Re: The "fuel" of evolution

From: Guy Hoelzer (hoelzer_at_unr.edu)
Date: 12/06/04 

Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 05:15:22 +0000 (UTC)

in article cofm83$225i$1@darwin.ediacara.org, phillip smith at
deletethis-phills@ihug.co.nz wrote on 11/29/04 9:28 AM:

> In other words fitness is not a property of individuals ?

Of course. I don't know of any claim to the contrary. We model the fitness
of classes of individuals (e.g., genotypes) as if it were an inherent
property for convenience, but I have never seen an argument supporting this
view as "real." If you can provide ANY example of an individual that you
think has inherently high fitness, it would be simple to suggest an
environment in which that individual's qualities would be selected against
(e.g., a fish out of water).

Fitness has no real existence, even as an inherent individual quality. It
is merely a heuristically useful concept, which should not be confused with
reality.

Regards,

Guy Hoelzer

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