Re: Fundamental theorems, dilemmas, fitness, and information.



> It is important to realize that Fisher and Haldane are
> dealing with different issues. Fisher is dealing with
> an increase in fitness. Haldane is dealing with an
> increase in INFORMATION. But the two issues are
> interrelated because it is the information that makes
> the fitness possible.
>

As to dealing with increase of fitness, suppose a family
of wildebeests were to live in the vicinity of a family
of cheetahs. It is doubtful the resulting predation would
result in wildebeests that can be clocked at 70 mph over
a period of a generation or two. The rates of mutation
and reproduction would not be sufficient to weed out
the quick from the dead quite so rapidly as that, although
it might have occurred over a longer period of time with
ostriches. Who knows?

As to information, let us suppose a group of gazelles
were to raise their tails upon smelling or sighting a
cheetah, so that other cheetahs could see the signal from
a considerable distance, and each, upon seeing it, would
raise his tail, so that any others would see the signal and
respond. Now let the gazelles multiply rapidly as a result
of the fact that only rarely would a cheetah family get a
meal of gazelle, because gazelles for miles around would
quickly learn there was a cheetah on the hunt.

Now let us move the clock forward. The gazelles, not
being predated very much, would increase by leaps and
bounds until they numbered in the tens of thousands.

At some point a problem occurs with the information,
because when one tail goes up, there is a domino effect,
resulting in tens of thousands of tails going up, and all
the gazelles within a hundred square miles are dashing
madly to and fro, instead of eating. The result is that
the gazelles become so emaciated that a drought comes
along and they all die off from starvation, but not quite
all, because when the population became thinned down
to a sufficient extent, the gazelles, by way of random
migration, would not be close enough together for a
single cheetah to cause a panic in the next valley and
the one beyond it.

The limit in this instance would be of a different dynamic.
The benefit of sending and receiving of the information
of tail-up, or tail-down, would be controlled by the
parameter of comparative population density.

The ultimate point, therefore, becomes as follows: the
creative mind can come up with quite a large number of
suppositional scenarios; but if one wants to narrow down
what occurs in the field, one's scientific curiosity is best
served by going out there and spending a lot of time
watching.

It is only when the creative mind wishes to find an
explanation for something that happened in the past --
especially tens of thousands, or millions of years in the
past, that there becomes an problem of imagination
overload... information overload...

Well... you know what I mean.

(:>)

g


.

Relevant Pages
Loading