Re: Removing Lewontin's Fallacy From Hamilton's Rule


"John Edser" <edser@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:dlft90$2fsj$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
> "Perplexed in Peoria" jimmenegay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:-
>
> > > > name_and_address_supplied@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:-
> > > > > If we want to show that Hamilton's
> > > > > rule is a general principle, this is the way we have to go. But if
> > we
> > > > > want to say anything about causality we need an explicit model, and
> > > > > with that disappears our generality.
>
> > > > JE:-
> > > > Yes, Popper would agree with you because the most general of
> > statements are
> > > > just epistemological perpetual motion machines, i.e. tautologies where
> > > > causality remains 100% reversible. So far, Hamilton's Rule has not
> > been
> > > > supplied with any empirically based fitness limits which are
> > absolutely
> > > > required to break Hamilton's fitness tautology. Like Price's
> > mathematics, HR
> > > > does not represent a valid proposition of science.
>
> > John, you seem to limit 'proposition of science' to things that I would
> > call 'laws of nature'.
>
> JE:-
> Jim, I limit propositions of science to conjectures (theories) that can be
> verified or refuted within nature.
>
> > Hamilton's law - at least the 1970 tautological
> > version - is not a law of nature. It is a theorem of mathematics. But
> > that doesn't mean that it is useless to scientists. Science makes use
> > of a variety of propositions with no inherent physical content -
> > Liouvilles's theorem, Bayes's theorem, Wigner's CPT theorem, etc.
>
> JE:-
> The issue here concerns the proper or improper use of heuristics within the
> empirically based sciences. Hamilton's Rule was and remains an empty
> tautology of mathematics incorrectly proffered as valid theory of nature in
> its own right.

Proffered by whom. Please be specific.

> Please take another look at the premises that Felsenstein
> used to derive HR and confirm or deny to readers that the premises he used
> were tautological.

Deny. There are a variety of non-tautological (i.e. 'empirical', 'refutable')
premises. Random mating, Mendelian segregation, etc.

The premises used by NAS in his derivation are more problematic. There
is far less empirical content there.

[snip remainder]


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