Re: Heliconius butterfly mimicry - Exquisite adaptation?




"Perplexed in Peoria" jimmenegay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:-


I think that Hoelzer's fitness definitions exhibit 'hand waving' only
when he tries to extend the term to entities (such as ecological
communities) where the situation is not so clear-cut as it is for
organism-level selection.

JE:-
That was not my understanding. Dr Hoelzer appears to allow irrefutable
subjective fitness measures (that he prefers) to override refutable
objective measures of fitness that can tested against nature. Only TDF
(Total Darwinian Fitness) can halt all selection within a natural
population. This being the case, only TDF represents a valid "non hand
waving", i.e. fully testable fitness.


We could debate whether or not
science is advanced by even trying to extend a concept outside
of its original domain, but we won't debate it (at least I won't).

JE:-
Anything can be extended and usefully pre-run within just a
simplified/oversimplified model. The error is to allow such model to
usurp
the theory it was simplified/oversimplified from.

Jim,
Why don't you provide a definition of fitness and clear up this question
once and for all as far as you are concerned?

I've provided definitions of fitness at the individual organism level
about a half dozen times now. They are, to the best of my knowlege, the
standard definitions. I know you have seen them because you have
commented on them.

JE:-
Yes, but my comments were mostly in the vein that they remain to this very
day, subjective and ambiguous so that no rational person could possibly
understand them. Perhaps you could explain to all of us what they are
supposed to mean?


As to how to do what Dr. Hoelzer is trying to do - extend the concept of
fitness to other levels - I remain perplexed as to the best way to
do that. Probably we need something based on the 'replicator equation'
as described in Hofbauer and Sigmund.

Jim,
Why do you continue to evade the critical EMPIRICAL difference that does
exist between grouped fitnesses that are just additive and those that are
not?

Regards,

John Edser
Independent Researcher

edser@xxxxxxxxxx






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