Re: A FUNDAMENTAL ISSUE

 
"g" <gillawton@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote

Hi Gil,

Firstly, my apologies for any delay. I depend of receiving sbe as an email
sent by Josh . However, nothing was sent to my email address this week.

>> Popper's refutation tool is the only thing that can
>> remove evasion because it prohibits it _entirely_.
>> I employ Hamilton's Rule as a litmus test of gene centric Neo Darwinism.
>> The rule cannot possibly do what Neo Darwinists insist that it can:
>> provide an empirically based rationale for the evolution of organism
>> fitness altruism within nature. The Neo Darwinists that post here refuse
>> to take any responsibility for the consistent misuse of this model.

>snip<
> Let me see if I can break down the above and ask you to explain it as you
> would to a bright fourth grader:
>>I employ Hamilton's Rule as a litmus test of gene centric Neo Darwinism.
> If I had never heard of Hamilton's Rule nor Darwinism nor New Darwinism,
and
> if I had never used litmus paper to test the ph of something, and you
really
> wanted to explain this, how might you word it?

JE:-
Ok. Some very powerful guys think they can explain why some living things
appear to help each other even when this provides a risk of almost certain
death to the helper. To be able to do so they made up some maths called
?Hamilton?s Rule? which they say provides an correct explanation as to how
this type of behavior evolves in nature. While mathematical models are ok
they cannot replace reality. For example, your favorite scaled down model of
the titanic, while true in many details, cannot even support your pet cat in
our pond let alone 1000?s of people in the open sea like the real titanic
did before it sank. Even worse then that your model actually has one side
removed just so we can see the engine room etc more easily so it would not
even float! A reduced size model that can float is called ?simplified? while
a model boat that cannot even float is called ?oversimplified?. The only
reason these models even exist is because they help us to understand the
things that we know and love. It would be really silly if anybody said that
their favorite model can replace the thing they were modeled from. However,
this type of silly business appears to be happening a lot these days by
people who should know better. In a study called "Neo Darwinism" a model
called "Hamilton?s Rule" (which is a model just like a model boat) was used
to replace the idea it was modeled from which is this case was a really good
idea put forward by Darwin and Wallace over 150 years ago. Models can be
very useful because they are much easier and cheaper to study than the real
thing. However they become more than useless if they attempt replace the
reality they were modeled from. This type of silly business appears to be
happening a lot these days so the model called Hamilton?s Rule may be useful
to study to try to find out why. This is like using those bits of paper
called ?litmus paper? that are in your chemistry set. These turn pink/red
for acids like lemon juice or a shade of blue for alkalis like baking soda
except that this time we are testing the difference between truth and
untruth in Neo Darwinism using Hamilton's Rule as a litmus paper.

>> JE
>> The rule cannot possibly do what Neo Darwinists insist that it can:

> Again, if I had never heard of Darwin nor of Neo Darwinism, how would you
> explain to me that there are some people who believe (whatever) and what
it
> is they believe that you do not.

JE:-
Darwin and Wallace explained how one species can evolve from another in such
a way that anybody in the world could test the truth or untruth of it for
themselves but only if they could think. Sadly, most people cannot think so
their idea made a really big stink. It challenged the accepted idea which
could not be tested, that each species remains fixed because it was only
believed they were separately created. Neither Darwin or Wallace knew what
exactly was passed on from parent to parent but a monk called Mendel who
lived before Darwin and Wallace had already worked that out doing some
experiments on plants. Sadly, neither Darwin or Wallace ever found that out.
After Darwin and Wallace died Mendel?s experiments were rediscovered. Mendel
had found out that only things called genes are passed on from parent to
children. These coded for some of the things we can observe about ourselves
like eye color, how tall we are or what color skin that we have. The people
who attempted to join what Mendel had found out to what Darwin and Wallace
had found out were called ?Neo Darwinists?. They had a really hard job ahead
of them because each one of us has many genes but we pass on just a jumble
of half of them to each of our children. Darwin and Wallace?s idea stated
that parents can be selected for or against in nature without anything that
knows what it is doing. This may seem silly but can be proven to happen in
nature. They called this very important process ?natural selection?. It was
this they said caused the evolution of one species into another but only
over very long periods of time. Darwin and Wallace allowed nature to select
individual parents but the Neo Darwinists decided to allow nature to select
individual genes in just a mathematical model of what was actually happening
in nature because this was much easier. In nature individual genes are not
selected, only individual parents, each of which have about 30,000 genes
which are all selected at once every time just one parent is selected.

>> JE:-
>> provide an empirically based rationale for the evolution of organism
>> fitness altruism within nature.

> If I did not know the meaning of 'empirically based,' nor what a rationale

> is, what everyday words could be used to state your meaning here.

JE:-
For nature to be able to select things (even though nobody anywhere is
making a selection) a measure called ?fitness? is used. This just means how
well you fit in with your surroundings. Taller people often play basketball
better than shorter people whereas shorter people are often make better
weight lifters. This is why over time, the players in each game tend to
become a certain body type. This is something like natural selection because
the game of sport and not just a person is doing the selecting. This sort of
thing is called a ?rationale? simply because it makes sense. In nature,
parents with more fitness marks are selected for and those with less
selected against, no matter if they like it or not. As a result many genes
are selected for and against each and every time just one individual parent
is selected for or against. Because all of this can be observed within
nature it is called an ?empirically based? rationale which means it makes
sense of nature. If it could only ever be observed as just numbers on a bit
of paper it would be called a model. The model that each gene is selected
and not each parent is only ever observed as just numbers on a bit of paper
so it is just a non empirically based logic, i.e. does not make sense of
nature just a model of nature. What we call science is only interested in
what actually happens in nature so what happens as just numbers on bits of
paper must also be what actually happens in nature to make any sense.

> Now, as for the term 'altruism,' it is another fuzzy term.
> I know my saying that will drive at least one sbe contributor you and I
know
> and like up the wall.  But what that one never seems to answer is the
basic
> question of how he would explain its meaning without using that buzz word.

JE:-
The correct term is: ?cost?.

> If a word is a fuzzy buzz word, and a person has no ability to find any
less
> ambiguous way of explaining something he claims to understand... that
leaves
> me no choice but to wonder whether "quotations" and formal
> definitions comprise true understanding.

> Have you ever taught classes.  I have. 

JE:-
Yes I have. I have the utmost respect for the naïve honesty of most
questions asked by students, particularly what is often incorrectly referred
to ?obvious? or ?silly? questions. One of the best questions I have ever
been asked was: ?do two dead halves of a sheep equal one live sheep??


> And if you have, then you will know
> by experience what I am talking about when I say that there are students
who
> can memorize things all day long and spit them out on exam papers; but it
is
> a rare and rewarding experience to find a student who can explain
something
> equally as clearly as the text book he learns from, or even MORE clearly
> than the book version.

>snip for brevity<

JE:-
Yes, the more gifted students (IMHO) asked more ?stupid? questions and did
either worse OR better on standard tests.

My Regards,

John Edser
Independent Researcher

edser@xxxxxxxxxx






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