Re: sci.bio.evolution mailing list
- From: John Edser <edser@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:41:56 -0400 (EDT)
johnhewitt22@xxxxxxxxx wrote:-
Dear John, As has usually been the case in this thread, I do not
entirely follow the points you are making and I do not find that your
reiterations help me. Nonetheless, I have two further points a. and
b. to make concerning your work.
Hi John H,
What I have been attempting for the past 10 years or so is to more
exactly conceptualize the traditional Darwinian approach. In Darwin's
theory just the one independent thing is naturally selected allowing
populations of similar things to evolve. Wallace critically differed to
Darwin in this respect. In Wallace's theory each Darwinian population
can also be selected. In Hamilton's theory single fertile forms become
reduced to just a population of genes. Neo Darwinism combines these
within a single mathematical model. What has not been realized is that
using this model, just about anything can pass for evolutionary theory.
If populations can be selected (group selection) and organisms evolve
via Hamilton's inclusive fitness then Darwinian THEORY is no longer
being articulated. Today's 100% mathematically based Neo Darwinism
allows genes as _independent units of selection_. It is well worth
taking a few, seconds to ponder the immensity of what this massive
oversimplification of Darwinism means to biology. In Neo Darwinism a
gene that codes for a thumb is now allowed a fitness which remains
independent of the hand it is a part of allowing genes for thumbs to
evolve independent to genes for fingers. Clearly, this is not the case
in nature. Only if the gene fitness of each thumb remains additive to
the gene fitness of each finger can this be possible. IOW if the FITNESS
of the PHENOTYPES of genes for thumbs and fingers could be simply
clipped together like Leggo blocks allowing their fitnesses to just add
up per hand does it become possible for the genes which code for thumbs
and the genes which code for fingers to remain independently selectable
within the same body. This in turn allows "selfish" genes for fingers
and thumbs to contest each other reducing the biological status of each
hand to that of an evolving population of fingers and thumbs. In Neo
Darwinism body parts are no longer regarded as fitness dependent parts
of independent bodies. Traditional biologists such as Darwin simply took
it for granted that body parts remained selectively dependent on the
body they are a part of. I contend that the traditional relationship of
parts to one whole translate into the nested fitness of body parts. The
fitness of thumbs and fingers combine like a cake mixture within each
Darwinian Fertile organism fitness, i.e. the fitness of body parts
remain NON additive. Empirically, the fitness of one body is not the
simple sum of the fitness of each part. A mixture of non additive
fitnesses cannot be reversed. You cannot unbake the Darwinian
fitness of each Darwinian cake (each fertile form). I claim that each
non additive fitness mixture has an exact logical architecture: a non
reversible multiplicative nested logic which contests the reversible set
intersecting logic of populations. One fertile form can be logically
represented as one nested set of fitnesses. In contrast to this one
population is represented as the complete set intersection of these via
the largest fitness within each nested set. Each represents a non
reversible and therefore entirely "black and white" hierarchical fitness
with just the one fitness which nests all the others within each nested
set. Only two logical forms of fitness hierarchy can therefore exist:
reversible and non reversible.
In evolutionary theory nested sets of fitness describe what is defined
as "genetic epistasis" (many genes code for one phenotype) and
pleiotrophic effects (one gene codes for many phenotypes). Epistasis,
includes the most critical of all epistatic traits _gene fitness
epistasis_. These remain deleted from Neo Darwinian models including
those of W.D. Hamilton. If the fitness cake mixture consists of additive
intersecting sets then it can indeed be reversed (unmixed) because it
constitutes one additive population and not one non additive individual.
Traditionally, populations are not individuals and vice versa. Without
this most basic of biological distinctions there is no science of
biology, just mathematical based models. Mathematics is not a science.
Empirically the fitness of fingers and thumbs or any other body part
including single genes, remain epistatic _no matter how you define
fitness_. IOW, only if the fitness of one hand is empirically the simple
addition of the fitness of each finger and thumb could it be validly
argued that each of these body parts can evolve in nature independent of
the other. Empirically, no additive in fitness body part has ever been
described in nature. The only exception is not defined a body part but
one entire body. In Darwinism I contend this is strictly, the fitness of
just fertile adult forms within a population of same. In short, body
part fitnesses cannot be validly supposed to just "add up" per organism
but Darwinian fertile organism fitness per population, can and do, _on a
routine basis_. What this means is that Hamilton's inclusive fitness,
which only mathematically swept away the critical difference between a
body part and a whole body, was and remains fatally flawed. Hamilton et
al fail to distinguish between nested and intersecting sets of fitness
within their mathematical based models. These models exclude set nesting
only because mathematics cannot include them.
a. I agree with the doubts that Guy Hoelzer expresses concerning
your belief in the black and white character of nesting. It is true
that, in mathematical theory, set nesting is black and white but the
examples of nesting that you gave were not from mathematics they
were from data processing.
JE:-
Firstly, nested sets are not used within mathematics. In order to be
able to incorporate nested sets within mathematics the commutative law
(the law which allows 100% reversible multiplication across "=", "<" and
">" signs) has to be removed destroying mathematics in the process.
Empirically, multiplication, which is set nesting, cannot be reversed
because _the position of nested sets within one set nesting cannot be
exchanged_. Mathematics reduces non reversible nested sets to just
reversible intersecting sets AS AN UNCORRECTED OVERSIMPLIFICATION OF NON
MATHEMATICS. I contend this is what Godel discovered. The net result:
only the most nested set (the smallest possible set) remains in
mathematics. These are termed "units" i.e. the number 5 represents five
units. Counting in sets of ten actually requires nested sets of ten. In
mathematics each nested set loses individuality standing only for the
number of units that it contains. IOW, the thing that contains them
remains ignored. Evolutionary theory simply cannot ignore them. In the
book of stamps example I outlined previously, two books containing three
stamps per book i.e. 2*3 which represents three nested in two, is NOT AT
ALL equivalent to three books of stamps containing two stamps per book,
i.e. 3*2 representing two nested in three, even if the total number
of stamps 6, remains the same in each case. Mathematics is only
concerned with a unit total. OTOH evolutionary theory is concerned with
much more than this. In evolutionary theory the multiple 2*3 provides
the reverse set nesting of 3*2 allowing two books of three stamps to
empirically refute three books of two stamps. These propositions remain
contradictory reverse set nestings so rationally you cannot have both.
Hamilton's inclusive fitness allowed both by simply deleting the
biological nature of fitness which remain set nested within the
traditional Darwinian approach allowing populations to remain
differentiated from individuals.
I found you examples apposite enough, since I believe that all
evolution is about data not about mathematical objects. However,
nesting of data processes is different from mathematical set nesting
and the flow of data processes can move in and out from nestings in
ways that have no parallel in set theory.
JE:-
Again, set nesting is not used within mathematics but it is used within
computer programming. This is why programming is not just mathematics.
The reason why " data processes can move in and out from nestings in
ways that have no parallel in set theory" is because set theory _as it
is used within mathematics_ deliberately excludes the non reversible
nature of set nesting via the commutative law.
Programmers, so I understand, frown on designing code in such ways,JE:-
which might possibly produce what they call spaghetti code, but
nonetheless such things are possible in carelessly designed programs.
Essentially, even "spaghetti code" remains set nested. It is not
possible to write a computer program without non reversible set nesting
but it remains essential to mathematics to always exclude the non
reversible nature of set nesting.
I think that evolutionary history will have have been a careless
designer style and would have happily produced improperly nested
ranks of evolution. Nonetheless, as I said before, I do think
evolution would optimize to an approximate set nesting.
JE:-
The difference between good design and just evolution will be how sets
can be nested. Because evolution is not consciously selected some set
nesting of body parts will inevitably display bad design e.g. the blind
spot in the mammalian eye.
b. Secondly, by my understanding, the purpose of theoretical
developments in science is to interpret observational data and you
have still not told me what observational data you ideas are intended
to interpret. I have twice before asked you about this without
receiving an answer.
JE:-
I will provide a priority listing. Contrasting complex nested sets of
fitness with more simple intersecting sets of fitness allows the
following, critical observations of nature:
1) The empirical separation of individuals from populations.
2) Allow only a single fitness maximand to remain defined within
Darwinian falsifiable evolutionary theory which can act as a critical
required, Galilean (constant) frame of reference for that theory.
3) Prohibit as a required refutation, any proposition of total fitness
altruism, i.e. TDF cannot be selected to be reduced as it must be within
any truly fitness altruistic act.
4) Enable total fitness mutualism to be empirically separated from
Hamilton's proposed fitness altruism for the very first time. What
passes for fitness altruism in Hamilton's rule is actually total fitness
mutualism. Social evolution remains entirely based on mutualized gains
(investment) not altruism. Without TDF acting as a falsifiable, constant
frame of reference, fitness altruism cannot even be separated from
fitness mutualism.
Preferably I would like to know about any observed facts that you
feel might not be interpretable by conventional approaches to
evolution. Please answer that inquiry and please note that I am not
asking for further theoretical amplification of your views, which I
suspect I would continue to find unclear. What I want to know are the
*observed facts* that you are aiming to interpret.
JE:-
Please refer to the above.
I will add the following basic question:
Everything except plants eat other things yet biomass increases. Why and
how? This question was originally proposed by Leigh Van Valen as "Why is
the world green?"
Finally, I should offer two corrections concerning your comments
about my work. First, you seem to feel that my work on the origin of
life, rank0 evolution, is undefined. In fact, the chemistry of my
proposal is given on my present internet site as the "Theory of
Prebiotic Oscillations." You can find it via a google search on that
phrase. I do find it to be well-defined and to accord with the rules
of chemistry.
JE:-
My point is that the rules of chemistry remain insufficient to be able
to explain the origin of life.
Second, you state that my rank4 evolution (fifth level) is social
evolution. Actually, bioepistemic evolution defines social evolution
as rank3, in which selection is largely determined by social power.
Rank4 evolution is ethical evolution, in which selection operates in
accordance with agreed codes. I have not yet found a need to use the
term "fitness" - which, so far, appears in bioepistemic evolution as
simply one among several possible criteria for selection.
JE:-
I restrict evolutionary theory discussion to acts of Darwinian natural
selection. i.e. "bottom up" evolution by simple default excluding "top
down" evolution by intent. While these processes remain similar, as set
nested theories they are entirely contradictory. Ethical evolution is
selection by intent. While interesting, the evolution of ethics remains
a different subject.
The concept of fitness has always been basic to an evolutionary
theory proposed as a bona fide theory of science. In traditional
Darwinism something remains selectable only via its defined fitness.
Unless fitness can be objectively defined so that it can be measured in
nature, evolutionary theory becomes reduced to "hand waving". The search
within evolutionary is for a single fitness maximand. I claim, on an
entirely falsifiable basis, that this is TDF. This means, TDF is the one
fitness measure which is always maximized within nature, no exceptions.
If you leave the fitness concept as just "one among several possible
criteria for selection" then a priority for these criteria does not
exist. This results in just a subjective view of evolution.
With regards,
John Edser
Independent Researcher
edser@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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