Re: Behavioral Genetics: A pseudo science or real scientific discipline

Dr. Felsenstein:

Look for thread "Evolutionary Interplay of Caution and Boldness in
Population. You wrote:

5. Joe Felsenstein
Nov 21, 1:35 am show options

Newsgroups: sci.bio.evolution
From: j...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Joe Felsenstein) - Find
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Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 01:35:58 -0500 (EST)
Local: Mon, Nov 21 2005 1:35 am
Subject: Re: Evolutionary interplay of caution and boldness in
populations
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In article <dll6at$1qo...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,



Gene <starg...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>It seems to me that the survival of a population and indeed a species
>may often hinge on the complexity or flexibility of its response to
>environmental pressures.
....
>Question: What computer modeling has been done exploring the
>evolutionary/survival value, for an artificial population, of a wide
>range vs. a narrow range of responses, in environments having
>different degrees of complexity and severity in their impacts on
>populations/species?


It is first of all a matter for mathematical modeling, falling back
on computer modeling only when absolutely necessary.

Back in the 1960's (1962 on) Richard Levins had models showing that in
cases
like these the mean population fitness can be highest when the
population
is polymorphic for two (or more) phenotypes. This is summarized in
his
1968 monograph
Levins, R. 1968. Evolution in Changing Environments
Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.


The problem with this approach was that the population would not
necessarily
evolve to this state of highest mean fitness, and he did not take that
into
account. A key paper arguing that was:
Gillespie, J. 1973. Polymorphism in random environments.
Theoretical Population Biology 4: 193-195.


It turns out to depend a lot on whether variability is within or
between
generations, and other details. What is best for long-term population
survival is not necessarily what evolution will lead to.


--
Joe Felsenstein j...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Department of Genome Sciences and Department of Biology,
University of Washington, Box 357730, Seattle, WA 98195-7730 USA


.

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