Re: Fw: Edward O. Wilson's "bombshell" on the reality of group
- From: "John Edser" <edser@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 12:25:21 -0400 (EDT)
"Peter F" 19eimc_minus19@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:-
Modern day medieval minded martyrs may, however,
best be regarded as a symptom of a disease of (combined
past) AEVASIVE adaptations.
JE:-
Not necessarily.
Perhaps I was blind to the positively naturally selective effect - IF IT
EXIST -
that siblings of suiciding-bombing sorts become extra attractive to those
potential mates that are genetically inclined to be more than average
neurotically
(AEVASIVEly) motivated as follows:
To be as fervent about fornication and forming fecund families as they are
forcefully religiously believing/rationalizing and thereby efficiently
self-anaesthetizing characteristics (boosting the chance of realizing a
behavior of blowing up people perceived - also partly because of neural
plasticities that allow energetic projections of primal pain to become
both
hate and hope - to both be "obstacles" and "passports to afterlife-glory"
(respectively).
JE:-
Fornication fails when a smaller and not a larger TOTAL number of infertile
immatures become raised to fertile adulthood per adult via excessive numbers
of them decimating the limited resources available to each adult parent to
raise them. Our unique tribal adaptation of employing cognitive exchange
allowed mutualising selection. This can be defined as: selection for
mutually increasing the total number of fertile forms raised from infertile
immatures per selectee per population increasing total fitness per adult but
not necessarily equally. The largest cost of our unique tribal adaptation
was and remains: defense. The more fitness interdependent we became the
bigger the payoff per selectee but larger the tribe had to became increasing
the cost of defending and maintaining it. A point will be reached where the
risk of being maimed or dying in defense of your own tribe becomes selected
at the Darwinian fertile form level of selection as a complex psychological
adaptation. Religion was probably the very first tribal belief system based
on this psychology. It evolved to facilitate cognitive mutualised exchange
by providing predictable behaviors, fear of authority (allowing order based
on cognition for the 1st time) and a tribal identity. Any attack on this
belief in the past constituted an attack on the tribe itself invoking a full
defense response. Nothing has changed, the same applies today.
The cost of a mutualised group increases per mutualisedincrease.
individual as the mutualised gains per individual exponentially
Like the slime mould society, ALL these costs HAVE to be paid.
Pleiotrophic
and epistatic gene effects CAN evolve to enforce payment.
I see how (from your point of view) you see suicidal or fitness lowering
acts of "altruism" as a payment of a "mutualising" [actually just the
effect
of
mutations (generically meant) that made it "thus far" - i.e. to be
expressed
"additively" in this way; OR further IF expressed in ways that are
favorable to positive Edserian fitness outcomes (outcomes that are, BTW,
accountable only by means of integers).
IF the tribe provides massive (but unequal) total individual fitness gains
but also requires costs to be paid BEFORE these gains can be realized THEN
nature will enforce these costs at just the Darwinian fertile organism level
of selection, if and only if, the TOTAL gains > TOTAL costs per independent
selectee per population. Please note that any defined fitness per population
where the fitness of each group remains additive per group member is simply
NOT a group selective fitness.
I am sure everone can agrees with you that an 'altruistic suicide'
_causing_
single
mutation carrying mutant individual has abolutely no chance - without
having
already spawned any with this gene equipped offspring/s - to become a
successful candidate for ancestorhood if it is faced with a situation that
triggers a behavioral expression of this "altruistic suicide gene".
JE:-
The so called gene for altruism has to increase and not decrease the total
fitness of any actor that has it for that gene not to move a population
towards extinction (along with itself). This will not be evident unless the
total fitness of any possessor of it becomes disallowed. Without a total
fitness per parent per population (no matter how you define fitness) an
investment for a mutualised gain can become hopelessly confused with just an
altruistic donation. This can be proven to be the case using Hamilton's Rule
where no total fitness for Hamilton's actor was included within that rule.
I too care little for mathematical oversimplifications with little of no
power to provoke deep and meaningful insight into how we
evolved to be how we are.
JE:-
I disagree. These models can be USED or MISUSED. That is all. What is ALWAYS
EVADED by Neo Darwinistic professionals is any discussion as to what
constitutes EITHER.
But, different to you, I care SO LITTLE that I don't care
to fight against the possibility that such [or a certain such ;-)]
oversimplification can be unintentionally used to the effect
of causing or reinforcing an ignorance of situations (relevant
interactions)..
JE:-
But employing ambiguous oversimplified models to explain away in just non
refutable terms how "altruism" could evolve in nature only constitutes a
gross misuse of any simplified/oversimplified model. The net effect: a
misrepresentation of evolutionary theory to the general public and a
redirection of limited funding for research into less fruitful directions.
Walter ReMine is a documented victim of model misuse. How many others are
there? I will nominate the genius of C. H. Waddington as evolutionary
theories most serious victim. Things become much worse if a new funding
direction becomes based on just a political agenda. The horrible history of
evolutionary theory suggests that we must be prepared for this to be
happening most of the time. Both the fascist (absolute dictate) right and
Looney (everything is relative) left have taken turns to hijack evolutionary
theory for their own political ends. Pretending that this never happened is
an attempt to write a false history. Suggesting that it happened in the past
but could never happen today is only wishful thinking or a futile attempt to
cover something up. It IS happening before our very eyes. After years of
domination by the Looney Left pushing useless 100% relative arguments for
organism fitness altruism (Haldane was an old style communist and Hamilton
supported the new far left), today it is (yet again) the turn of the
might-is-right-fascists using irrefutable "Intelligent Design". Herbert
Spencer would be pleased. Question: when will politically based nonsense
stop? Answer: when refutable theories of evolution, Alone, are allowed as
valid theories of *SCIENCE* as Popper (a reformed communist hated today by
the new far left) argued so long ago.
snip what I do understand<
This requirementsocieties
appears to have selected for a-defend-your-group-at-any cost psychology
evolving within early human tribal societies producing what only appears
on
the surface to be "self sacrificing" behavior. This type of behavior has
become magnified and become more widespread within super tribal
as
the levels of stress become larger as the group size increases. It
particularly affects adolescent males who subsist at the bottom of any
tribal/super tribal pecking order.
I would prefer to explain such (and plenty of other) behavior from several
very
different and more meaty (IMHO) angels - but I believe I see (roughly)
what
you mean.
JE:-
Ok
Regards
John Edser
Independent Researcher
edser@xxxxxxxxxx
.
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