Re: The uncorrected simplifications/oversimplifications of
- From: "John Edser" <edser@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 01:28:28 -0500 (EST)
NAS is becoming more than just confused :-) It appears he/she has replied to
my 2nd last posting TWICE providing a unique opportunity for sbe reader's to
test the self consistency of his/her position. The 1st reply (NAS1) was sent
to me on Mon 21/11/2005 5:36 PM and the 2nd reply (NAS2) was sent to me on
Sun 27/11/2005 6:18 PM. In-between NAS has had the opportunity to read my
last reply to which NAS has failed to provide a reply.
> JE:-
> "Hamilton's hypothesis" is 100% dependent on Hamilton's tautological
> rule so it is also just 100% tautological.
NAS1
Hamilton's hypothesis is based on a mathematical truth, yes. But it is not
100% dependent on it. HR is a mathematically true statement about the action
of natural selection.
NAS2
No. HR is a statement about selection only, and is true.
JE:-
It appears NAS has changed his/her mind. Firstly he agrees that HR " is
based on a mathematical truth, yes" but in his 2nd reply he/she has now
decided that this is not the case "No. HR is a statement about selection
only, and is true."
> JE:_
> I agree than HR has been verified. This has been proven endlessly
> within sbe discussion. HR is verified no matter what you define a gene
> to be. It is verified no matter if every member of the population is
> genetically identical e.g. Felsenstein's infamous cheetah population
> example. It remains verified in the haploid and the diploid case. It
> also remains verified when the allele is dominant or recessive and no
> matter what the size the base population is. It works in very possible
> case because it was and remains, just an empty tautology, i.e. a
> fitness perpetual motion machine. Not a single _empirical_ biological
> event is excluded by HR. To refute my claim please provide just a
> single example.
NAS1
I'd like you to expand upon this assertion. In what sense is it a perpetual
motion machine? Or is this just vague rhetoric? First Enron. Now perpetual
motion.
NAS2
You are correct that HR has such generality. It is a mathematically true
statement. It is not intended as a theory of nature. Hamilton's hypothesis
is intended as a theory of nature. Hamilton's hypothesis is not
tautological, is not a mathematical truism, and is indeed likely to be only
approximately correct. It is testable, it has been tested, and it does a
very good job of passing the test.
JE:-
I have previously expanded on these assertions on a number of different
occasions and expanded yet again in my last reply to which NAS has failed to
respond. Notice that in NAS's 2nd reply he/she now aggress that I am
correct: "HR has such generality" (the generality I detailed was absolute
because HR was and remains just a tautology) because it is " a
mathematically true statement" (which is mathematics speak for a tautology)
that " is not intended as a theory of nature", i.e. HR has been misused.
Where it was and remains utterly misused within the sciences is via
"Hamilton's hypothesis" which is just a tautology.
> JE:-
> ...HR cannot tell unconditional actor altruism from
> unconditional actor selfishness which is the same reason any 100%
> relative proposition cannot even tell "up" from "down" (as Einstein
> pointed out). Since a relative fitness cannot be a maximand yet the
> use of just a relative fitness as an illegal maximand still appears to
> you to explain an observation in nature (your fig wasp example) then
> all you have come with is a contradiction. The solution to it is: this
> verification was insufficient to allow the explanation you made so are
> required to come up with a better explanation (hopefully one that is
> not just illegal). Popper would have pointed out to you that
> verifications are just a dime a dozen. For misused tautologies like HR
> they are produced like an avalanche. What is required is a
> verification that can be documented in nature while providing at least
> one empirically based possible refutation where both are derived from
> the logic employed by the same explanation.
NAS1
The fig wasps might be doing something different from the prediciton. There
is no reason why they should not, except that HR suggests that selection
will favour them to obey the prediction. I'm failing to see why this doesn't
count as a valid test of kin selection theory.
NAS (2)
Irrelevant.
JE:-
In NAS's first reply it dawns on him/her that "fig wasps might be doing
something different from the prediction" which simply constitutes a non
verification. NAS then proceeds to ask the honest question " I'm failing to
see why this doesn't count as a valid test of kin selection theory." To
which the answer is: because the theory does not provide a possible
refutation which is not the same as a non verification. However, in NAS's
2nd reply he decides to back track on all of this by simply dictating what I
wrote was "irrelevant" (he/she never even bothers to attempt to justify this
assertion proving it to be just a hopeless dictate, i.e. an attempted act of
evasion).
> > HR is not a theorem stating how cost (c) and benefit (b) of a social
> > act relate to each other.
> JE:-
> But it is as far as the invisible movement of resources within HR is
> concerned. The *ONLY* social event within HR is the transfer of x
> resources via Hamilton's proactive actor where these can be
> UNCONDITIONALLY moved in just TWO directions: from the actor to the
> recipients which results in any positive c OR from the recipients to
> the actor which results in any negative c. This is why any negative c
> remains an actor fitness credit and any positive c an actor fitness
> debit, no exceptions. Your argument that a negative credit can somehow
> remain a credit and not be an actor debit is a hollow attempt to allow
> a "conditional" credit and not the required entirely display
> unconditional to the actor credit.
NAS1
Lets put it this way. c is DEFINED as the "the cost". c > 0 denotes a
positive cost. Call it a credit, whatever. c < 0 denotes a negative cost BY
DEFINITION. Call is a debit, whatever. c is still the cost, whether it is
positive or negative. That is simply the definition.
Now, you can call me an Enron accountant all you want, because I just
described "c<0" as a "cost" (when clearly the actor is gaining here). But I
am keeping an eye on the sign of the parameter c, and so long as I do this I
will not draw incorrect conclusions.
NAS2
Irrelevant.
JE:-
Quite clearly, NAS has seen the awful error of the first reply wherein
he/she clearly indicates total indifference to the fact that he/she decided
to write up a negative cost as a credit and not as a debit by yet again
attempting to evade a critical issue with just the evasive dictate: "
Irrelevant".
> JE:-
> Hamilton's supposed gene centric count of his altruistic allele
> replicated over organism generations is just an oversimplified
> organism centric and not gene centric, i.e. Hamilton's inclusive
> fitness tally is just a phony gene centric count where Darwinian
> organism selection still operates between each n recipient. The only
> possible way Hamilton's inclusive fitness count can pass the Darwinian
> level is as b/n.
NAS1
I have no idea why you would want inclusive fitness to "pass the Darwinian
level", whatever that means.
NAS2
Again, you haven't demonstrated, assuming anything you have said is correct,
that this actually matters.
JE:-
Clearly NAS has no idea of the Darwinian theory even though he/she professes
to be an evolutionary theory professional. Hamilton only counts organism
replications of his allele as gene centric. I had previously very clearly
demonstrated that unless b/n this _organism_ level of the actor is NOT
conserved:-
JE:-
> The blender utterly destroyed the critical organism level of the
> recipients. Because Hamilton et al VERY STRICTLY, only count
> Hamilton's allele replicated over _organism_ generations of it the
> organism level of the recipients becomes mathematically destroyed by
> the deletion of n within b/n allowing rb and not rb/n to invalidly
> represent inclusive fitness. Hamilton et al incorrectly converted the
> group centric b to just a heuristic gene centric rb wherein Hamilton's
> allele is counted over organism generations without firstly converting
> the group centric b to organism centric by dividing b by n just as c
> is required to be divided by n' on the other side of the rule:
>
> rb/n > r'c/n'
>
> where:
>
> r' = the relatedness of the actor to itself.
> n' = the number of actors.
>
> Note that e exists on both sides also:
>
> (r^e)b/n > (r'^e')c/n'
>
> where e = epistasis for each actor which remains 1 because only the
> one actor is supposed.
>
> What we are getting to see more clearly is the fact that HR was and
> remains entirely just reversible proposition UNTIL a constant term
> becomes included.
>
> Because genes replications are counted over organism generations
> Darwinian selection at just the organism level was and remains
> operating between each n recipient and between each one of them and
> Hamilton's single actor. This becomes obvious whenever n'> 1. When
> n'= 2 (two independent actors and not just one) then the cost to each
> is less c/2 where n' = 2 and not just 1. Each actor is now selected to
> contest the other to reduce its own payment of c. Like c, the b gain
> to Hamilton's allele is likewise subject to Darwinian selection
> operating between each of n recipients even while they remain passive,
> i.e. even while allowing the actor to decide which recipient gets the
> lion share of the donated x resources. What ends up being reproduced
> over _organism_ generations are alleles that are inclusively selected
> AND naturally selected over organism generations of each recipient
> which is b/c.
>
>
> Because Hamilton artificially fixed n' to just 1 does not mean that n'
> can now disappear to create Hamilton's mathematical illusion that n
> can also just disappear on the other side. IOW the deletion of n was
> and remains a fatal error and not just a deliberate
> simplification/over simplification, e.g the deletion of e and TDF (K).
> JE:-
> Hamilton never discussed the movement of resources, just their
> outcomes. The outcomes remain entirely dependent on a clear
> understanding as to where and how these resources move.
NAS1
Right; but b and c are a given, that are inserted into HR along with r.
Natural selection and HR do not care why b and c take the values they do, so
this information does not need to be inputted. However, if you are
interested in modelling a particular trait, you will usually need to
explicitly model the flow of resources, or whatever, and see how these
impact on b and c, which you then insert into HR.
I'll say it again: yes, these details are important for determining b and c,
but HR takes b and c as a given, so the details are fed into HR implicitly
within b and c, and do not need to be explicitly incorporated. If you want
to get a meaningful answer out of HR, then you have to be careful about what
b and c you insert into HR, i.e. you need to provide a model that runs
alongside HR, as it were, to generate your b and your c from consideration
of resources and whatever else you feel to be important.
NAS2
Absolutely no reply.
NAS should apologize to sbe reader's for his/her lack of self consistency
and due diligence to what he/she writes here. NAS should then proceed to
provide a reply to my last post to this thread and not attempt to deceive
sbe reader's that a 2nd reply to my 2nd last post was a reply to my last
posting.
Regards,
John Edser
Independent Researcher
edser@xxxxxxxxxx
John Edser
Independent Researcher
edser@xxxxxxxxxx
.
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