to care to try to get your notions across outside of
> > usenet, whether or not you're a kook isn't of consequence though. You
> > are and will remain irrelevent, amusing perhaps, mostly annoying, but
> > irrelevent.
> >
> > > > your riduclous assertion
> > > > that we evolved from chimps, such that I don't really feel like you're
> > > > pronouncements about your views are warranted nor do I think that you'd
> > > > recognize a valid dispute if one was presented. Since on top of this,
> > > > you've seen some reason to avoid placing it in any realistic forum
> > >
> > > I think this forum is real.
> >
> > It is not a realistic place to be the sole recipient of an idea that
> > you believe is scientifically noteworthy and one which you want to have
> > any hope of making an impact anywhere where research is done. You will
> > NEVER be recognized in texts, cited in other papers or have anyone pay
> > attention to you at all when they formulate their ideas if you simply
> > post here. Your own rationalizations to the contrary as simply
> > delusional.
>
> It seems you are blaming me for your incompetence. Let's remember the
> score here. I'm the one with a hypothesis that you cannot dispute.
> You have no hypothesis at all.

This is again, not accurate. I have many hypotheses. My competence
here was not in question. I am the one with a publication record.
You have also not established that I cannot dispute your hypothesis.
This is your claim, but it is only your claim. I don't care to dispute
your hypothesis. I don't need to.

You, by the way, have admitted you have no hypothesis at all for the
initial colonization of the Americas. Ha! You have no hypothesis Jim!

> >
> > > > to
> > > > get critique or gain acceptance, I'm also left with the conclusion that
> > > > at some level, you don't give a rat's ass abou it either. Right or
> > > > wrong, you've made yourself irrelevent through your own doing.
> > > >
> > > > But if you're looking for something to try to patch in your
> > > > "hypothesis" how does your hypothesis reconcil adaptive fitness in the
> > > > individual with behaviors that are manifest only at the population
> > > > level
> > >
> > > Give me an example.
> >
> > This is where YOU are supposed to give an example. One of the major
> > detractions against group selection is that there is nothing guarding
> > against the "less fit" members of a community passing on their genes as
> > well.
>
> Yes, obviously. And I dealt with this issue in my hypothesis.

No, you didn't.

> > Organic evolution involves the change of allele frequencies in a
> > population over time.
>
> That's one way of defining it. But not the only way.

That is the definition of organic evolution that biologists today use.
If you are proposing another definition, you are not speaking towards
the same phenomena that scientists reference when they refer to
evolution. By using another definition (one in this case that you
don't make explicit) you obscure whatever it is you're talking about to
the point of meaninglessness.

> > This is accomplished by differential survival
> > and reproduction between those with and without particular alleles.
>
> Okay, I'm following your argument. Let's see if you actually have a
> point in all this.
>
>
> > If
> > the population is selected, by what means do alleles within the
> > population change in frequency?
>
> Come on, Jason. Use your head. You are making the common mistake of
> assuming the population and the selected group are one and the same.
> They are not. I'll give you some theoretical numbers that should
> clarify the situation for you. Population size = 500,000. Average
> group size = 500.
>
> I think you can figure it out from here without me having to spell it
> out for you.

I think you should spell it out if you hope to have a real hypothesis.
Try it. Try to compute the fitness of individuals in the population
and in groups and see what happens over time. Surely for a "world
class evolutionary theorist" something so basic in population biology
as expressing the change in adaptive fitness over time should be
elementary and easy. Why again is it that you haven't done this?

>
> > Or are the behaviors and traits you're
> > referring to not under genetic regulation? If they are, you have to
> > account for how they spread in a population, what mechanisms prevent
> > "cheaters" from prospering disproportionately (cheaters being those who
> > benefit from the behaviors of the group but do not similarly
> > participate and thus do not equally share the costs--this is a classic
> > problem, perhaps not insurmountable, but certainly one that has been
> > exceptionally difficult to reconcile with group selection models).
>
> I agree (and I'm a little surprised that you are even sophisticated
> enough to bring up this issue). This is the issue that Richard
> Alexander had such a difficult time with and it eventually caused him
> to give up the fight (* See below). He lacked the benefits of my
> paleoclimatological and biogeographical knowledge. As explained in my
> hypothesis, it was the emergence of the monsoon climate and the ensuing
> predatory massacres of the dry season that solved this issue. Because
> of these factors the fate of any member of a community was largely or
> completely tied to the fate of the community as a whole.
>
> http://tinyurl.com/d5cgw
>
> (*) Alexander correctly surmised that in order for an
> autocatalytic process to be actualized there had to have been some
> means by
> which the "losers or insipient losers" of any such socially oriented
> selective scenario couldn't just walk away without losing even bigger.
> In
> other words, Alexander realized that a necessary component of any such
> socially oriented, autocatalytic, selective process had to have
> involved the
> participants having little choice but to participate, with the only
> alternative being sure and certain death.
>
> > If
> > these behaviors are not result of some genetic regulation,
>
> How could they not be?
>
> > what you are
> > proposing is a cultural selection model (and this not at all a novel
> > idea of yours) and is independent of organic evolution.
>
> Cultural selection is mumbo jumbo nonsense. Only anthropologists talk
> this way.

Yet it's a demonstrated phenomenon, or do you believe that all cultural
differences are the result of genetic pre-determination? If so,
where's the gene for reality shows that seem to predominate recently?


> > Honestly, your
> > treatise or hypothesis or whatever you're calling it didn't adequately
> > address this.
>
> Address what? Be clear.

Address how the change in allelic frequencies in a population is
accomplished.

> > It wasn't a scientific model. It was a rambling bit
> > that wasn't completely off base and had interesting grains within in,
> > but wasn't anything close to being "indisputable."
>
> Well, then where's your dispute. Surely you must be aware of some
> piece of evidence that disputes it. No? Gee, that's too bad.

The dispute is that you've not demonstrated what you claim to have
demonstrated. You've spoken in your own 'mumbo jumbo' essentially by
using your own unqualified definition of evolution, one that doesn't
coincide with what other people refer to when they speak about organic
evolution. You have not demonstrated that the scenario you propose
would accomplish what you claim it will. Whether or not it does isn't
clear because you've proceeded with your own definition of evolution
and you've proceeded without expressing how change in a population
occurs. This IS a dispute. It's not a dispute that says you must be
wrong, but it's a dispute that you've demonstrated what you claim to
have demonstrated. Of course, you don't care what I or anyone else
thinks, but this again is why you're destined to be irrelevant.

> >
> > > > and don't appear to assist others with biological relationships
> > > > (and consequently, similar genetic makeup) over those with whom no
> > > > close ties are shared? It's all well and good to say that you're a
> > > > group selectionist, but your model doesn't actually address the
> > > > mechanisms in any detail with which to address this.
> > >
> > > Mechanism? For group selection you have to have groups. This may seem
> > > obvious but it's really not. Geographic factors--in the context of the
> > > monsoon forest habitat--delineated the first human groups. I'm sure
> > > you remember from having read my hypothesis: town-sized, city-sized
> > > patches of remaining forest habitat, islands in a sea of most treeless
> > > and large-mammal dominated habitat.
> >
> > You are not describing a mechanism of organic evolution, the change in
> > the genetic makeup of a population over time. What makes the allele
> > frequencies change?
>
> Differential survival, as indicated in my hypothesis. Obviously the
> groups that avoid the predatory massacres are the ones that pass on
> their genes. It's not like you couldn't have figured this part out on
> your own.

Indicate (even hypothetically) how the survival is regulated
genetically. Then express how change due to differential survival
spreads this in a population. Keep in mind how 'cheaters' in a
population also benefit because this is the fatal flaw in every group
selection explanation yet proposed. If you cannot demonstrate the
population genetics change, you have not demonstrated that your
hypothesis is worth anything.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Beyond the Savanna Mentality
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