Re: Issues: A Question Of Integrity (was: Issues)
- From: "Perplexed in Peoria" <jimmenegay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 01:14:45 -0400 (EDT)
"John Edser" <edser@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:dc2ukc$233i$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
> JE:-
> I have waited a while to view the responses to Jim's posting. I
> predicted that NAS will evaded the central issue and he/she has. NAS
> refused to reply to my last post on the subject I was interested in his
> response to Jim. The only issue here that actually matters here is what
> constitutes correct and incorrect fitness accounting for Hamilton's
> only proactive actor.
>
> >> JE:-
> >> Hamilton's Rule is used to diagnose when an "altruistic" gene could
> >> spread. In essence Postmodernism means "everything is relative" and
> >> indeed, everything within Hamilton's Rule does remains relative. It
> is
> >> argued that when rb>c Hamilton's gene for "altruism" spreads where
> >> "altruism" is diagnosed as any positive c (a fitness quantity
> >> transferred by Hamilton's one and only proactive actor).
>
>
> >JM:-
> >John, do you choose words so as to deliberately distort, or do you
> >choose the words you do because you are confused? I think that it
> >is a bit of both.
>
> JE:-
> It is neither. I use words to produce an UNAMBIGUOUS meaning whereas it
> appears to me that yourself , NAS and the Neo Darwinistic establishment
> appear to prefer ambiguity in order to evade testing over simplified Neo
> Darwinistic fitness assumptions to refutation.
>
> >> JM:-
> >> Let's start with that word "transferred". You say that, in Hamiltons
> >> view, fitness is "transferred" from donor (actor) to beneficiary.
> >> But no defender of Hamilton has ever (AFAIK) used language like that
> >> to describe what happens. Fitness is not transferred. Fitness
> >> CANNOT be transferred.
>
> JE:-
> I entirely agree that "Fitness CANNOT be transferred" within any valid
> science of biology. However NAS representing the Neo Darwinian
> establishment insists that fitness is transferred via the variable b
> where this is only possible using just a HEURISTIC FITNESS proposition.
> Has it finally dawned on anybody here that Hamilton's Rule was and
> remains just a heuristic fitness exercise?
>
> >> JM:-
> >>What happens in an altruistic act is that
> >>the donor loses (sacrifices) some fitness (c), and the recipient gains
> >>some fitness (b). The quantity lost and the quantity gained may be
> very
> >>different. There is no transfer of fitness. You know this, everyone
> >>else knows this. I can only assume that you used the word "transfer"
> >> here as a deliberate distortion.
>
> JE:-
> I entirely agree that fitness cannot be transferred! I have always
> argued that what Neo Darwinians term a "fitness" remains just a hand
> waving exercise. What is actually transferred using Hamilton's Rule are
> simply b resources that limit fitness. However, when I previously
> argued this point NAS insisted that only a b fitness is actually
> transferred. What he means is that he wishes to define "fitness" to be
> just about anything that comes to hand, i.e. just reduce fitness to a
> hand waving exercise.
I don't know what words NAS used to say this. But he was correct to
point out that "b" is not directly a measure of resources transferred
(though I agree with you that there may well be a transfer of
resources). In Hamilton's rule, "b" is a measure of fitness -
it is the increase in the fitness of the recipient by virtue of
the fact that the recipient receives.
> >> JM:-
> >>Now lets look at that word "diagnose". You say that Hamilton's rule
> >>is used to "diagnose" when an "altruistic" gene will spread. But
> >>most people would have said "predict".
>
> JE:-
> No. Dr Guy Hoelzer severely criticised my previous use of "predict" and
> "measure". He made an issue out of the fact that Hamilton's Rule does
> not predict or measure anything and he is quite correct! Thus I employ
> the word "diagnose" which means even if no measure allowing a prediction
> exists, something is still able to be "diagnosed" via a simple 100%
> relative comparison of rb to c (which is all the rule actually does).
Again, I don't know what words Hoelzer used to say this. Certainly,
I would agree with him that Hamilton's rule does not measure anything.
You make measurements normally, then plug those measurements into
the rule.
As to "predict", I stand by the word. If rb>c, then the rule states
that the gene(s) causing the behavior will tend to increase in
frequency in the population. There is a certain amount of statistical
slop in this prediction, and you probably have to stick in a clause
about "all other things being equal", but I would call it a "prediction".
> > > JM:-
> >> The rule "predicts" that
> >>a gene will spread if "rb>c". You "diagnose" whether a gene has
> >>actually spread either directly by measuring an increase in the
> >>frequency of the gene in the population, or indirectly by measuring
> >>an increase in the frequency of the behavior in the population, or
> >>VERY indirectly by noticing that the behavior is common in the
> >> population and hence must have spread sometime in the past.
>
> JE:-
> All the rule can do empirically is compare the freq. of one allele
> compared to one other within one population at just one moment in time.
> The ownership of any of these alleles remains all mixed up so any
> parental fitness they represent is just a dogs breakfast. The alleles
> reproduced by the actor are selected on a Darwinian basis but the kin
> selected alleles are NOT, they are group selected as one rb multiple
> so what any one allele actually represents as an allocated independent
> fitness remains anybodies guess. Of course this only leaves gene
> centricity to attempt to salvage the allocated fitness of any one allele
> hence Dawkins analysis and his creation of 2nd but entirely heuristic
> gene level of selection which is supposed to be able to compete and win
> against the empirically based Darwinian fertile form level (from which
> Dawkins gene level was oversimplified!).
>
> > > JM:-
> >>but then you use that same odd word "diagnose" when you say that
> >>"altruism" is diagnosed as any positive c. Most people would write
> >>that "altruism" is DEFINED as a positive c. (Well, actually, they
> >>would say that it is defined as a positive c AND a positive b).
>
> JE:-
> It makes little difference if you use the word "diagnosed" or "defined"
> except that diagnosed is not just a definitional dictate so it is the
> better word.
It is not a better word if we are talking about a "definitional dictate".
I suspect that a good deal of your confusion is that you simply
don't like the definition of "altruism" that Hamilton provided. You
think that you already know what "altruism" is, and Hamilton didn't
even come close to the "real" meaning.
Ok. So call Hamilton's thing (positive c, positive b) something else.
Call it Haltruism, if you wish. Hamilton said that a "gene for
Haltruism" will increase in frequency if the Haltruistic behavior
caused by the gene satisfies "rb>c". Do you think that Hamilton
has provided a correct rule for Haltruism?
> Because only Hamilton's actor is ALONE proactive and the
> group selected recipients are defined to remain entirely passive then
> only the sign of c is actually diagnostic as to what the actor paid as a
> gross cost. The simple fact remains that in the rule wherever the sign
> of c is positive this gross cost represents a DEBIT to the actor whereas
> in the transformed rule (after the rule has been multiplied by -1) the
> negative sign of c represents an actor CREDIT. This is a REFUTABLE
> proposition. Unless you argue that both the negative c in the
> transformed rule and the positive c in the rule represents an actor
> DEBIT, your argument, and the Neo Darwinian position stands refuted.
> Integrity entirely depends the use of reason to establish which position
> stands refuted which is either my position OR the Neo Darwinian
> establishment that you choose to side with. Any evasion of refutation
> employed by myself, yourself or the Neo Darwinistic establishment
> provides proof of a lack of integrity by the evader. Ok?
John, your "rule in a mirror" argument doesn't make sense to me.
Perhaps if you used numbers it would be clearer. The donor would
have a fitness of 1.05 if he didn't act Haltruistically, but has
a fitness of only 0.95 since he does act Haltruistically. So
c = 0.10. The recipient would have had a fitness of 0.5 if the
donor had not acted, but since the donor did act, his actual fitness
is 1.00. So b = 0.5. Assume that r = 0.25. Check whether rb>c
0.25 * 0.50 > 0.10 ... It is true.
Now, what is it that you think happens when you employ your magic
mirror?
.
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- From: John Edser
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