Re: Haldane's Dilemma and quantitative genetics



inmanh@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:-

Wirt Atmar wrote:
... ...
The evolutionary clock does not run at any where near a constant
speed.
Filled ecological niches occupied by highly coevolved communities are
very difficult to invade, and thus evolution tends to come to almost a
dead stop in such situations. Intense competitive interaction doesn't
allow much change.

Given that there are competing definitions of 'evolution' here, can I
check whether Larry and Wirt's disagreement is *no more than* Larry
preferring definition (b) and Wirt using definition (a):-

(a) evolution in the sense of phenotypic change tends to come to almost
a full stop in such situations

(b) evolution in the sense of molecular change, at the base level, does
not tend to come to a full stop

JE:-
The difference here is between gene centricity (b), and organism centricity
(a). The term "centricity" refers to the unit on which selection acts, i.e.
what is a defined selectee. If just one selectee is proposed then the theory
is monocentric. If more than one unit of selection becomes allowed then the
theory is polycentric. Not a single polycentric theory exists that is
empirically testable but some monocentric theories are. Dr Moran is a
classical gene centric. He supposes that genes are actually _independent_
units of selection. Gene centric theory remains ambiguous with regard to the
critical question: is it monocentric or polycentric? Most of time gene
centric theorists remain happy to "ad hoc" other units (levels) of selection
whenever the gene as a moncentric unit of selection appears to become
threatened so I conclude that gene centric theory is a non testable
polycentric theory. All non testable evolutionary theories employ a "get out
of jail free" card.

It was R. A. Fisher who originally treated genes as if they were independent
(additive) billiard balls when they were nothing of the kind. Moran's
oversimplified gene centric model was derived from Fisher, J.B.S Haldane and
S. Wright. Only Wright was a credible practicing biologist without a
political agenda. He broke from Fisher who was a fascist and Haldane who was
a communist because they could not agree. As founding fathers of today's
gene centric population genetics Fisher and Haldane allowed political bias
to compromise evolutionary theory. The effects of this still echo down to
2006. Fisher's assumptions allowed racism via a misused oversimplified
synthetic genetics while Haldane insisted that organism altruism could be
selected for in nature when this was and remains, a critical point of
refutation for empirical based Darwinism. Haldane proposed the evolution of
organism altruism as just an ambiguous oversimplified model pre-empting W.
D. Hamilton. Both models persist and remain misused, to this very day.


The EMPIRICAL facts are very simple. All gene fitnesses are dependent (non
additive). This fact was simply deleted for the convenience of the
mathematics which becomes too complex when it is included. You should note
that the genius of C. H. Waddington came close to solving this. He did
minimally include this deletion and published his organism centric model
over 50 years ago. It remains entirely ignored. If you wish to review
Waddington's model I posted it here in the thread "Waddington's Revision of
Haldane" without comment.

Moran's "billiard ball" population genetics deletes heritable random
variation and entirely replaces it with "random evolution" allowing
evolutionary theory to become irrefutable i.e. become reduced to be on an
epistemological par with creationism and witchcraft. OTOH organism centric
evolutionary theory does not allow any random heritable variation to become
redefined as evolution allowing variation to remain separate from evolution.


The _empirical_ facts are just simple. Evolutionary theory is fertile
organism monocentric. The only way that selection can be halted entirely
within any natural population is to allow the TOTAL number of just fertile
forms reproduced per parent per population to be experimentally forced to
remain the same only allowing random heritable variation (mutation and
sampling error) to produce changes in gene freq within one population.




Moreover, the presence of a biogeographic map, which is ignored in
standard mathematical genetics, renders the substitution of neutral
changes almost impossible. A novel neutral mutation in an individual
must compete with its sibling competitors coming from all directions,
and because the change is neutral, it has no selective advantage for
or
against it by definition, thus if it is to survive, it must climb
against the Gambler's Ruin tide, a Markovian process that virtually
guarantees not only the new mutation's relatively immediate
elimination
but also a very short time on the biogeographic map.

Is this again just a word-confusion? It is perfectly possible for any
*specific instance in one individual* of a neutral change, at the
molecular level, to be 'almost impossible' to go to fixation within a
population; whilst *so many* such instances arise in many/every
individual[s] in the population that, at the population level, every
generation several of these instances are fated to go to fixation.

JE:-
Yes, gene centric theory routinely confuses population events with organism
events. Populations evolve but only because Darwinian individuals are
selected. You cannot stop genes from randomly becoming fixed or removed
from a population by just the random process of sampling error. What nature
does is to allow the NON additive FITNESS association that actually exist
between ALL genomic genes to buffer each and every heritable organism
PHENOTYPE so that it can remain the same as some genes randomly change
within one POPULATION. Waddington called this canalization. Even more
interestingly, exactly the same process can accelerate heritable phenotype
change. He termed this assimilation. Both require HERITABLE GENETIC
EPISTASIS where almost all of this remains deleted from Haldane's population
genetics model. Only C.H. Waddington attempted to correct Haldane's
deletion. Waddington's revision of Haldane remains ignored because allowing
it would embarrass gene centric theory which remains the darling of Post
Modern evolutionary theory.

snip<

Regards,

John Edser
Independent Researcher

edser@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx



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