Re: Paper: Environmental Coupling of Selection and Heritability
- From: "John Edser" <edser@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 19:53:20 -0400 (EDT)
"Perplexed in Peoria" jimmenegay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:-
Edser's... This study is interesting to me for a number of reasons.
One is that it touches on issues related to maternal effects and
Edser's eccentric definition of fitness. Birth weight depends more
on the mother's genetics than the lamb's, and it has a big impact on
whether the lamb survives to maturity. So this is a case where
view of fitness may actually work better than the conventional view.
JE:-the
Firstly, it is not just my definition of fitness, it is my definition as
only self consistent fitness that CAN be derived from the Darwiniantheory.
If yourself or anybody else here has another then please provide it.
Been there. Done that.
JE:-
Here is my correction of your reply: "Been there" YES, "done that", NO. IOW
you have "been there" but chose to evade the issue just like all the other
gene centric model builders who refuse to say what exactly their admitted
simplified/oversimplified models are actually simplified/oversimplified
from. Why don't you correct your evasion of this basic question and state
for the record what these models are simplified/oversimplified from?
Secondly it is not "eccentric", just chronically ignored even whileany
remaining REFUTBALE proving a bias against it. I remind readers that no
other refutable fitness exists within evolutionary theory. This is why
requirement for one is just thrown out by those who cannot provide one.
JE:-
Any theory that is refutable but remains deliberately ignored has been
proven evaded.
producingBut it also touches on one of my recent themes - the heritability of
fitness and of fitness components. The apparent paradox is that
birthweight seems to be heritable, and is positively correlated with
fitness of lambs, but sheep are not evolving toward higher weights.
Why not?
The answer seems to be that there is a balance when averaged over
a varying environment. In bad years, it is best to be a mother
inhigh-birth-weight lambs, which can survive the harsh conditions. But
Edser'sgood years, it is better for the mother to produce low-birth-weight
twins, who have good survival chances in those years. Amusingly,
inviewpoint sees this as natural, while the more conventional approach
needs considerable analytical machinery (negative covariances, etc.)
order to provide the explanation.
JE:-within
The Darwinian argument would be:
1) The genes in the infertile offspring are not selectable within these
forms because they remain sterile. Note that this is just a "duh"
proposition. The only possible way that any gene can be selected is
the body of a mature and fertile parent.
It most certainly is NOT a "duh proposition". While your scheme for
explaining selection can be made to work, the usual approach in which
immature individuals are selected for their survival ability also works.
JE:-
It remains the biggest and most embarrassing "duh" factor within
evolutionary theory.
Survival ability does NOT work without the reproduction of _fertile_ forms.
You can survive longer than anybody else and reproduce a larger total of
just sterile immatures than anybody else but unless you convert at least ONE
of these immatures into a fertile adult you are dead in the water as far as
nature is concerned. The only possible way that survival can conjure up just
the superficial appearance to working in this case is by reducing
evolutionary theory to the popular empty headed tautology put about by
Herbert Spencer on behalf of the Looney political right during Darwin's era:
"survival of the fittest". The persistence of Spencer's inept but
mathematically correct tautology speaks volumes about the QUALITY of
education being provided with regard to evolutionary theory and
epistemology. You may have noticed that the only reference that W.D.
Hamilton makes to empirically based Darwinism is via Spencer's empty
tautology.
In fact, it is far more natural than your approach in a species without
extensive parental care - salmon for example.
JE:-
No change here. In fact, the requirement to maximize the TOTAL number of
strictly ADULT FERTILE forms that any ONE salmon reproduces within ONE
population becomes highlighted and not diminished. As you may know, most
salmon only reproduce once and then die by their own hand. This kamikaze
reproductive strategy is known as the "big bang" solution which is unusual
for vertebrates. Homing salmon make an extraordinary journey from the sea
where they have spent most of their lives, back to the freshwater stream
where they were born using a sensitive sense of smell. The effort they put
into this journey is considerable. They have to journey 1000's of miles of
sea eventually battling their way upstream against strong and now freshwater
currents while jumping waterfalls like some sort of super athlete. All the
while they face an army of predators like bears along the way. By the time
they have reached their final destination the males have critically changed
their body morphology. Their head end becomes a modified battering ram so
they cannot even feed. Once the males have established breeding territories
which provide each one of them with quite different mating possibilities
they just fertilize as many female eggs as they possibly can. After this is
completed both sexes die via self administered fatal doses of stress
hormones representing one of the best examples of selection selecting death
that exists for the vertebrates. Literally tons of dead parental bodies now
become available as a critical resource for just the ecosystem that the
parents returned to. It is interesting to note that waste from salmon taken
by bears etc along the way provides a crucial pathway for the importation of
nutrients into the surrounding forest areas. However only one particular
ecosystem is required to support the sterile fry until they are capable of
making the journey back to the sea restarting the cycle so the living are
selected to deposit their bodies within that ecosystem. The theory is,
parents who attempted a second reproductive attempt mostly died while
attempting to return to the sea so if they spawned at all they must have
deposited their dead bodies into the wrong ecosystem. This in turn reduced
the total number of their fry that were able to be raised to fertile
adulthood a second attempt was selected against.
If you attempt to maximize the number of your own infertile immatures that
you raise to fertile adulthood all by yourself or with a partner this is
known as "parental care". However you can pay others to do this in a more
indirect way. These alternatives are balanced within nature. Homing salmon
employ different species to achieve this but it cost the deaths of the
parents. Not every one of the many different ecosystems remain equally
effective in supporting salmon fry. The theory is it takes many years to
perfect the Darwinian mutualised benefits required to allow any one version
of the salmon "big bang" reproductive strategy to work. Homing allows
ecosystem fitness associations to become mutualised to a higher and higher
degree. If the salmon routinely swim back to the wrong ecosystem fitness
mutualisation cannot be perfected. The mutualisation of total Darwinian
fitness stands refuted in this particular case if returning salmon to the
wrong ecosystem is equally effective. The value of a UNIQUE ecosystem
fitness mutualisation to each independent salmon can be measured as
minimally equal to the effort each fertile adult individual spends returning
home, which of course is enormous.
Regards,
John Edser
Independent Researcher
edser@xxxxxxxxxx
Regards,
John Edser
Independent Researcher
.
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