Re: Holowness of SBE

From: Tim Tyler (tim_at_tt1lock.org)
Date: 12/07/04 

Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 21:25:34 +0000 (UTC)

Jim McGinn <jimmcginn@yahoo.com> wrote or quoted:
> Tim Tyler <tim@tt1lock.org> wrote in message news:<coebn2$1m04$1@darwin.ediacara.org>...
> > Jim McGinn <jimmcginn@yahoo.com> wrote or quoted:

> > > > Hamilton's rule is accepted because the majority
> > > > of scientists who have taken a hard look at it think it has some
> > > > validity.
> > >
> > > Some validity? What does this supposedly mean?
> > > Either it is valid or it is invalid. Sounds like
> > > nothing more than an excuse for vagueness.

[...]

> > Green beards and linkage provide more wrinkles on Hamilton's rule.
> >
> > Similarly, Newtonian physics "has some validity" - even though we
> > now have a more accurate theory.
>
> Relevance?

You asked what "some validity" was supposed to mean (above).

If a theory is either valid or invalid (as you suggest) then
Newtonian physics would have to be identified as an incorrect
theory - since it was refuted by Einstien and others.

However that is a poor characterisation overall - it suggests
the theory is not much use. It would probably be better to say
that Newtonian physics has some validity.

Similarly with Hamilton's rule - it doesn't necessarily give the right
answers if the problem involves the green beard effect or segregation
distorters - but then again, the distinctions between gene-level
relatedness and organism-level relatedness were not something it ever
claimed to be modelling in the first place. 

-- 
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