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Science Forum Index » Bio Evolution Forum » Levels of Selection: More Neo Darwinistic Denial
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| John W Edser |
 Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 9:13 am |
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http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s6703.html
The author will not let any part be reproduced without his express
permission. I have no intention of making such a request just to discuss
what was written here. I will add that if I wrote this I would not want it
to be freely quoted, either :-)
Yet again the simple, the critical and empirically falsifiable difference
between fitness mutualised gains, i.e. "societies" and _the strictly
additive in fitness units that comprise one society consisting of fertile
forms and absolutely nothing else_, is not differentiated. Confusing one
selectable biological whole (one Darwinian fertile form) with one additive
population of same and then to go on to confuse the_non additive fitness
parts_ of one falsifiable biological whole, e.g. genes with the proposed
"parts" of one additive population of wholes represents something out of a
Monty Python movie. The reason why the author makes such appalling
confusions is because _no frame of refernce exists_ within his reasoning. It
was Galileo in the 1600's who was the first to prove that whenever things
that are just variables, e.g. the relative movement of the sun to the earth
are predicated on another variable e.g.only each other and not something
constant like a fixed star, _you cannot conclude anything definitive about
their relative movement__ except that one remains different to the other in
some way. In Galileo's case, without the constant frame of refernce
provided by a fixed star it would have remained forever impossible do
differentiate between the earth circling the sun (Galileo's sun centric
theory) from the sun circling the earth (the favoured earth centric theory
as favoured on the pain of death by the Catholic church of that time). Only
a mathematician would have allowed both within the one, same polycentric
theory providing a typical, mathematically based _non solution_. Exactly the
same principle remains true today for any measured difference between any
two or more proposed variables, e.g. "up", "down", "larger", "smaller" etc.
Without a proposed frame of refernce all you can validly conclude is: A
remains different to B and nothing else. For example, if you wanted to
conclude that A was larger than B or A is in front of B, i.e. not behind B
then you are absolutely required to measure A and B relative to at least
one proposed, falsifiable, constant frame of reference which I will define
to be C , i.e. _not just relative to each other_ as fitness remained
measured within Hamilton's Rule. For evolutionary theory this means that any
proposed relative fitness difference must be measured against a proposed
_fitness constant per unit of selection_ otherwise you cannot even separate
who is being selected for from who is being selected against. The common but
entirely false argument that only comparing two variables allows somebody to
conclude anything more than they remain different _contradicts everything
that Galileo discovered_.
Polycentic Neo Darwinism makes no more empirical sense than a polycentric
notion of the solar system. Evolutionary theory remains dominated by
mathematicians. Mathematics is not a science simply because it is not
empirically based, i.e. it does not have and neither does it require, _a
falsifiable frame of refernce_. This being the case relative differences
cannot be empirically described. The classic proof of this is Zeno's Paradox
and the solution to it which I provided here: simply re-include the start
and the end of the proposed race because without them the race has no
falsifiable frame of reference. Without this frame it remains impossible to
calculated when the hare reaches and overtakes the tortoise (as Galileo
would have easily predicated). In fact, the race cannot even start unless
the start has been defined simply because the tortoise has not way of
knowing in which direction to take a head start. Note also that if the start
or end of the race remains just variables then nothing definitive about the
relative distance of the hare to the tortoise can be concluded. Zeno's
paradox is just a paradox of oversimplified mathematics, i.e. is was and has
always been just an uncorrected, oversimplified model of falsifiable theory
just as all polycentric Neo Darwinism has only ever constituted an
uncorrected oversimplified model of falsifiable, monocentric Darwinism
within which Total Darwinian Fitness (TDF) exists as constant , falsifiable
fitness per unit of selection per population. TDF is defined as: the total
number of just fertile forms reproduced per parent per population. Once
produced TDF remains _forever_, the required fitness constant per selectee
per population. The only possible way to empirically halt all Darwinian
natural selection is to force every TDF to remain exactly the same within
one experimental population. Falsifiability within evolutionary theory rests
entirely on TDF. Since TDF remains ignored within polycentric Neo Darwinism
no falsifiable frame of reference exists for any Neo Darwinistic
evolutionary theory. The Neo Darwinian solution to simply disregard
falsifiability. The net result: mathematically based chaos.
Not even once are the critical words "adult", "infertile" used by the author
in this chapter. If you search for "total" in an supreme effort to find
anything that can be construed to constitute a fitness frame of refernce_
the word is used twice. Since I cannot quote the author I will simply
provide my understanding of his use of the critical word "total" as the
numbered points listed below. I will then proceed to criticise them.
1) As the square of the number of group members increases within Hamilton's
Rule stability degrades exponentially. IOW the rule can only work
heuristically using smaller and smaller groups.
I came to the conclusion with regards to the inclusion of any genetic
epistasis: (r^e)b > c where e (epistasis) must be > 1 to allow any genetic
epistasis.
2) This means that larger groups become less and less stable unless
relatedness between subunits increases dramatically allowing one population
to act as a defacto, _single unit of selection_.
I have always argued that only a monocentric evolutionary theory can validly
be claimed to remain empirically based simply because polycentric
propositions _contradict each other, empirically_. Here we can see how just
a mathematically based polycentricism inevitably becomes monocentric as
Hamilton's over taxed variables become forced to make empirical sense
without any constant frame of reference.
3) Within Hamilton's polycentric SET NESTED proposition (yes, the author
actually used the chronically evaded term "nested sets") lower units form
the higher units. Therefore one nested set of polycentric propositions
consisting of n1 subsets forms a larger nested set unit of n2 lower subsets.
This means that Hamilton's Rule is a compound of (n1n2)^2. Again this means
that as the nested sets become more and more complex the rule becomes less
and less stable requiring _a monocentric solution_.
IOW, polycentric Neo Darwinism _as it remains based on Hamilton's Rule_ was
never ever viable even as just a heuristic.
John Edser
Independent Researcher
edser@ozemail.com.au |
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