In article ,
Jim McGinn  wrote:
>joe{at}removethispart.gs.washington.edu (Joe Felsenstein) wrote in message
[McGinn:]
>> >I made an offer of 10 thousand dollars to anybody 
>> >that can demonstrate the validity of Hamilton's 
>> >nonsense.  Joe started to approach the problem but 
>> >then bowed out when I insisted that he provide 
>> >justification for the assumptions that he tried to 
>> >slip in the back door of his argument.  
>> 
[me:]
>> Utter hogwash.  I tried to show, by an argument using a simple model
>> (of the sort universally used in evolutionary genetics), that
>> Hamilton's rule worked in that model.  It turned out that the assumptions of
>> the model (that slip in the front door -- that's how you make a model)
>> could not be accepted by McGinn.
>
>Your assumptions were nonsense.  They had little to do with reality as
>we know it.  I pointed this out and you decided to save face and
>bailed.

The assumptions are the common ones used by hundreds of theoretical
population geneticists over the last century.  Against all of them
stands the powerful McGinn, alone.  People get to choose who to pay
attention to.  I'm happy with that.  McGinn can call this "bailing" if
he wants.

>> We finally agreed that McGinn's argument was equally a criticism
>> of the models used for Hardy-Weinberg proportions!  Or any
>> other model in theoretical population genetics.  Why does he
>> always make it sound like he has a criticism specific to Hamilton's
>> kin selection argument?  Dunno.
>> 
>> There is no way anyone who has a argument based on a model can win
>> the mythical $10,000.  

By the way, McGinn and I were both wrong.   it was originally $1,000 but
has been increased, I guess.

>The reason I'm sure my money is safe is because 
>Hamilton's rule is nonsense.  

Then so are Hardy-Weinberg proportions, the approach to linkage equilibrium,
Haldane's selection curves, Wright's inbreeding coefficients, Kimura's work
with diffusion equations, etc. etc.  That is because McGinn's objection is to
all extant modeling in theoretical population genetics.  It is not an objection
specific to Hamilton's kin selection argument.


-- 
Joe Felsenstein         joe{at}removethispart.gs.washington.edu
 Department of Genome Sciences and Department of Biology,
 University of Washington, Box 357730, Seattle, WA 98195-7730 USA
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