Re: Wynne-Edwards ( was Homosexuality)


"Guy Hoelzer" <hoelzer@xxxxxxx> wrote in message news:dq1ofr$2mli$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> in article dpvbnk$1c54$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Malcolm at
> regniztar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote on 1/9/06 8:04 PM:
>
> > Group selection is a standard fallacy that pops up time and time again,
> > usually advanced by people who think that political conclusion that they
> > disapprove of necessarily follow from standard evolutionary theory.
> > (Whether they are right about this or not is a whole different issue).
>
> Political agendas aside, I disagree. In my experience, advocates of the
> effectiveness of natural selection at the individual level who dismiss NS at
> the group level are either unable or unwilling to define NS without
> specifying the context of the individual level. Of course, this semantic
> assumption obviates any discussion of group selection, rather than informing
> the discussion. IMHO, a reasonable, open-minded definition of natural
> selection is that it is a biased evolutionary process fueled by heritable
> variation for fitness within a population of reproducing agents. There is
> no reason that this cannot occur at the group level, hence the
> demonstrations of this logic in some models as you indicate below.

I like your inclusive or 'open-minded' definition of NS. We might agree
to add the clarifications that it is the population that evolves, by
changing its composition, and that the term fitness applies to the
reproducing agents. We might also agree that fitness is a measure of the
ability of an agent to survive, grow, and reproduce.

However, I would like to make a distinction between 'reducible NS'
and 'irreducible NS'. I would define an example of NS as reducible
if the reproducing agents are themselves populations undergoing
selection under NS AND the fitnesses of those population-agents
at the upper level are reducible to the fitnesses of the lower-level
agents.

If the agents are not themselves populations, OR the fitnesses of
the agents are 'emergent', then we have 'irreducible NS'.

I suspect that much of what John is talking about with 'dependent and
independent levels of selection' is the same as what I am talking
about with 'irreducibility'.

People who want 'group selection' to produce well adapted individuals
are probably thinking in terms of reducible NS. But if it is intended
to produce well adapted groups (and to hell with the individuals), then
they are imagining a situation of irreducible NS, since the relevant
fitness is an emergent fitness.


.

Relevant Pages

  • RE: sci.bio.evolution mailing list
    ... group selection that is occurring within evolutionary theory but a bias ... group selection verifications employ a fitness measure which is the simple ... Not a single testable to refutation polycentric theory of nature has been ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: Fw: Edward O. Wilsons "bombshell" on the reality of group
    ... The failure to adequately define what group selection is AND IS NOT, ... If the fitness of one group ... three books of two stamps each providing 6 stamps in total. ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: A FUNDAMENTAL ISSUE
    ... that when you allow gene fitness epistasis into Hamilton's Rule it fails ... i.e. this oversimplified model becomes oversimplified ... selection at the individual level must occur firstly. ... by the time so called group selection gets around to doing any selecting, ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: Reviews of Unto Others
    ... Old group selection logic had to contest ... fitness altruism within nature but call it ... all of the time, thus "allowing" organism fitness ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: Wynne-Edwards ( was Homosexuality)
    ... >> effectiveness of natural selection at the individual level who dismiss NS at ... >> variation for fitness within a population of reproducing agents. ... whole organisms) also tends to build the ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)