Re: Underestimating 'r'



"Jim McGinn" <jimmcginn@xxxxxxxxx>
> Catherine Woodgold wrote:
> > Tim Tyler (tim@xxxxxxxxxxx) writes:

> > > So - is "r" higher than convention would dictate; and if so - how
> > > much higher?

> > It's simply a matter of definition. If you're interested in
> > studying how people treat their cousins,

> Your missing Tim's point. Tim's interested in understanding the
> selective origins of altruism and related social behaviors. There are
> many people that believe (wrongly IMO) that Darwin's understanding of
> natural selection is inconsistent with the observations that many
> species--including our own--have high degrees of altruism and social
> behaviors. Some people, mistakenly IMO, believe that Hamilton's rule
> solves this mystery. Tim is pointing out that when you actually
> examine the evidence closely and honestly it is apparent Hamilton's
> rule predicts something very different from what is actually observed.

JE:-
My criticism of Hamilton et al is much simpler. Even if you allow IBD
heuristic relatedness units the rule still does not state any EMPIRICALLY
based condition for "altruism", "selfishness" or mutualism that a scientist
can measure. This is because the rule has no fitness frame of reference
disallowing the rule to EMPIRICALLY separate selfishness from altruism. To
prove this simply multiply both sides of Hamilton's Rule by -1. Because both
sides have been treated equally no mathematical change is evident. Yet, both
rules do not remain EMPIRICALLY equivalent. They actually represent contrary
simultaneous fitness events, namely altruism AND selfishness, for exactly
the same actor and exactly the same event! If the same mathematically based
event depicts TWO contrary events simultaneously then you have proven that
the mathematics is simply NOT up to what it is being employed to do: explain
the evolution of altruism in nature.


> > you might truncate the
> > family tree around the great-grandparent level and define
> > a relatedness measure that ignores everything further back.
> > If you're interested in processes involving certain
> > species taking over while others go extinct in the long
> > term, you use a more long-term relatedness measure, possibly
> > as simplistic as considering all members of one species
> > to be fully related (r = 1).
> >
> > The key is to have clearly stated definitions, understood
> > by all involved

> I definitely agree with this last statement. If Hamilton had done this
> he'd have seen the error of his ways. Hamilton never defined
> relatedness. Instead he just through out the assumption that it was
> defined by genes IBD = R.

JE:-
Relatedness was defined but only HEURISTICALLY, as an IBD probability. What
Hamilton et al utterly failed to define was much more basic: what "altruism"
means within the sciences and to what level of selection altruism was being
applied.

>snip<

Regards,

John Edser
Independent Researcher

edser@xxxxxxxxxx




.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Underestimating r
    ... >> selective origins of altruism and related social behaviors. ... If Hamilton had done this ... >> duped by he ambiguity of Hamilton's use of the word relatedness. ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: Underestimating r
    ... > selective origins of altruism and related social behaviors. ... If Hamilton had done this ... > duped by he ambiguity of Hamilton's use of the word relatedness. ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: Theories, models, and simplifications
    ... Hamilton never, so far as I know, used the variables "b" ... the fitness with all *reception* of social effects ignored. ... with different *reception* of altruism. ... but when you requested a refutation of Hamilton's ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: Hollowness of Hamiltons Rule
    ... > Does IBD actually measure relatedness ... > is only peripherally indicative of relatedness? ... What "really" matters is how frequently the recipient of altruism ... carries the gene for altruism, ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: Hamiltons Rule In The Mirror Evaded
    ... >> organism fitness altruistic allele (OFA) to be able to spread in one ... It is argued by Hamilton et al ... > Generally mutualism has been treated as unproblematic. ... It is true that Hamilton's main interest was in altruism, ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
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