Re: Underestimating 'r'


"Tim Tyler" <tim@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:dhml43$1f57$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Criticisms of Hamilton's thinking in this group are common - and
> rarely seem to be received very well, so it's with some hesitation
> that I post on a related subject.

Tim,

In evaluating the contribution by ANY thinker to the "honing" of man's
thinking, it is important that we keep in mind the distinction between
logical impiricist thinking and on-going corrective thinking. There are two
kinds of "laws," of course: prescriptive and descriptive. Some argue over
which science uses. It uses both. Not to be frivolous about it, but if
there were no prescriptive law, requiring motor vehicle drivers to stop for
red lights, it would be hard for a laboratory researcher to get to his
laboratory in one piece. And, even inside the laboratory, itself,
prescriptive rules written or unwritten, are important.

When my sister was doing intracellular trauma research with Baylor U., she
was in charge of an experiment with laboratory animals in which various
metabolytes were injected in the vicinities of burns on laboratory animals.
Rules were agreed to by all the principles, one of which was to turn off the
lights at a the end of the evening shift and turn them on at a certain time
each morning. None of the principles to the experiment liked working
weekends, so a schedule was made to alternate them. One Monday morning,
about three weeks into the experiment, my sister came into the control area
and found the lights had been left on. She demanded that the experiment be
started over from scratch.

Why?

Well, let me put it this way, commercially raised chickens are subjected to
light and fresh food and water 24-and-seven, and this is a key part of the
reason they grow to adult size in a fraction of the time it would take in a
barnyard setting. The scheduled turning off and turning on of lights is no
casual nor petty parameter if one gives a damn about controlling any
replicable experiment.

That being as important as it is, do we say then that science is not about
prescriptive "laws" and only about descriptive laws. (Please bear with the
loose application of the term "laws.")

But now let's focus on prescriptive laws.

When Newton said words to the effect of, "I make no hypotheses," he
expressed a logical empiricist bias.
Of COURSE he made hypotheses. Excellent ones, for his day. But physicists
have had to make quite a few adjustments to conceptualizations Newton
believed to be "ultimately accurate and universal." Having had the mind he
had, I have no doubt he would be QUICK to agree with this trend -- given a
chance to see all the new evidence.

He was a little bit hung up on the notion that we can describe something
once, and if we do a good enough job of it, that takes care of that. In his
day, he was right. When he advised, however, that a panel of scientists
should have a high seat of authority in respect to government, he was
suggesting what some of us today might think of as the danger of "tyranny of
the cognoscenti." The trouble with prescriptive power is implied by this
attitude which can be found among many intellectuals today. And saying this
takes NOTHING away from the great contributions they make. One of the
problems with power is, of course, that it corrupts. Another is that it
tends to become entrenched. And, also, as the histories of the successors
to kings has established, we cannot trust even the most doting successor to
a great idea to
continue to upgrade it (nor even to apply it consistently in its un-upgraded
form).

Like ALL the deserving heros of science, Newton was not perfect -- not in
MANY ways. But he did not have benefit of knowing what you and I know today
regarding the fact that descriptive laws (sometimes referred to too narrowly
as "the constraints of experiencial learning." Even the highest and best
experiential interpretations of today, can be tomorrows inductive anchors,
if we do not return again and again and again to the drawing board, to
upgrade. Scientific vigilance never closes a door, but merely opens one, to
see others that lie beyond it. Technology enables ever finer measurements,
observations of things beyond direct human experience (by, for example,
shifting light invisible to the human eye into an artificial band of rays
that are visible to it, or by translating such extra-sensory things into
numerical
data, or graphs, or what-have-you.) And, the more that is learned by
science, the more remote from human 'experience' it becomes and the more
difficult it becomes for humans to keep it "grounded."

I think it would be accurate to describe the frontiers of science today to
be primarily extra-sensory. But I do not mean metaphysical or occult or
steeped in infathomable mystery. I mean that the challenge is more and more
to find "grounds" for upgrading (or replacing) models of diminishing utility
in light of new technology that translates more extra-sensory phenomena into
synthetic access to our senses. (By the way, it is regrettable that the
term extra-sensory has been borrowed by illigitimate users, and brought into
association with the occult, and con-artistry.)

But, anyhow, in evaluating Hamilton, and Hamilton's Rule, it will help to
make useful analyses and comparisons if there is not too much insistence on
reliance only on what is impirically accessible to the senses (or
experience), NOR upon the subjective interpretations of what is observable,
measureable, manipulable, NOR simply upon purely abstract logic, NOR upon
any ideological model which may be
internally consistent yet fail to encompass a sufficient number of variables
to yield unequivocable
"results."

We humans -- no matter how much we would like to believe otherwise -- are
deceived by each and every tool of sensing, interpreting, learning, knowing
.... at our disposal. Our BEST results derive (I submit)
from using them ALL, in such a way that no one can dominate our efforts to
think and behave "scientifically." Each may serve as a piece of a dynamic
preventing veritable "tyranny of a single tool of reason." Checks and
balances arise by applying all.

I make no pretense of answering any question here about Hamilton's Rule.
All I ask, or recommend, is that as many tools of reason be applied to the
examination of his contribution to current hypotheses as
>
> One of the fairer criticisms of Hamilton's thinking I've seen here
> is the idea that "r" is being consistently under estimated.
>
> It's common to calculate "r" by using a truncated family tree - and
> ignore relationships between great grandparents as being of low
> relevance.

Is high or low relevance something we can "put our finger on," in
quantitative terms? If so, what criteria would we use. Obviously the
likelihood of an individual's getting any one particular gene from a great
parent is less than getting any one particular gene from a grand parent.

I am not arguing. This is merely a mathematically (statistical likelihood)
calculable ratio.

Evidently you have some other criterion in mind than that likelihood. Would
you state exactly what that criterion is?

> Any comments about all this? What's your personal estimate
> of "r" between, say, randomly-selected humans? If r /is/
> being frequently underestimated, what empirical test would
> throw the most light on the issue?

Completely arbitrary "prescriptive" definitions could be forced on it.

But what if we WERE able to get a DNA sample from every individual on Earth
at a given time and
get a super-DUPER-computer to group them. (The DNA laboratories ALREADY are
overtaxed by the
current traffic put on them by criminal enforcement agencies, mothers in
quest of child support, people in search of knowing whether they carry any
genes that code for gene-related pathologies, and people who need compatible
organ transplants.

However, the technology very well could catch up with demand, and computer
processors very well could become sufficient to DNA test everybody in the
world (who cooperates).

Already "samplings" have been made in an effort to see if "races" could be
defined, and they COULD NOT.

And, correct me if I am wrong, you who are expert in genetics -- but do not
the have not those samples suggest that some siblings have fewer genes in
common than some total strangers?

So, the bottom line is:

If you use statistical likelihoods of genes you run into the problem of
"dilution."

If a person finds a compatible bone marrow donor, has he not found a
genetically "closer kin" than a sibling who does not match.

Just as Bob O'Hara said, recently, a lot of how you would define something
depends upon "what you are going to use the definition for, after you
formulate it."

g

> --
> __________
> |im |yler http://timtyler.org/ tim@xxxxxxxxxxx Remove lock to reply.
>


.

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