Re: Bet Hedging, Risk Aversion, Sex, and the Unit of Selection
- From: "John Edser" <edser@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 16:24:04 -0500 (EST)
"Perplexed in Peoria" jimmenegay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:-
> > > A good example of a theory might be Boyle's law of gasses. It
> > > states an empirically testable rule that nature seems to follow.
> >
> > > On the other hand, Maxwell provided a model of gasses as a
> > > collection of hard billiard balls bouncing around in space.
> > > It was a very successful model, even though we know that
> > > atoms and molecules are NOT hard billiard balls.
> >
> > > Maxwell's models had considerable success in EXPLAINING
> > > Boyle's law and other features of gasses, including the
> > > way that the speed of sound depends on gas density and
> > > pressure. But it failed to explain the specific heats of
> > > most gasses.
> > > Yet even this failure of the model was instructive
> > > and explanatory, since it suggests that not all gasses are
> > > composed of hard billiard balls - some of them seem to act
> > > more like hard dumbbells, some like stretchable dumbells, etc.
> > JE:-
> > Ok. The model was very useful but cannot replace its parent theory.
> > That is all I am saying. Do you agree or disagree?
> Would you consider it evasive if I were to demand that you first
> name the 'parent theory'?
JE:-
Evasion can only be attempted by refusing to answer a question and not by
asking a question. Therefore it would be evasive if I did not answer.
> snip<
> John, as I have said before, I don't think that models usually arise
> by simplification of a parent theory.
JE:-
I have provided many examples where this was the case. Please provide just
one example where this is not the case.
> In fact, in this case, the
> first thing worth calling a theory - the "atomic theory of gasses",
> arose by complexification of a parent model.
JE:-
Please clearly identify the "parent model" you are referring to and describe
the "complexification" it underwent.
> Unless you consider the parent of Maxwell's model to be the 'elastic
> theory of gasses', in which case Maxwell's model and its successors
> DID replace their parent.
JE:-
The parent theory to Maxwell's model was Newtonian Mechanics.
Maxwell's model regarded gases to be composed of heuristic Newtonian
mechanical objects. They were SIMPLIFIED to have the following "just so"
fictional properties: each had prefect elasticity and exerted no force on
any other except during collisions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_theory
Quote:-
"The gas consists of very small particles, each of which has a mass.
These molecules are in constant, random motion. The rapidly moving particles
constantly collide with each other and with the walls of the container.
The collisions between gas molecules are elastic.
The collisions of gas particles with the walls of the container holding them
are perfectly elastic as well.
The interactions between molecules are negligible. They exert no forces on
one another except during collisions.
The total volume of the all the gas molecules is negligible compared to the
volume of the container. This is equivalent to stating that the average
distance separating the gas particles is relatively large compared to their
size.
The average kinetic energy of the gas particles depends only on the
temperature of the system."
Maxwell also visualized magnetism and electric currants as similar fictional
mechanical objects which obeyed Newtonian mechanics:
http://www-groups.dcs.st
and.ac.uk/~history/Projects/Johnson/Chapters/Ch4_4.html
Quote:-
"It revolutionized the way we view the world, changing our perspective from
Newton's purely mechanical model of differential equations, to a physical
reality represented by continuous fields that were subject to partial
differential equations."
The parent theory to the Fisher/Haldane population genetic model was and
remains, Darwinian evolution by natural selection incorporating Mendel's
gene theory wherein all gene fitness epistasis has been deleted within an
infinite population. Because not a single polygenetic trait fitness actually
exists within nature (no trait fitness exists which is just the simple sum
of the fitness of each gene that codes for it no matter how you define
fitness), UNLIKE Maxwell's _simplified_ "perfectly elastic" Newtonian
objects, Fisher and Haldane's perfectly non epistatic allele fitness
constituted an OVER simplification and not just a simplification of the
parent theory. An oversimplification deletes/changes constants and not just
variables entirely altering the parent theory to the extent that cause and
effect may now become reversed. In the Haldane/Fisher model the total
fitness of each Darwinian mono-centric selectee was simply deleted allowing
fitness to become reduced from its status as a critical constant per
selectee per population to that of just a variable. Try allowing time to
become only a variable and not remain a constant within Newtonian mechanics
and see how that changes the parent Newtonian theory.
Using the Fisher Haldane model, empirically based Darwinian mono-centricity
became just heuristically duo-centric allowing the gene level as a fictional
2nd independent level of selection. This in turn allowed Hamilton's Rule
wherein competitive selection at this supposed independent gene level was
allowed to force an altruistic fitness at the Darwinian organism level but
not just heuristically anymore but as a theory it its own right. IOW the
simplified model was allowed to replace the theory it was oversimplified
from. Here things remain to this very day.
Darwin and Mendel also provided the parent theory for Waddington's Post
Neo-Darwinian model which however was MUCH LESS simplified than the
Fisher/Haldane model simply because Waddington now included for the very
first time an epistatic variable "developed in x". This provided four and
not just the one bi-nomial expansion of two alleles at one locus within an
infinite population. However, Waddington's model remains ignored by a biased
establishment which includes the professionals that post here.
Regards,
John Edser
Independent Researcher
edser@xxxxxxxxxx
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