in article cp574c$2joc$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org, John Edser at edser{at}tpg.com.au
wrote on 12/7/04 1:25 PM:

> Guy Hoelzer 
>>>>> PS:-
>>>>> In other words fitness is not a property of individuals ?
> 
>>>> GH:-
>>>> Of course.  I don't know of any claim to the contrary.
> 
>>> JE:-
>>> Incorrect.
>>> Total Darwinian fitness which at the gene level represents
>>> just one epistatic fitness which remains the only scientific
>>> concept of fitness within evolutionary theory
>>> because it can be tested to refutation. I have
>>> outlined an experiment (not just a model) that can
>>> do so. Total Darwinian fitness is: the total number of
>>> fertile forms reproduced into one population by
>>> a parent. It is finite and not infinite and is
>>> calculated as an _independent_ parental fitness.
> 
>> GH:-
>> None of this relates directly to the question of whether fitness is a
>> (inherent) property of individuals.  As I went on to point out in the post
>> from which the comment above was taken, it is a property of the
>> interaction
>> between individuals (at any level of organization exhibiting reproduction)
>> and their environments.
> 
> JE:-
> Dr Hoelzer is mistaking just a relative fitness
> comparison for the totals that must exist _before_
> any such comparison can become logically possible. These
> totals are absolutely the property of the individual/
> individuals who produced them.

My point applies equally to measures of relative fitness and so-called
measures of absolute fitness.  To illustrate the power of the environmental
influence over fitness, try putting any organism of your choosing into, say,
a bath of molten lava. I'll bet that I can predict the number of offspring
it will produce without even knowing its species.
 
>> GH:-
>> For example, " the total number of fertile forms
>> reproduced into one population by a parent" depends on the
>> qualities of the
>> environment in which the individual exists.
> 
> JE:-
> The environment does not produce this total
> the parents do, on a fitness independent basis.

I don't know what "on a fitness independent basis" might mean here, but I
never claimed that the environment "produces" offspring.  My claim is that
biological production, including reproduction, is a consequence of the
INTERACTION between organisms and their environments.

> This being the case the environment can only limit
> these totals. Parents attempt to maximise their
> Darwinian Fitness Total no matter what environment
> they may find themselves within, no exceptions.
> This is because those that do not are selected
> against over those that do.

I agree that organisms tend to reproduce, but I do not agree with this
statement on several fronts.
 
>>> JE:-
>>> Of course none of this matters because Dr Hoelzer
>>> has thrown out the Popperian process of refutation
>>> for his own convenience.
> 
>> GH:-
>> It would have been far more convenient to hold onto the Popperian
>> notion of
>> refutation, but logic demanded otherwise.
> 
> 
> JE:-
> Please provide your (so far) missing
> rational for deleting Popper's entirely _basic_
> requirement of  providing a point of refutation
> for any valid scientific theory.

Refutation can only be achieved at the theoretical level for universal
claims, such as "___" can never happen.  I am happy to have
plausible claims
of universalities subject to the possibility of refutation, but it is very
rare to have theories that yield universal claims in science.  This trend
may change in the distant future, but for the vast majority of scientific
theories, refutation is not possible.  This includes Darwin's theory of
adaptive evolution through natural selection.  For the vast majority of
scientific research, we are instead exploring evidence and logic to help us
identify plausibility and generality.

Guy
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