Re: Complexity

From: John Edser (edser_at_tpg.com.au)
Date: 06/14/04 

Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 16:34:39 +0000 (UTC)

>>>JE:-
>>>Pardon me butting in but..
>>>please state what would be EXCLUDED from such an
>>>_amazingly_ wide acceptance of what you insist can
>>>_scientifically_ constitute "evolution", i.e. please
>>>provide at least one example of a _non_ evolutionary
>>>change within a biological system.

> BOH:-
> Any change that isn't heritable.

> JE:-
> The above becomes a self fulfilling prophecy
> when genetic epistasis is _defined_ as "inherited"
> but not "heritable" and thus, "selectable".

BOH:-
Huh? From the OED definition of heritable: Naturally
transmissible or transmitted from parent to offspring;
hereditary. You're mixing up being heritable with the
qunatitative genetic concept of "heritability" (=the
proportion of variance in a trait due to additive genetic
variation). They are not the same thing.

JE:-
"Heritability" and "heritable" mean
the same thing: a selectable trait.
You used the word "heritable"
and not the word "heritability" as in:
"Any change that isn't heritable".

If you suggest that an example
of a non evolutionary change is _any_
non heritable change then my example
of epistasis constitutes a valid
example of a defined non heritable
change because it is _not_ "the proportion
of variance in a trait due to additive
genetic variation, it only refers to
NON additive variation. You are the
Neo Darwinist professional. Please explain
the difference between "heritable",
"heritability" and "inherited"
so that it makes _logical_ sense to
rational people.

To help clarify things could you please
supply an actual, specific. biological
case of a non heritable and thus non
selectable, trait.

>>>LM:-
>>>Did you have something else in mind that would
>>>shift random genetic drift into second place?

>>>JE:-
>>>Darwinian natural selection, exactly as Darwin
>>>stated it but with his implicit assumptions
>>>made explicit.

>>BOH:-
>>I think I should point out that John's definition of fitness excludes
>>the possibility of drift (because he defines fitness in terms of the
>>actual number of offspring, rather than the expected value).

>>JE:-
>>Dr O'Hara has misrepresented my position.
>>Drift is _included_ as temporal variation
>>(random variation over time) within Darwinian
>>selective events.

> BOH:-
> John, what is your definition of fitness? I was specifically describing
> your definition of fitness, but in your reply you didn't make any
> mention of it, so it's not clear to me how I've misrepresented you.

> JE:-
> It is not how I define it but how Darwin
> would have defined it after his implicit
> assumptions were made explicit.
> I have posted what Darwinian fitness is (and the
> reverse engineering experiment needed to prove it)
> countless times, including, within this thread.
> _____________________________________________________
> Darwinian fitness is the _total_ number of _fertile_
> forms reproduced by _one_ Darwinian selectee
> (one fertile form) within _one_ population.
> _____________________________________________________

BOH:-
OK, so my point is that drift is the difference between observed and
[mathematical] expectation of the change in allele frequency (the
expectation coming from a model of selection, using the conventional
definition of fitness):

JE:-
The "the conventional definition of fitness" is only
relative at just ONE single point in time but the Darwinian
definition is an absolute total over a defined TIME FRAME:
the time required for one parent to complete one Darwinian
total, within one population, i.e., the time required to raise
to fertile adulthood all the immatures that a parent reproduced.
Because the Darwinian fitness measure constitutes a finite total
it exists unchanged over all of evolutionary history so you could
reconstruct all selective events, just given this history. A
lineage is composed of set of parental Darwinian totals where
each total remains absolutely independent of every other within
one population. Totals within one population can be mathematically
combined but when they are, e.g. to form a composite fitness,
the Darwinian level of selection is _always_ selected _firstly_.
Additive fitnesses are ALWAYS sequential, i.e. NEVER simultaneous.
Jim McGinn's model of an infinite number of simultaneous levels
of selection that he incorrectly concludes has no selective focus
is just the absurd result that you must end up producing when you delete
all absolute measures of fitness within evolutionary theory. What
is selected FIRSTLY within SEQUENTIAL levels of selection drastically
alters what any composite selective effect can have. Only the
first additive (independent) level of selection remains significant
because only it can determine the direction of selective change. If
a 2nd or subsequent additive level of selection selects against the
first testable additive level that exists within nature, then Darwinian
totals become absolutely reduced and the population heads for extinction.
Subsequent additive levels of selection must go with and not against, the
first additive level that exists within nature. Multi level theorists
refuse to admit that such a SIMPLE logic is actually operating
within evolutionary theory so they just bury their heads in the
sands of indifference and pretend that ONLY a relative fitness
comparison at any instant in time is all that is required to measure
any natural selective event. In turn, this has allowed "any gene freq. in
a deme" to constitute a so called "objective" measure of evolution
within gene centric Neo Darwinism which cannot
differentiate between a random and non random process. The
error is enormous.

BOH:-
the total number of fertile offspring is the sum
of the expected number, and the drift effect.

JE:-
Because any absolute measure of fitness
has to, since it must also include all
variation within one evolutionary change.
Please note that a relative measure of fitness
is not sufficient simply because you cannot
differentiate between organism fitness altruism
(OFA) and organism fitness mutualism (OFM) using
just one relative comparative measure.

While it is possible to separately measure
the variation caused by random patterns from
variation caused by non random patterns,
it is not possible to say that a random
variation pattern must have been caused by
just, a random process. Drift theorists refuse
to admit that this is the case and has always
been the case throughout the history of science.
This is why science throws out random patterns
as inconclusive.

BOH:-
Your definition conflates
the effects of selection and drift, by defining fitness in terms of the
obseved number. Any random variation in the number of offspring that we
would ascribe to drift you would include in the fitness measure, and
hence would ascribe to selection.

JE:-
Yes, because Darwinian selection is the only testable theory
of evolutionary change that we have, even today. Suggesting
that just a random pattern can constitute a valid pattern of
evolution without requiring any non random process
remains, absurd. Why do you refuse to comment on the experimental
test that I proposed, that demonstrated (what everybody
already knows): selection can cause evolution without
random sampling error (genetic drift) but random sampling
error cannot cause evolution without selection, only the
dissipation of Darwinian selectees? To _experimentally_ test if
a random pattern like sampling error can cause an evolutionary
change on its own, selection must be controlled. Such a requirement
is just basic science. Why does Dr Moran et al refuse to submit their
view to a controlled experimental test? Why is basic science being
denied in this case?

Regards,

John Edser
Independent Researcher

PO Box 266
Church Pt
NSW 2105
Australia

edser@tpg.com.au

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