Re: Culture is not consciously developed? Q for Wilkins
- From: Guy A Hoelzer <hoelzer@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 6 Nov 2006 13:42:11 -0500 (EST)
in article eij4r7$2a86$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, whitesickle@xxxxxxx at
whitesickle@xxxxxxx wrote on 11/4/06 2:39 PM:
Guy A Hoelzer wrote:
in article eidptk$1vt9$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, John Wilkins at
j.wilkins1@xxxxxxxxx wrote on 11/2/06 2:02 PM:
Entertained by my own EIMC <licenced.to.be.AEVASIVE@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
"John Wilkins" <j.wilkins1@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ei5gn9$2d4e$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
whitesickle@xxxxxxx <whitesickle@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Also, culture will be no less subject to stochastic sampling (drift)
than biology. Not everything is or has to be selection.
Dear Dr. Wilkins,
I might have the wrong impression, but to me it appears that you include in
what you mean by "selection" that it is a process that produces traits that
are *ideally* fit; And, that you - from your broadly applicable
'evolution philosophical/theoretical' ;-) position - might exemplify the
influence of drift with, e.g., that Sony's video tape format Beta (that was
by most experts seen as the superior technology) did loose out in the
marketplace to the relatively clumsy (at least it was more bulky) VHS
format.
May I suggest (from how I have read you) that, if you were to accept that
anything (e.g. an idea, or a subatomic particle) whose function [or
functure, or structure alt. 'inner dynamics' - as relevant] is "fit
*enough*" to
continue to "hang around" for as long as it does), then your cumbersome de
facto (or to me apparent) differentiation between (or conceptual
compartmentalization into) 'stochastically patterned' [BTW, an IMHO fairly
self-contradictory constellation of concepts] and "naturally selected"
products of evolution, would comfortably wither away.
With good wishes,
P
Selection and drift aren't separate from each other - they are
complements. If only selection occurs on a big enough population over
enough time, then it will satisfice the fitness function, and if enough
mutation is available, it will optimise for that function.
Drift is one of the things that happens to counter selection. In small
populations, or when the selective pressures is low enough that noise
from stochastic sampling and accidents can overwhelm it, you get drift.
IMO
I don't mean to seem close-minded or harsh in this response, but I find this
statement to be absolutely misleading. Drift always happens in every
population all of the time without exception. This is not an opinion,
rather it is a necessary consequence of the finiteness of all populations.
It is selection that can come and go along with heritable variation for
fitness.
Guy Hoelzer
I'm not real familiar with the concept of drift but what is it "useful"
for.
That is an odd question. Would you ask "what is gravity useful for?", or
"what is convection useful for?" Drift is a natural process that occurs in
every population that experiences mutation, for better or worse.
Does it confer either an advantage, disadvantage or both on a
population?
It can confer both. We usually focus on the downside because it can counter
natural selection and lead to maladaptive evolution, however Sewall Wright
pointed out that adaptive evolution can be facilitated by drift in
combination with natural selection. He emphasized his shifting balance
model, but the synergy between drift and selection can be easily seen with
simple software, like Joe Felsenstein's PopG program. Adaptive change of
populations generally happens faster when natural selection is combined with
drift, compared with selection alone. Of course, populations run the risk
of fixing deleterious alleles at a higher rate as a trade-off for generally
more rapid adaptive evolution.
I've often read evolution is glacial in its slowness. Is
this due to the low rate of natural selection i.e. mutations that come
along with heritable variation for fitness?
It could be argued that this is one reason.
Also, its my impression
natural selection is adaptive to the environment in conferring fitness
yet there are some populations which retain naturally selected
mutations which are no longer adaptive to their environment. In such
cases they can die out. Why is natural selection so slow? Do you think
genetic engineering could be a form of 'natural selection' in the
future selecting traits which make us adaptive to our environment?
I think that engineering would be a poor and risk-prone alternative to
natural selection.
I must admit I'm not very impartial when it comes to evolution. I'm
rather not satisfied with it. This I imagine you've gathered a long
time ago. This is hard since I'm a product of it.
Cheers,
Guy
.
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