Re: The "fuel" of evolution

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Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 04:19:09 +0000 (UTC)

Guy Hoelzer <hoelzer@unr.edu> wrote:-

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

> >>>> GH:-
> >>>> Of course. I don't know of any claim to the contrary.

> >>> JE:-
> >>> Incorrect.
> >>> Total Darwinian fitness which at the gene level represents
> >>> just one epistatic fitness which remains the only scientific
> >>> concept of fitness within evolutionary theory
> >>> because it can be tested to refutation. I have
> >>> outlined an experiment (not just a model) that can
> >>> do so. Total Darwinian fitness is: the total number of
> >>> fertile forms reproduced into one population by
> >>> a parent. It is finite and not infinite and is
> >>> calculated as an _independent_ parental fitness.

> >> GH:-
> >> None of this relates directly to the question of whether fitness is a
> >> (inherent) property of individuals. As I went on to point out
> >> in the post
> >> from which the comment above was taken, it is a property of the
> >> interaction
> >> between individuals (at any level of organization exhibiting
> >> reproduction)
> >> and their environments.

> > JE:-
> > Dr Hoelzer is mistaking just a relative fitness
> > comparison for the totals that must exist _before_
> > any such comparison can become logically possible. These
> > totals are absolutely the property of the individual/
> > individuals who produced them.

> GH:-
> My point applies equally to measures of relative fitness and so-called
> measures of absolute fitness.

JE:-
The enviroment can only be factored into fitness
totals as a limiting and not a controlling, factor.
Living systems have to import energy, temporarily
reduce entrophy within a strictly defined region
called "the self" and finally (but only hopefully),
reproduce self before entrophy must leak
in to destroy it. The "environemnt" is
anything that is "non self" which can affect this
process. Dr Holzler is simply deleting the self as
THE basic line in the sand because non refutable gene
centricity requires it, i.e. for his own convenience.

For Darwinism one self is just one
fertile form. The first job of self is to react to
environmental forces to maintin itself, i.e. homeostasis.
This requires an action/reation process that is not
as simple as the mathematics of a stone denting a car
fender! Living systems must constantly repair the dent,
i.e. not just passively react by producing a dent.
Nobody has any mathematics to describe how the
dent (phenotype) is developed. Waddington tried
to make this basic point but remains soundly ignored.

Since the environment is not very predictable the next
best thing to predicting it is to produce it. One of
the largly misunderstood benefits of Darwinian Fitness
Mutualisation (only loosly termed cooperation by Neo
Darwinists) is the group as a more predictable
selective force (NOT as a group selectee with
which it is very commonly confused).

The continued focus of gene centric Neo Darwinism
on just Hamilton's heuristic organsim fitness altrusim
concept has fruitlessly diverted attention away from
the overpowering gains that only fitness mutualisation
can provide. Nobody has asked the question what happens
when organism fitness altruism is forced to compete with
organism fitness mutualism. The answer is always the
same. Mutualism wins hands down.

> GH:-
> To illustrate the power of the
> environmental
> influence over fitness, try putting any organism of your choosing
> into, say,
> a bath of molten lava. I'll bet that I can predict the number of offspring
> it will produce without even knowing its species.

JE:-
Of course. A limiting factor can overpower
a living system's power of active response and reduce its
fitness to zero simply because that system could not
respond adequatly to A force that anilated it.
Such events are common. What concerns evolutionary
theory is what remains selectable and therefore
evolvable in such a situation? The answer
is: any response that _prevents_ fitness anilation,
i.e. lifts Total Darwinian Fitness to be > 0. Unless
at least one form can produce this response evolution
is not AT ALL impossible.

Selectable responses are the very stuff of evolution.
Any form that can avoid being put in a bath of lava
produces a selectable response that nature can work
with. Hence the evolution of complexity which allows
learning to avoid such situations and fitness mutualisation
that can allow groups to predict and/or stop such events.

> >> GH:-
> >> For example, " the total number of fertile forms
> >> reproduced into one population by a parent" depends on the
> >> qualities of the
> >> environment in which the individual exists.

> > JE:-
> > The environment does not produce this total
> > the parents do, on a fitness independent basis.

> GH:-
> I don't know what "on a fitness independent basis" might mean here,..

JE:-
Independent in fitness forms must
contest every other within one
evolving population, i.e. the Darwinian
fertile organism level represents
a fully independent and not a dependent
level of fitness. This means fertile
organisms are only selected at this
exact level of selection and not at
any supposed higher level.

> GH:-
> but I
> never claimed that the environment "produces" offspring. My claim is that
> biological production, including reproduction, is a consequence of the
> INTERACTION between organisms and their environments.

JE:-
I have never denied "that biological production,
including reproduction, is a consequence of the
INTERACTION between organisms and their environments".
My view was and remains, that this interaction does not mean the
environment was causative to fitness. It just means the
environment can limit any organisms selectable response
to that environment. Any selectable response contitutes fitness
which can only have one objective measure: a total of
viable forms reproduced by each selectee into one population.
No other _objective_ measure of fitness exists. Dr Hoelzer
wishes to attempt to substitute his "hand waving concept"
of fitness that cannot be tested to refutation for a
fully objective and testable Darwinian Total Fitness.
When criticised he simply deletes Popperian refutation
to remove the problem. This is the same logic as
turning off a smoke alarm after a fire has started
to put out the fire.

> > JE:-
> > This being the case the environment can only limit
> > these totals. Parents attempt to maximise their
> > Darwinian Fitness Total no matter what environment
> > they may find themselves within, no exceptions.
> > This is because those that do not are selected
> > against over those that do.

> GH:-
> I agree that organisms tend to reproduce, but I do not agree with this
> statement on several fronts.

JE:-
It would help if you would outline
what these "fronts" are.

>snip<

> > JE:-
> > Please provide your (so far) missing
> > rational for deleting Popper's entirely _basic_
> > requirement of providing a point of refutation
> > for any valid scientific theory.

> GH:-
> Refutation can only be achieved at the theoretical level for universal
> claims, such as "___" can never happen.

JE:-
Unless a proposition can claim
"___" can never happen, it cannot
even be understood, let alone tested.
This is because the most basic level
of "___" can never happen is any
common contradiction.
If a view cannot even provide an anti-
thesis to itself then it is just a
nonsensical proposition because it allows
its own contradiction within the one, same
view. Such nonsense views are commonly termed
"magical".

A common example of a refutable level
for universal claim is any supposed
constant. Every rational proposition
has to have one. If you disagree
please provide just one example of
any supposed rational proposition that
does not employ a single constant.

I think Dr Hoelzer is confusing
universality with non divisibility.
Constants can remain divisible
and universal e.g. mass within
Newtonian mechanics. Darwinian
fitness is likewise, divisible
but entirely a universal constant
of evolutionary theory representing
a maximand fitness within the science
of biology. What that is missing
is an _exact_ measurement of its
heritability. Because the
heritability of Total Darwinian
Fitness is entirely epistatic
it remains deleted via the
Neo Darwinian modelling process
of over simplification (Popper was
deleted along with it).

> GH:-
> I am happy to have
> plausible claims
> of universalities subject to the possibility of refutation, but it is very
> rare to have theories that yield universal claims in science.

JE:-
It is simply not true that "it is very
rare to have theories that yield
universal claims in science". All
valid theories of science are linked
to such claims because all of them
employ at least one constant, no exceptions.
This includes evolutionary
theory which remains based on a
Darwiniam maximand fitness which
can be represented a constant.

> GH:-
> This trend
> may change in the distant future, but for the vast majority of scientific
> theories, refutation is not possible. This includes Darwin's theory of
> adaptive evolution through natural selection.

JE:-
I have outlined an experiemnt that
can test Total Darwinian Fitness
to refutation. So far your only
comment is, "interesting". If you
argue that this experiment cannot
make the test I claim that it can please
provide the rational of this argument.

>snip<

My Regards,

John Edser
Independent Researcher

PO Box 266
Church Pt
NSW 2105
Australia

edser@tog.com.au

• Previous message: Peter F: "Holiness of SBE or anything else"
• Maybe in reply to: Guy Hoelzer: "Re: The "fuel" of evolution"
• Next in thread: John Edser: "Re: The "fuel" of evolution"
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